Raising The Steaks Fundraising and Leadership Development hosted its’ first ever INFLUENCE Coaches Workshop on April 15th at Van Abel’s of Hollandtown. This event was attended by over 55 coaches from 26 schools. INFLUENCE is a grass roots effort to bring together like-minded individuals committed to bringing Leadership Development to high school athletes.
This free event was led by speakers Steve Jones of Kimberly High School, Jeramie Korth Menasha High School, Dave Keel of Homestead and Patrick Van Abel of Raising The Steaks and Badger Sports Park. The message was simple. What can we do as coaches do to spread the word and better practice servant leadership?
Van Abel started off the meeting highlighting his journey in servant leadership over the past 22 years at Badger Sports Park. Steve Jones spoke about the pressures facing today’s youth and the ‘Twin Thieves’ of Judgement and Fear of Failure. He also went in depth on the specifics of his culture program at Kimberly High School and how his main focus is to create servant leaders. These young leaders are challenged with pressures from social media and fight the battle between being liked versus being respected.
Jeramie Korth spoke on his leadership journey at Menasha High School and how they address developing leadership in broken and single parent families. Another focus was the “Benevolent Bluejay” program that they have created on getting these student athletes to focus on serving others in their community. This group of young leaders meets with coaches every week before school to discuss their leadership goals for that week. They also have a “Big Brother” program where seniors and freshmen mentor each other. The leadership goes both ways in this program.
Dave Keel spoke about the specifics of his leadership council at Homestead High School. Keel has been coaching for over 30 years and it wasn’t until he started his leadership development programs that his focus was truly on the right thing, which was creating leaders and adding more personal accountability to himself, his coaches and their players. Many of the coaches left the meetings highly energized and said they will be focused on either starting or improving their own leadership programs. Coach Pete Kittel of Brillion stated “I wanted to send a note to thank you for organizing the servant leader workshop last night. I felt it was a great evening to share with like minded people. It is something I have believed very strongly in for my 29 years in coaching” A short video of coach Jones speaking can be found here
The next INFLUENCE Coaches Workshop is scheduled for July 9th. There will also be chapters forming in Milwaukee, Madison & Stevens Point. Please visit our website Raising The Steaks
For any press related questions, please contact Patrick Van Abel at 920.428.4878 or pat@raisingthesteaksinc.com