Goat Post: Issue 22

Second To Nun

Visiting the hometown of Home Alone, Chicago, rarely disappoints. This time, with equipment to transport, I drove to the Second City from Philadelphia.

That presented the opportunity to stop along the way in South Bend, Ind., to experience Notre Dame for the first time. I’ll just say this: When the bookstore takes your breath away like a cathedral, you know the campus is second to none.

And in this case, to Nuns.

Get Seen, Not Robbed

Had a lot to digest this week. It started with this Bloomberg clip about the cost of youth baseball, with the number $100,000 floated. 

The great news is, the tide is shifting as parents consider the reality that kids can get seen without the family getting robbed blind. We agree that the goal generally is scholarship money, but if you’re paying more than tuition to seek it, what does that say about your math skills?

Point being, it’s about the quality of time and mix of mentorship that wins. This is why I traveled to Chicago. It’s a place that doesn’t get enough credit for its community of role models.

The Kid & The Corpse

I’ll pause for a second here with this interlude. It’s John Candy in a great, all-time cameo in the aforementioned family classic, in which Kevin McCallister is left by himself, an 8-year-old in the manicured-sidewalks ‘hood of Winnetka.

Trying to comfort Kevin’s Mom, Candy’s character shares the story of the child he’d forgotten to bring home from a funeral parlor, where the little tyke had only a corpse for company.

“He was ok, you know, after six seven weeks, then came around and started talking again. But he’s ok. They get over it.”

@sgpodcadt

Greatness On Campus

We spent Friday morning visiting two schools in Chicago. They weren’t in the setting inhabited by Macaulay Culkin, who was 10 in 1990, by the way, when they made the movie.

Goatnet was present, first of all, in support of Rise 2 Greatness, in town to keep making a difference in the lives of young people. 

R2G does this authentically, transparently, and with the impressive, thoughtful involvement of credible, proven people and organizations with whom they’ve aligned through unmatched experience.

Friday’s school visits began at O.A. Thorp Scholastic Academy, where like Candy in the clip above, Marlon Anderson dropped a “six seven” quote that wouldn’t get past the dialed-in, super-sharp students.

@goatnetbleats

Marlon Anderson didn’t wear 67 as a player far as we know, but he played in Philly and is down with the six seven jawn. Chicago kids were ... See more

St. Louis Boos

The kids, in the presence of former St. Louis Cardinals Bernard Gilkey, Luis Alicea and Brian Jordan, to name a few, made it clear their allegiances are with the home teams.

@goatnetbleats

When a few former Cardinals talk trash at a Chicago school 🤣 #Cardinals #Cubs #BrianJordan

The point really was, everybody was engaged, at ease and left inspired. That went for the students and their happy, helpful visitors, from Charles Johnson to Kyle Farnsworth to Dmitri Young, and from R2G Executive Director Jen Ford to the school principal.

Barry Different Outcomes

Tim Redding mentioned striking out Barry Bonds. Ben Ford mentioned giving up a blast to Barry that “went to the ocean and never came back.”

There were smiles all around, and I was reminded why we created Goatnet in the first place. It’s the platform for greatness, and it’s fueled by stories, like the ones I heard from Bob Welch at a banquet in Austin, Texas, when I was in high school two score and two years ago.

The power of somebody giving a damn sometimes is all anybody needs.

Ashes & Promise Taken

Which brings me to the horrible death of that young man from the Dallas Cowboys this week.

Marshawn Kneeland was 24. He’d just scored a touchdown on a blocked punt on national TV. He was the lone memorable highlight for Dallas and the Joneses in what now was a meaningless event.

Marshawn died by suicide. This is a soul who’d made it to the NFL out of Western Michigan, who tragically had lost his Mom and wore her ashes in a pendant around his neck.

Gone.

Access To Belief

We do what we do with our eyes wide open for the human condition, with hearts for the vulnerable and heads for the odds and how they’re stacked.

What we can do is push and pull, surround ourselves and others with supportive courtesy. What is a platform for greatness? Its center line is solutions. Its purpose is empowerment, joy, access to belief.

Raking Leaves & Rising Trees

The second school we visited in Chicago was the Leif Ericson Scholastic Academy. We were there alongside The Base Chicago, a remarkably impactful organization that traces to the great Theo Epstein and is shepherded by leaders with exceptional backstories of their own — Eric Davis and Frank Brim — and a driven blend of all-in people.

A highlight to me on the second stop with the R2G caravan was this awesome interaction between former Major League pitcher Ray Burris and a student-athlete who goes by J.B.

@itsgoatnet

Ray Burris, with the wisdom of a lifetime pitching at the highest level, connects unforgettably with JB, a student-athlete bolstered@ in h... See more

As they raked leaves and placed them in garbage bags, the connection Ray and JB made had the kind of unforgettable vibe that only natural care can furnish.

The work wasn’t done, but the day was great.

Got a Goat individual or organization our platform should elevate, drop me a line. Greatness deserves its network.

Goat Big!