Back from Georgia

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I had just returned to my seat after the too-generous response to my keynote had subsided when I was called back up to be presented with this beautiful birdhouse. 

I had just returned to my seat after the too-generous response to my keynote had subsided when I was called back up to be presented with this beautiful birdhouse.

Team USA asks you to make the commitment

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Just a few years ago it would have been nearly impossible to get a youth sports organization to even acknowledge the possible validity of the headline of this photo. Now Team USA is LEADING with that statement. That's progress. www.teamusa.org/stopabuse

You-S.O.C.

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This Sunday I will be headed to Colorado Springs to attend the Safe Sport Leadership Conference, hosted by USA Swimming. In addition to taking part in a panel discussion Monday morning, I will have the honor/opportunity/responsibility of giving the keynote (!) address Monday night. Attendees will include leaders from the United States Olympic Committee and Olympic sport National Governing Bodies. I have been preparing the presentation of a lifetime (my lifetime anyway) for two weeks now, and I know that all that I can ever be or bring to any situation is the truest version of me, and I am certain that—if nothing else—it will live up to the Thoreau quote that I posted the other day, “that I will give them a strong dose of myself.”

Given the opportunity to speak to the most influential decision-makers in amateur sports, with many other leaders from national youth serving organizations in attendance…a captive audience for thirty minutes…what would *you* want to say to them? What would *you* need them to know?

Heroes

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“Two champions who stepped out of the shadows, shined a light on the the dark secret of child sexual abuse and showed us how to understand it and begin to heal.”

Gary Smith on heroes Kayla Harrison & R.A. Dickey in this week’s Sports Illustrated cover story: “Speak up, Speak out”

Just Tell

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Honored to be a part of this project: “Just Tell is thrilled to debut our new Be Your Own Hero video project with the first video made by our dear friend Chris Gavagan of Coached into Silence! Videos made by friends and supporters of JustTell will empower youth to tell someone if they are being sexually abused.”