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Jonathan Torres, the COO of Memphis Athletic Ministries (MAM) joins Stephen today to talk about how sports can play a role in the mentoring relationship, the critical role a coach can play in encouraging their mentee, and how these concepts can translate into our own mentor/mentee relationship even if we aren't an athletic coach.
Show Notes
- Memphis Athletic Ministries - https://mamsports.org/
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
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You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the You Can Mentor podcast. I'm here with a very special guest today, Jonathan Torres from MAM in Memphis, Tennessee. Torres, how you doing today?
Speaker 3:Doing wonderful.
Speaker 2:Well, I love I love the analogy that you mentioned right before we started the podcast about pivoting in this season. You're you're a sports ministry, a sports mentoring ministry, and, yeah, would love to hear from you what what it means to pivot in this season of COVID 19.
Speaker 3:Well, that's a great question. I think we're figuring that out as we go along. We are figuring out what in the world it means to pivot, to be able to to keep one foot steady, and that's that foot for us right now is, staying steady and sharing the gospel and being the light that we've been called to be as the church and the lives of kids in the inner city. While at the same time, the other foot is moving in every which direction to be able to make sure that we can we can have the best spot possible, whether it's to pass the ball, shoot the ball, do something. But, we're we're trying to figure out how we can, change things that need to be changed so that we can serve families and serve kids and mentor and build relationship and share the gospel.
Speaker 3:So a lot of figuring things out right now as schools are transitioning, communities are transitioning, and really our our our ministry as a whole changes in the way we do it, but, it's not changing what we ultimately do, which is share the love of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And now when when you talk about pivoting, that's a basketball move for Yep. Our people who who don't understand the sport or aren't feeling the heat on just, you know, what's going on right now where you the only way to go to an NBA game is to to to zoom in. I I mean, it's ridiculous. But even in the NBA, pivoting is a very interesting practice.
Speaker 2:I feel like there's some liberties taken. And so how are you gonna keep your foot down, the gospel? How I mean, you're not planning to do, like, you know, the a LeBron pivot where you're just, like, really, you know, just doing whatever you wanna do, and and the the refs are afraid to call you on it. I don't know if you have any thoughts if that's a hot take or not.
Speaker 3:We're gonna we're gonna leave LeBron out of this. Fort's conversations in our offices gets very heated, very lively, and people have threatened to quit before over different ideas on who the greatest is. So we'll leave we'll leave high profile athletes out of it. But as a whole, for the most part, we are we're definitely trying to figure out how we can how we can adjust, change, and be able to still move and do what we're supposed to do to make sure that we love our families well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's good, man. Well, like I said, Torres was is with MAM. That's Memphis Athletic Ministries. Torres, could you just share with our listeners a little bit about who you guys are?
Speaker 2:Tell us the story of MAM.
Speaker 3:Sure. So, Memphis Athletic Ministries, call it MAM because we're lazy. MAM is essentially using the the avenue of sports to build relationship with kids to be able to share the gospel. So we do other things. We do have academics.
Speaker 3:We have mentoring. We have sports and Bible study, and we do share the gospel with kids, quite a bit. So we, we essentially are using those four things. Academics is the elementary age. We focus on making sure that kids are are learning to read.
Speaker 3:For us, learning to read is pivotal for a kid to not only be able to grow as an adult, but even to grow in their own spiritual walk. For a kid to be able to understand the gospel and to grow on their own, they have to be able to read their Bible, and literacy is, is is huge. So we we fight for literacy in the elementary school age. Middle school age, we work with kids that are that are essentially using sports to build the social, emotional, and mental abilities in kids. So we we really focus on sport to build the character and to use that to build development in children.
Speaker 3:And then in high school, we focus on building kids up through mentoring and preparing them for life after man. We focus day 1 when you enter the 9th grade. It's what are we gonna do the day you leave man? And so we really try and build that into them. So we're an after school organization.
Speaker 3:We focus on kids after school. We pick kids up, bring them to our our sites, and we have 8 sites across the city, work with 700 kids every single day. So we have plenty of kids, and we are we're making sure that kids get to our facilities. They get literacy, academics, mentoring, sports, and, they get food, and they get the gospel. So every single day that's happening Monday through Saturday, and we play our our sports on Saturdays, our basketball league, our flag football league, soccer, cheerleading, all of that happens on Saturday.
Speaker 3:And so we are running 6 days a week. It's a lot going on, but it's it's a fun fun sport. It's a fun ministry. It's a fun organization. So we get to do a lot of a lot of cool things.
Speaker 2:It makes me wanna be a kid. I'm, like, can I please go to ma'am? Like, go back into the the not the future, the past, and just, like because I I feel like I would have been probably one of you the kids in your program, because you had mentioned to me that it's not necessarily you're you're looking for the premier athlete athlete at school. You're you're looking for the everyday kid. So can you can you kinda paint a picture of the kid that you you guys are reaching?
Speaker 3:Sure. Like I said, we have 700 kids. And if any one of us knows kids, not all of those kids have gotta be athletes. If you've got 700 of them, I promise you they're not all athletes. So what we do is we focus on kids in general.
Speaker 3:We just focus on getting kids into our building. Sports is obviously a fun hook mainly because it is fun and engaging. It leads to exercise and building tons of skills. But sports for us, we're targeting kids that are simply going to school and going home and are not engaged in after school sports within their school. So we're normally not chasing after the d one athlete.
Speaker 3:We're chasing after the guy who didn't make the team. We're not chasing after the girl who is on the cheerleading squad. We're focusing on the one who didn't make the squad so that we can, we can reach the the much broader general kid so that we can we can get them engaged with what we're doing. So we make sure that we, we find ways to engage them by going to the school. We we get to go into the cafeteria, hang out in the lunchroom, meet kids, go from table to table doing, what we call contact work, and making sure that that kids know that we're our coaches love them, care for them, and are there to to get to know them, to build relationship with them so that we can invite them into what we're doing, which is sports and mentoring and sharing the gospel.
Speaker 2:So with this contact work, you guys have a relationship with the school, and y'all are walking in and essentially advertising your after school program as well as just checking in with kids, and that relationship is what really brings kids from the place of going home after school to coming to Ma'am.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we we have a great relationship with Shelby County Schools and with local charter schools. We focus in high needs areas. So we have a a focus into to school districts and to schools that many people would look at and say, man, they don't have everything. So, we go into high need areas, and we make sure that we build relationship with the administration, with the school system first.
Speaker 3:Then we work with the teachers to let them know that we care and that we're invested in the community. And from there, we we then build a relationship with students. So there is a process in which we do all that. It does take time for us to build a new site or to to build, the reputation into a community. Currently, we recently just built a reputation with Frasier Community Schools, which is a charter school district in our city, and it just took us a while.
Speaker 3:We had to build a relationship with, with some of the key stakeholders in the community, had to build a relationship with the the charter school administration. And and then finally, they let us in, and they let us build, what we're gonna build, which is essentially a gym, classroom space, and build relationships. But it all takes time, and it it's a lot of effort and a lot of shaking hands, kissing babies, and making sure that everyone knows who you are.
Speaker 2:So how many babies did you have to kiss to get into
Speaker 3:There was 3. 3 children.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's amazing. Oh, I'm sure there's other mentoring organizations that are looking to either build relationships with schools or even dread having to maintain or build those relationships, and they're like, well, I'm just in it for the kids. But what you're saying is that, really, in order to get access to the kids, you have to have a thriving relationship with the school that you've built. You've built trust, which that gives you access to the kids. Trust.
Speaker 2:So how how do you I mean, I would love to hear just kind of the the process Sure. Of of, like, who's on your team building relationship with the school? Is that just you? Is that
Speaker 3:No. It's a it's a it's a we have a we are blessed. The Lord has been very gracious to us, and we have a we have a huge staff, and we have staff at the site. So we have we have a director of a site, and then we'll have youth coordinators and part time staff, and and all of those people are put in place to be able to build those relationships across the community. So the neighborhood director the director of that site, they are we've given them the title neighborhood director because they don't simply direct that site.
Speaker 3:While that is their day to day obligation and their duties and responsibilities is to open the site, close the site, make sure everyone's there, they oversee the neighborhood. And there's a reality that we want them to take ownership of building relationship with the partners in the community, partners, at the school so that they see that it's not simply a, hey. Go open a gym and close a gym for kids, that they really have ownership over an entire community and neighborhood. And that way, it kinda gives them a wider focus when they're when they're even thinking of their own job. And then, obviously, on my end as the the COO, I'm making sure that I'm building relationships with the city of Memphis Parks and Rec department, building relationships with administrations and with, with city council members and making sure that people know that MAM as an organization is here for the entire city.
Speaker 3:And then and then each site is there for their individual neighborhood so that we have both a local and a a local impact in the neighborhood as well as kind of a a larger impact in the city as well.
Speaker 2:Let me back up real quick because this is Yeah. This is, like, huge to, I mean, to recognize, like, an organization that's trying to be a resource to entire city. You get to a spot where you're you're owning neighborhoods and relationships in order to get access to every kid that that lives there. But some people are just like, well, I'm just a volunteer. Like, I just wanna invest in 1 kid.
Speaker 2:But Mhmm. For someone like an organization like Ma'am to create this create an organization and a structure to build these relationships and give those people who are like, I want to invest in a kid. In order for them to be able to do that, you kinda need people who are willing to build the structure and build a foundation. And so I I would love to just hear what led you to be a part of that. Like, what what was the passion in you that was like, I don't wanna just mentor a kid.
Speaker 2:I wanna make space for 100 of people to mentor kids, because I feel like that's a different animal.
Speaker 3:Well, I think it was an, I guess, an evolution and a growth process because I was one of those people who just wanted to change the life of a kid. When I first became a Christian, it was an immediate light bulb for me of, oh, my gosh. Why have I been living the way I was living for the last 20 years, and what can I do to make sure that no kid goes through the dumb mistakes that I made? So I was immediately drawn to discipling and sharing the gospel and and growing, individual kids. So I worked for an organization called Young Life, and was a a volunteer, which later led me to being on staff with that organization.
Speaker 3:And then I jumped into into that neighborhood. It started for me just wanting to be with 1 kid, just change the life of any kid I could through the organization for Young Life. And then I went on staff, and I decided I'm a move into the neighborhood, and I'm a change that neighborhood. So I moved into a neighborhood here in Memphis called, Berkeley Air. And with me and my wife and my daughters moved into to this neighborhood, and and we're gonna change the neighborhood.
Speaker 3:And then eventually, the Lord put on my heart that, man, I can actually now change the city. And it was a a a gradual progress for me and the way the Lord kinda open doors and at the same time kinda put different passions. But it did start with just simply going, how do I change the life of 1 kid? And I think it was through seeing how the Lord cares for each of us on the individual level and cares for all of us on the global level that I was able to kinda have that same vision of going, man, the Lord really does do both at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it because he's God, he can. But for us as limited very limited human beings, we have to we have to then kinda dedicate our energy and our time and our, resources to one specific area. And I think from there, that's where we get to to see the impact of the church really grow, that we could see men and women of God dedicate their time to sharing their life with 1 person, and it kind of grows from there into, into who knows what.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think something that I hear a lot is, like, faithful with little, master over much. Like, there's just a principle that God has called us to steward his heart within the place that we've been planted. And you just share in that progression of, god, you did something to me. I wanna do something in someone else.
Speaker 2:Now I wanna plant my family in a place where we can influence a community. And now that we're influencing this community, you're calling us to influence a city. And I for a mentor listening to this and for them to initially hear, oh, we're just, you know, serving 700 kids. And they're like, man, I wanna do that. What you're saying is in order to get to that place, really, it requires a bunch of people committing to that carrying god's heart for the one before you get to the 700.
Speaker 2:And I I just I love that, man.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It it is a process, and I'm glad that the Lord the Lord does not forget the one. Because it is easy to jump into the, man, I wanna change everyone's life. Well, let's focus on 1. Let's be faithful to what the Lord has has called us to, and let's give the best that we absolutely have to offer to that one kid so that maybe it is just that one kid that you changed the life of, but that one kid could literally change an entire city, state, country.
Speaker 3:Who knows? So let's be faithful with what the Lord's put right in front of us.
Speaker 2:Amen. That's good, man. Well, you you mentioned all of your focuses, literacy, social, emotional, spiritual development, and life preparedness. Really, like, once they get into high school, I love just the progression of, like, your your program. The the one that stands out to me is the sports, because I haven't interviewed someone who focuses on a sports program, which is interesting because you'd you'd think there are a lot of mentoring programs that focus on sports.
Speaker 2:But the ones that I think of are more of, I guess, grooming professional athletes, not Mhmm. Not like mentoring kids and sharing the gospel. Like but that's that's, like, something that can get me going. I'm like, man, I wanna be a part of a sports program that's all about Jesus. And so I I just wanna ask a question.
Speaker 2:What has been beneficial about sports in the, like you said, social and emotional and spiritual development of kids? What have you seen be the greatest impact and why you do sports?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, we've kind of identified, for lack of a better word, 4 essential, like, pillars that have that have really driven why we use sports. So we'll start at the top, which is essentially the idea that every single person that is playing a sport learns a position. Right? They all they they have to learn that they have a role that they play.
Speaker 3:And so what we've what we've kinda looked at is the fact that each person learns that they have a a role, they have a position, they are that they even developed and have skills and certain max for the way that they can do things. For example, I'm a short guy. I am 5 foot 6. I am not about to go dunk. I'm not playing the center position on a basketball team.
Speaker 3:I will always be the point guard. And so I understand my role, and in that, the beauty of understanding your place in the greater scheme of things and really also understanding your identity in Christ. So, the the very foundation of our organization is that we would coach, grow, and lead youth in Memphis to to discover their identity in Christ purpose in the community. And so being under, being able to understand the identity in Christ is huge. So understand that you are made in the image of God, and there is something special about sport that kinda lets a kid discover who they are and get to learn their unique skills and abilities.
Speaker 3:And so that's one of the foundational things for us is that you need to learn who you are in Christ, not who you are as a basketball player, not who you are as a football player or a cheerleader or whatever whatever you wanna use to identify yourself, but to identify yourself as a Christ follower and who you are in Christ. So
Speaker 2:It's good.
Speaker 3:That's the first main thing that we that we love about sports. The second is that it teaches a kid to understand what teamwork is. We are in an individualized world where everyone wants to do everything on their own, and it's all about your own accolades, your own self worth, your own good deeds. And teamwork specifically is a unique thing that we get to see expressed in no other place better than the church of God. And so when we see teamwork build itself around this idea of you've got men and women who are coming together from very different backgrounds, from very different experiences, who are coming together for one goal, and that is to, in sports, win a game.
Speaker 3:But when they're coming together and we're teaching them how to do that so that when they become followers of Jesus Christ, when they become part of the church, they understand what that means. They have a frame of reference already. They know what it's like to play your role or to maybe encourage someone else to do better in their role or to encourage or to, to edify someone else by encouraging them that they've done a great job in their role. It's a unique thing that if we can teach brothers and sisters in Christ to do that at a young age, then it's a skill that they'll have the rest of their life. And teamwork is is one of those unique opportunities in sports that you get to kinda mirror that into the church.
Speaker 3:And the next one for us is sportsmanship. We believe that there is something unique about sportsmanship in the team and sports world that you can take a loss or you can take hardship and you can endure and you can still show respect to someone else. You can still show love towards someone else. You can you can work out differences. You can figure those things out in in the sports context.
Speaker 3:So sportsmanship is a is a huge part. And then lastly, for us is self control. When you get that loss, when you take the l and you have you are down by 50 and you lose, there's a natural anger, a natural frustration, and a natural adversity that a kid is going to experience that they have to learn how to both process and grieve and then overcome. And I think that it also then lets us see that when things don't go our way in life, when life hits you and it punches you in the face, that you understand how to overcome the adversity and that you also understand certain disciplines. You know?
Speaker 3:It's not easy to wake up every morning and to get into your word. It's not easy to to wake up every morning and to pray. It's not easy to to build in the disciplines around your life that would make you excel as a follower of Jesus Christ, and and sports helps teach that to continue to do those drills that nobody wants to do and to run the laps that nobody wants to run and to put in the extra work. It it's it's helpful for a kid to understand that this is a lifelong process. And so those four things, kids being in the image of God, sportsmanship, teamwork, and self control are the 4 pillars that we've used as sport to kinda build in around all aspects of sharing the gospel.
Speaker 2:It's so good. I I hear a lot from people who see sports and children as, like, you have to be really careful in, I guess, not allowing sports to become their god. Like, that that really could just be, like, this is all I got. Like, all I have is the sport that I'm playing. And if I don't do well, then I feel depressed, shame, guilt, like, and fall apart.
Speaker 2:But I just love the vision that you just cast of the the benefits and the underlying, yeah, just development that comes from being a part of sports and to translate that. I think and and I would I would assume that that's something that you guys are translating on a regular basis of, like, hey. We're learning we're learning discipline by doing this. Oh, and, also, this is why we wake up early to do a quiet time, because, like, our souls need to to learn how to be disciplined, like and we have to develop practices as we develop that that we learn when we practice, when we lift weights, when we do the menial things that don't really feel like there's much benefit to. But once we get into the game, like, we're changed and and we're flourishing.
Speaker 2:So I just I love that. So what does that look like for you guys to translate that? Is just is that a
Speaker 3:So what we do is we, we actually build into our our our whole structure of practice with kids, our league, every aspect that we have, we try to build in a lot of these disciplines, and and we try to make it as blunt as possible that that's what we're trying to do. We're not trying to shy away from any of that stuff. We are letting kids know upfront this is why we do what we do. So, for example, what we'll do is we'll sometimes change up what would might be a a very simple drill in practice to simply teach a life lesson. For example, we'll take a scrimmage at the end of a practice, and we'll say, hey, guys.
Speaker 3:We're gonna run a scrimmage. It'll be 5 on 5. So the guys will break up into 2 teams of 5, and we can play the sport and simply say, alright. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna play 5 on 5, but no one's allowed to pass to this one player on each team.
Speaker 3:Well, what we do is we the kid still has to play. They're running up and down the court, and they're experiencing the ups and downs of the flow of the game, but they're not getting the ball. They're just standing there. And then we'll stop after a few minutes, and we'll ask the kid, how did that feel to know you were not getting the ball? You were not gonna experience any part of it, but you were still part of the team.
Speaker 3:He goes, well, I was kinda frustrated. I kinda I didn't like it. And how did it make you guys feel on the rest of the team? Right? And they'll tell you, well, I hate it.
Speaker 3:I couldn't pass him because I I needed him. Exactly. And so we get to build in this this moment of teaching a kid a life lesson while playing a simple game where we change the rules. We control the atmosphere. We control how the practice goes, and and we get to teach them a valuable life lesson.
Speaker 3:And we get to teach them a lesson of what it means to be, again, the body of Christ. Look look. We do need him on the team. We do need this kid to be able to to pass to and to be able to pass back and to be able to shoot and to score so that we can win. And when you can build those small little lessons over a kid's lifetime at Ma'am, when a kid starts at 8 years old with us and finishes when they're 18, we have 10 years of life lessons built in them.
Speaker 3:Our prayer is that they will have understood the gospel and are walking away as productive, life giving disciple makers for our city.
Speaker 2:I love that, man. Do you have any other examples or, like, just moments like that where you you change the rules to bring to mind, like, the importance of one of these values? Because I I think that that's that's challenging to me of kind of provoking mentors to think about how could we give a life lesson by removing something and showing the benefit of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So so one of the the ideas that jumps one of the times that jumps out of my app to me a ton is we had, this coach, coach Jose, phenomenal coach, phenomenal man. He passed away to be with the Lord, but he was amazing at his job. And, coach Jose had this one kid who was driving him nuts, to be quite frank. The kid was just disruptive during practice, disruptive during after school.
Speaker 3:Just quite honestly was driving him nuts. And, what happened is he was on the team and he just wasn't he wasn't engaged. He wasn't showing up on time. He he just he seemed disinterested, but yet he was always there. And so you're like, why are you coming here if you don't wanna be engaged?
Speaker 3:And really what it was is coach Jose realized it was it was driving him nuts that that this kid was not as engaged, was not showing up on time, which just wasn't a part of the team. What he did was he said, hey, I'm giving this kid the keys to the ball closet. This kid is now responsible for everything that happens, because if he doesn't show up with this key, we don't play ball. And if he doesn't show up on time, we don't play ball. And so he trusted this kid with the keys to the ball closet.
Speaker 3:Well, all of a sudden, the leadership that he instilled in this kid by pure force was, was one of those things where the the kid realized I have to be there. Everyone relies on me, And it changed something in that kid where all of a sudden he was on time. He was engaged. He like, Jose saw the potential in him as a leader, and Jose saw the capabilities of him as a leader. And by simply handing him the keys, he forced him into this role that really then motivated that one kid to to take ownership and to take responsibility, and there was a complete 180 in the kid.
Speaker 3:And you see this this change in which which they now take ownership and and are called to a higher standard simply because they know this coach believes in me. The coach has an incredible voice in a kid's life. Teachers have a role. Parents have a role. Youth pastors have a role.
Speaker 3:But a coach is a specific role that is both disciplinarian and encourager, and and it's a unique it's a unique opportunity for any adult to be able to speak truth and speak life into a kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I feel like the coach role is is it's like a, I guess, a short term mentor. Like, you you have, like, a defined role in this kid's life that you're calling him up Mhmm. Into everything he can be. You're encouraging.
Speaker 2:You're affirming. You give attention. Like, a mentor is like a long term coach where you're consistently in in the life of the kid. And I just I love I just the themes that I'm picking up from that story of ownership, motivation, challenge, that I think those those are things that I think are need to be in a mentor's tool belt of, like, how am I challenging, motivating, and how how am I recognizing my role in the relationship? Like, when I think about sports, I think about I wanted to make my coach proud.
Speaker 2:Like, I I remember this one time we were in a a playoff game when I was in high school, and somebody got fouled, and they didn't call it. And my coach was just, like, railing on this ref, and he got he got he got a tee, and then he got ejected from the game. So he wasn't allowed to, like, be inside the the the court. He had to move outside, and I just remember when he was walking away, he was, like, finish this game. And, like, he walked out, and he watched the rest of the game from from, like, the window behind the door.
Speaker 2:And our whole team our whole team was just, like, let's go. Like, we gotta win this game for coach Shorter. Like and we ended up winning the game, and I just remember feeling this sense of, like, we just made our coach so proud. Like and He did. And I I feel like for kids I mean, particularly kids from hard places, like, they want someone to be proud of them.
Speaker 2:Like and that I I think that is a motivating factor within a coach relationship, within a mentor relationship that, man, these kids just want someone to be proud of them. And
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I think sports is something that you can recognize. Like, this is a great opportunity for me to to put forward, like, my worth, my value, and for someone to just, like, I mean, just celebrate me and be and be proud of me. So I I don't know if you recognize that that I don't know. Just the the coach's role of, like, motivating a kid through just that. Man, I'm so proud that you're playing your role, that you're doing your thing, that you showed up, that you took responsibility, ownership.
Speaker 2:Like, I don't know if you see that motivation that that sports brings.
Speaker 3:Unique things that we try and get our staff to say to a kid is I see you. I see you over there hustling. I see you over there rebounding. I see in you're simply doing a small thing of saying I see you. A kid just wants to be seen sometimes, and and I think that's it goes along the same lines of they want they wanna make the coach proud.
Speaker 3:Right? And and there's something special when a coach says that and affirms that. Like, hey, I see you over there hustling. I see you running and touching the line instead of just kinda getting close to it. Like, I see you going over there and lifting those extra £10.
Speaker 3:I see you cleaning up when we're done. I see you locking up and taking care of everyone's stuff. Like, it's the it's every little thing that you can encourage in to go ahead and encourage, because that may be the only form of encouragement that kid gets all day, all week, all month. So it's a it's an awesome opportunity that we even get to do that as coaches or as mentors. And and the beautiful thing about a coach is that, that they can be your coach your entire life.
Speaker 3:They can be your coach not only through sport, but all the way through, when you're done playing, playing the sport. They can still be your coach. They're always going to be coach so and so. Even though they're no longer a coach, you still call your coach coach whatever. Like, they that's just the way it is.
Speaker 3:Even though that was not his name, you still call him coach. And that's one of the beautiful things about that role is that there's a special place for a coach in every kid's life.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I I wonder I think a lot of people have the thought that coaches are nitpicky, that they're gonna see everything that I do wrong. And what you're saying is, like, you trained your coaches to be very intentional in seeing everything you did right. Everything. And and to highlight those things as a I don't know.
Speaker 2:Just it sounds very positive. Whereas I think in a in a lot of situations, kids may experience just, man, adults are seeing everything that I do wrong, and that can be a a fairly isolating and insulating experience where kids just shut down.
Speaker 3:We take a lot of time to make sure that our coaches are, what we've we've called trauma sensitive coaching, and we are making sure that we understand that a lot of the the the neighborhoods that we work in are are are high needs areas that there are lots of traumas happening. Some of our kids don't know where their next meal are coming from. Some of these kids maybe don't know, what's gonna happen in in their neighborhood. There may be violence. There may be, regenrification.
Speaker 3:There may be x, y, or z. Who knows what's happening in the neighborhood around them? And then even sometimes in the home, there's just uncertainty of, are the lights gonna be on? Are we gonna get evicted? Is this gonna happen?
Speaker 3:Is that gonna happen? And and and so we want to be able to provide coaching that is trauma sensitive, that we're aware that our kids are not coming to us from community in a a a neighborhood where it's everything's fine and dandy and there's picket fences and and, you know, like, it's just not the neighborhoods that we're working in. But at the same time, we want to encourage them to to know that there is a God who cares, and there is a God who sees them just like we see them, and he's in love with them. And he cares for them and is absolutely smitten with the idea that they would cast their eyes on him and that he would cast their eyes on them. And so it's a it's a unique position that we get to be in as coaches to be aware of the environment that our kids are coming from and that it's it's a it's a privilege to be able to coach them in these in these environments.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I just watched that, documentary undefeated about Manassas high school football team.
Speaker 3:I know those kids well, actually.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, Darius made me watch it, because he he was like, you gotta see this movie. And it's it's interesting to me, I think, just the the vulnerability of coaches being there when you lose, being there when you fail. Absolutely. And the opportunity to speak into that, I mean, even just how you kinda explained in your pillars of understanding that this isn't just about celebrating wins, but recognizing how can we endure and learn from our losses and the sportsmanship mentality.
Speaker 2:And so I don't know if if you could speak to just the the importance of mentors and coaches being there when you lose, being there when you lose, being there when you fail, and what are the benefits of how how can a mentor respond not sensitively, but beneficially in those moments? What are what are, like, the best practices for addressing failure?
Speaker 3:I think that the way you put it is is perfect. It's simply being with. The reality is is that all of us as mentors don't have all the answers. We are not God. We do not know the exact things and emotions and feelings that a kid is feeling in the moment of that loss.
Speaker 3:There may be things that we don't fully understand in their loss or in their grieving of it, and and so we're just so different, and we we may not fully understand them. Or we may we may understand 99%, but that 1 percent's a big deal. And so we have to realize 1 is that we can't fully understand what each kid is going through, but we're gonna be with them in it. Just the the one difference is for for us is the Lord not only fully understands, but he is with us. And so that's the beauty of of of of being a follower of Jesus.
Speaker 3:But as a as a human, as a man, I may not fully understand, but I'm gonna be with you. And I'm simply going to be there and let you cry, let you figure it out, let you process the emotions. Maybe the kid does need to to vent for a moment. Maybe the kid does need to rip that jersey off and throw it into the corner. Well, my hope would be over the over the course of many losses that they'd stop throwing the jersey on the ground, but the reality is is that I'm gonna be there when you're frustrated.
Speaker 3:Not going anywhere. I'm not gonna kick you off the team. I'm not going to to abandon you. I'm a be here, and it may be may be really hard. It may be really difficult, but I'm gonna figure it out, and I'm gonna just be alongside you.
Speaker 3:And and I think that's it's a hard thing to learn, and it's a hard thing to sometimes be okay because we wanna sometimes fix the behavior of the kid. You know, we don't want them throwing the the the we don't want them kicking over the bench and throwing their jerseys and acting acting crazy. But at the same time, we're like, well, that's how he's processing right now. Hopefully, over time, we can develop different ways to process it. But right now, this is what he's got.
Speaker 3:This is the best way that this kid knows how to process these emotions and these feelings. So let me just simply be there with him. Now maybe at a different time, we talk about the the fact that I don't want you throwing the bench across the the gym floor. But right now, I'm gonna simply be here. We're gonna talk.
Speaker 3:We're gonna be calm. We're gonna be rational, and we're just simply gonna sit in it and and simply be with them, just as Christ is with us. So, it's a it's a hard thing to do because we wanna fix things. We're just natural fixers. If you're a mentor and you're you're trying to change, the life of a kid, you wanna change life of a kid.
Speaker 3:And so you wanna address the behaviors, but it's a process. And, and sometimes we need to be okay with it not looking the way we would think it should look or would look if, you know, if their life was x y or z.
Speaker 2:No. That it's got me thinking just the experience of facing failure alone versus with others. I mean, it's like that phrase where it's like if a tree fell in the woods where no one was there, would would it even make a sound? Like Yeah. What what is the experience of a kid facing failure alone?
Speaker 2:Like and and how does that create just an environment of unhealth and detriment to his his development of, like Yeah. I mean, you can just think about Manassas High School. Like, those all those kids are on a football team. So they're probably not the kids that are in your program because they're connected to a coach. They're connected to a sport.
Speaker 2:But the other kids in that community who aren't connected to a team, who are maybe facing challenges and failures in an environment where they're facing them alone. They don't have someone there to possibly pick them up and and tell them it's okay, and I'm with you. I'm just I'm trying to put my mind in that place of a of a kid who's
Speaker 3:facing them. Loneliness is a dangerous thing. And I think as mentors and and coaches, we need to remember that loneliness is a very it it was it is it's something that even pre fall, the Lord decided this is not good that this guy be alone. That is something that we have to remember that even even in perfect Eden, the Lord saw, this ain't a good idea that this guy be alone. 1, he's probably knucklehead, and he's gonna mess this up.
Speaker 3:But, but the reality is is that's a that's that was something pre fall that the Lord identified as a problem. And so we've gotta be aware that it's a unique, special, high calling as a mentor to simply be with someone because it is it is combating that that loneliness, which can take people into very dark and very scary places. And and so we want to be aware of that and and celebrate the fact that we're making sure someone's simply not alone.
Speaker 2:Wow. That that is just a really good, like, practical for mentors. Just being there, you've already won. Like, you've you've already done the thing you were supposed to do. So every mentor that's like, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 2:Like, when they lose, do I do I comfort their back? Do I tap? Do I, you know, go in a circular motion? Like, what question do I just be there. Just show up.
Speaker 2:Just
Speaker 3:And that's why it's so even difficult right now specifically with this time that we're in with COVID 19. The idea of being alone, isolated in our homes and and not with others is a dangerous thing. It's dangerous for kids. It's dangerous for adults. It's a it's a dangerous thing, and so we have to be aware of finding those other ways, like we said earlier, pivoting, finding a new way to be able to be engaged in the life of kids and to be engaged in in simply be there even though you can't be there.
Speaker 2:That's good. Torres, any any other practical things that you've learned from mentoring over the years or stories at MAM that that would just be an encouragement to people who are thinking about mentoring?
Speaker 3:Man, we would be here all day, but the the the reality is is we we have a very, very awesome opportunity through coaching and mentoring, but specifically the the idea of sport and and coaching. We have a very unique opportunity to to share the gospel with kids, and we have, we have so many kids across the city of Memphis specifically that have been impacted by Ma'am and what we're doing that it's really really encouraging to watch these kids eventually come on ma'am staff and start doing it with kids in their neighborhood that they were doing it, that they were alongside and now are now are the coaches. Wow. I wanna encourage every single mentor out there to stick with it because it may not be within your lifetime. It may not be anytime that you'll see it, but eventually the kids, the lives of those that you change will remember and will do what you've done for others and the the the lineage will continue of of sharing the gospel and mentoring others.
Speaker 3:Just don't lose hope and continue to show up.
Speaker 2:Come on. That's Jonathan Torres, the COO of Memphis Athletic Ministries, or if you're lazy, ma'am. Jonathan Torres, thank you so much for investing in our mentors, man. It was great having you on.
Speaker 3:Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.