Being Different--Josh Johnson's Smart Guy Story

Growing up in West Oakland, CA presents a lot of opportunity for young African American males. Opportunities such as--attachment to gangs and the violence associated with it, pimping and pandering, involvement with drugs, or meeting and building a relationship with law officials.  We are not talking about a buddy/buddy type relationship; it is more like the Duke Boys vs. Boss Hog and Roscoe P. Coltrane relationship.  So what can you do if you don’t want to continue in this cycle? Well for Smart Guy Josh Johnson, he made the conscious decision to devote and focuse his time and energy to other avenues. He did not let the pressure from his peers or his environments deter what he wanted to do with his life. He acted on some of the less known opportunities that Oakland had to offer but rarely gets recognition for providing. Josh  concentrated heavily on his family, school and sports to escape the negativity that surrounded him. As Johnson grew up he knew that he did not want to be like everyone else, he wanted to be different. He not only wanted to be a success on the football field, basketball court or track but he also wanted to succeed in the classroom and in life.

“I have always wanted to be a well-rounded person, to be a successful athlete as well as a successful student; I wanted to create different avenues for myself.” Johnson said. “As I was growing up, I would rather go to practice instead of hanging out. I would rather do my school work or stay in the house. Most of that stuff that was out there in the streets really didn’t mean anything. It was just something there for everybody to do but I didn’t want to do that.”  Johnson admits that growing up in the inner city can present a lot of barriers and challenges, simply because in that environment bad things that happens on a somewhat daily basis. But Josh also recognized that there were positive things that can come out of those situations as well.  “You can learn a lot of good values,” Johnson continued. “When you come from humble beginning you have many struggles. But when you struggle you get to find out more about the character of the people around you and also about yourself. You develop the will to fight, a trait that will carry you through a lot of other challenges on the road to becoming an adult.”

Many people have struggled with separation, the ability to be able to separate themselves from what they are used to and friends that they are used to being with who may not be on a positive path. Those things can truly affect your life in a negative way. Josh advises youth that may be struggling with this separation to have courage. If the people who you call your friends see the change in you then, it could help them to make a change in themselves as well. Don’t be afraid to be a leader; don’t be afraid to be the first one to break out of the norm. “One of the biggest challenges that you will face is being able to separate yourself from the negative things.” Johnson said. “The negative things are out there and they are easy to do. That is why everyone is doing it, because it is so easy. Not everyone wants to get involved with the harder things, due to all the work that has to be put in to becoming successful at it. That is just the world that we live in. I encourage young people to stay on the right path, that Smart Guy path. It is the right thing to do although it may be more difficult than the negative things. Look beyond the little things that you can get with the fast money because that will not last long. From my experiences the harder that I worked at something, the more I was able to benefit from it. You have to create that mentality for yourself because that winning/ hard working mentality will get you a long way.”

Josh’s mom Rosemary was a very big influence on his life and the decisions that he made. Rosemary was a single mother with four children who worked hard to provide for her family and limit some of the struggles that families had. “My mother did a great job with us,” Johnson said. “As a single parent with four children, she did everything she could to make sure we didn’t have to struggle. That let me know that there was no excuse for me not to do the right thing.”As for the much needed male guidance that young males search for, Johnson found it in his uncles and coaches he had while playing youth and in high school sports.  “My uncles were like a father figures for me,” Johnson recalled. “He showed me a lot of things from a male’s perspective. My high school coach did the same for me in the athletic realm. He did a lot for my teammates and I. I was able to learn a lot from him.”

Johnson views himself as a Smart Guy for overcoming the temptations that the streets of Oakland presented him. Josh is a graduate of Oakland Tech High School where he earned first team All City honors at quarterback and led his team to the Oakland Athletic League Championship. He is two classes away from graduating from the University of San Diego with a Bachelor degree in Mass Communications and where he was a four time All Conference (Pioneer Football League) (2004-07), twice earning PFL Offensive Player of the Year (2005-06), he was a four time I-AA All American (2004-07), and was a finalist for the Walter Payton Award-given to the best player in division I-AA football (2007). Johnson is currently the backup quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and a co-founder of Fam 1^st Family Foundation with cousin Marshawn Lynch.

    

Johnson and Lynch created this 501c3 non-profit foundation to give back to the young kids of Oakland. For the past four years the guys has hosted a free football camp for kids ages 6-18, at their alma mater Oakland Tech. To expand the Fam 1^st Family Foundation they incorporated the first annual Family 1^st bowling night last fall and have a family oriented weekend planned from July 8-9, 2011. The festivities will start Friday night July 8 from 6-9:00pm with the 1^st Family bowling and continue Saturday, July 9, with their annual football camp. The foundation also sponsors turkey drives during Thanksgiving and toy drives during Christmas. One of the major goals for the foundation is developing a youth center for the kids, a project that is in the planning stages now.

“We are excited to get this underway for the youths of Oakland.” Johnson said. “We are all about helping the inner city kids and showing them that there is more to life than what they see in the streets that they are growing up in. The opportunity is there for everybody, you just have to work hard for it, but trust me you will appreciate all that hard work you put into yourself and your future when you get older, because you will learn so much about the world."

A Family Smart Guy,

Josh

To find out more about Josh Johnson go to http://www.joshjohnson11.com/ . For more information regarding the  Fam 1^st Family Foundations contact Joanna Lopez at jvlopez13@gmail.com.

Creating Smart Workers--David's Leadership

"Making smart choices is not something that comes easy.  In fact, many of them will often involve disappointing someone else.  Yet, without making smart choices we will often not evolve and progress from where we are."

I just had my fortieth birthday and it was a fantastic opportunity to see that I am surrounded by those that have known me, supported me and helped me to grow.  In fact, two of my best friends were there whom I have known for 25 and 22 years respectively.  Seeing my boys reminded me of the #1 rule we had growing up—Work Hard.  Play Hard.  Although we had different interests, we supported one another and more importantly pushed one another to do our best in school.  This not only meant getting good grades, but also challenging ourselves to take those classes that were difficult and while not always getting the best grades in those classes, we stretched ourselves and proved that we were up to a challenge.  That same attitude also encouraged us to play hard—whether it was competitive sports, intramural or plain old pick-up games, we always had the attitude if it’s worth spending your time, then give it your all.

I currently run Concessions Management Group (“CMG”), a social enterprise that employs “at-risk” youth to work and manage concessions at different stadiums including the Washington Nationals, DC United, USC Trojans and CAL Bears employing almost 100 young people.  As a social enterprise, we differentiate ourselves from our competitors by purposefully hiring our staff from low-income communities.  Our typical employee is 18-24 years old, has either never worked before or has had very limited work experience and is looking for an opportunity to learn, grow and better themselves through employment.  We have purposefully set up our business this way because we believe that even though many young people do make the smart decision—stay in school, look for a job—they oftentimes do not get an opportunity that supports that decision.  At CMG, we are trying to support those young people making smart decisions by providing our youth employees the opportunities to show and prove that they can continuously make smart decisions within a work environment.

An entreprenurial 'Smart Guy'

David

David is a native New Yorker who currently resides in California with his family.  David earned a BA from Wesleyan University and his MBA from Columbia University's prestigious Columbia Business School.  For more information about Concessions Management Group (CMG), contact David at:  dderryck@concessionsmgmt.com

Becoming a Community Leader: Donovan's Story

"What people are NOT doing is sometimes exactly what you need to be doing..."

South Florida is widely considered a mecca of talented athletes, beautiful women and artists. So for young men growing up in this area, of course the belief in their heads is in order to be successful you have to become a rapper or an athlete. The vision was no different growing up for former basketball player turned community leader Donovan Thomas. Donovan currently serves as the Executive Director of Rize and Shine. This community based organization houses a variety of projects created to empower the community. One of its signature programs is the 'Respect, Check, Protect Yourself (RCP) Movement', an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign that is impacting Florida statewide. Keep reading to learn about Donovan's journey from baller to community activist...

Life has a funny way of putting people in places that caught them totally off guard. As Thomas will be the first to explain, where he is now, is not where he envisioned himself as a child growing up.  “I have always wanted to do something to help people,” Thomas said. “but I never thought that I would be running an organization or something of my own in this way. As I saw the need and how people could be helped by the RCP movement, I knew I wanted to take it on full time.”

Thomas grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and attended St. Thomas Aquinas high school where he excelled as a 6’6” 215lbs power forward in basketball. Thomas earned All-County, All-State honors which led to earning a scholarship to Loyola University Maryland. At a young age Donovan always looked at education as a way of advancing and getting to where he wanted to be, although this conflicted with some of his friends’ interests.

“There were many barriers I had to overcome,” Thomas explains.  “But one of the things that really motivated me was that, a lot of the friends that I had at the time were really good in sports but they didn’t take education seriously.  They were not making the grades to play ball. Although they were very talented, they weren’t able to develop, due to them not being eligible to play on the team. That kept me focused on keeping my grades up to par and working on my game at the same time. That was a barrier that I had to over come, when I seen everyone around me doing wrong, it would have been easy to get pressured into falling into that trap. Some traps I did fall into and i did things that I am not proud of, but I bounced back and turned those negativse into positives. At those times I reverting back to my upbringing, utilizing advice from my parents who stressed the importance of being well rounded. Nobody is perfect, but the 'smart guys' are the ones who can fall off track but get up and steer themselves back in the right direction.”

Getting back on the right track is exactly what Thomas did. He concentrated harder on basketball and school. Yet Thomas always looked to have a fall back plan, having learned the lesson that sports might not always be there for you. Some of his teammates did not have that same state of mind. For them, it was being professional athlete or nothing. Thomas challenged that all or nothing notion and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing from Loyola.

“As I was growing up,” Thomas explained. “There were a lot of stereotypes being placed on me because of my skin color and my height. It was assumed that I had to play basketball and I had to go to the NBA to be successful. After a while that began to get to me. I knew that I had a good head on my shoulders and even if I didn’t make the NBA that I could still succeed in life, but I didn't get that reassurance from others.”  While in college, Thomas was hit with a string of injuries. Those injuries, as he explains it, were a blessing in disguise because it allowed him to take his focus off  basketball for short stints and re-dedicate himself to his school work.

“As urban youth, we tend to focus on how much money the athletes are making,” Thomas said. “We never think about how much the owners of the teams, which the athletes are on, are getting paid. If they are able to pay out millions of dollars, just imagine how much they are bringing in.”  Thomas believes that 'smart guys' should aspire to be in those ownership positions, being the payer and not the payee. He wants young people to know that it is okay if you are not a professional athlete, there are so many other respected professions out in the world, even in the world of sports. 

“People have to make decision everyday; those people that are equipped with the tools to make the best decisions are usually the ones who have knowledge. Knowledge equals not only education but also experience,” Thomas explained. “There is a saying that only insane people try things the exact same way, over and over again, and expect different results. So learn from the mistake the first time so the next time you won’t make that one again. Be competitive. Always try to be better tomorrow than you were today. Do not be afraid to go against the norm, to be a leader, to be willing and able to endure the ridicule of others who may not see your outlook on life and prosper through it. Stay focused on what you want to do. Hard work pays off.”

Thomas’ non profit organization is focused on getting the word out on something that is not really talked about but it is hitting our community in astronomical numbers-- HIV/AIDS. The program is called the RCP Movement and it brings ordinary everyday people from the community together to educate about HIV/AIDS and help prevent its spread. "We want to get people talking, to get the education/literature out there about how it is and isn’t contracted. HIV/AIDS used to be a conversation that was talked about a lot in the 80s but now it is not talked about as much. Unfortunately, the disease is spreading, its effecting younger and younger people and has devestated minority communities worldwide.  The major new cases of HIV/AIDS are happening between the ages of 13-24, our youth, our future.



Donovan teaches participants about HIV/AIDS prevention



RCP has a chapter present on several college campuses, and high schools throughout Florida and now Georgia. The RCP Movement stresses and encourages abstinence to the youth but understands that holistic prevention includes risk reduction conversations as well. The thought is to have the information out there so they will know and understand how to practice safe sex.  The RCP Movement would like people to know that you don’t have to be infected to be affected by HIV/AIDS. This disease is hitting everybody in some way, shape, form or fashion. Statistics show that 56,000 people per year become infected with HIV in the US and that is only the people who have been tested. Every hour of the day, two teenagers are becoming infected.

RCP tries to find different ways to engage the community. Some of RCP's projects are Street Scares and the  Show-U-Know benefit concert, a free event for those who took an HIV test in order to be aware of their own status.  "The first time we put on this concert we tested over 5,000 people in the South Florida area. That is 5,000 people who may not have become aware of their HIV status without this gentle push from the program. This is something we plan to do on an annual basis.  We are trying to promote HIV awareness and education in a fun, non-threatening environment." 

“The biggest thing or best advice that I would stress to young people is to follow your dreams.” Thomas said.  “Always remember that every expert, guru, mogul was once a beginner. Every great invention began as an idea and then that person went after it and made it happen. You have to be willing to sacrifice and know that it is going to take hard work to get what you want. What people are not doing is sometimes exactly what you need to be doing. Do the extra work to perfect your craft and don’t give up.”

An advocate 'Smart Guy',

Donovan

To learn more about the RCP Movement please visit  www.rcpmovement.org, or email us at jointheteam@rcpmovent.org .You can also friend RCP at www.facebook.com/rcpmovement, and follow us at www.twitter.com/rcpmovement 

  

Why I chose to be a Smart Guy: JT's Story

Being a smart guy wasn't easy. I made the commitment to be a life learner. The emphasis on book knowledge was not stressed in my neighborhood growing up. You had to have street smarts. Street smarts is very important but you have to have book smarts too. Book smarts give you opportunity. Opportunity to make progress in your life. To get into college, you need book smarts. To survive your neighborhood, you need street smarts. If you combine the two you get a well rounded individual, poised for success.
Life is a bunch of manipulations. Everyone is trying to get what they think is "best for them." If you have street smarts and common sense you can stay away from the negative manipulations from peers and negative pressure's from the world. You mix that with book smarts and you can pass tests, like the SATs, and create a good essay to get into college. Book smarts help you know enough to read things clearly and understant to avoid getting manipulated by credit card companies and other negative things in the world.
It's a cliche, but knowledge IS power. The power to control your own destiny. Without it, you are a puppet and others pull your strings. With knowledge and power, you are the puppeteer and you pull the strings. Get educated, be smart, and control your life. I did.
Peace,
JT
Another Smart Guy

JT earned a scholarship to Loyola College in Maryland where he obtained a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education and a certificate in Special Education. JT is currently completing his master's degree in Education Administration at Temple University. JT has worked tirelessly in his career as an educator on behalf of special education students, believing that all young people have the potential for success and greatness, despite labels that might imply otherwise.

JT is also the Executive Director and Founder of the JT Dorsey Foundation, a non-profit, youth development organization that provides key services that are lacking, but necessary, in inner city Pennsylvania communities. For more information about JT's foundation go to www.jtdorsey.org .