Do Work Sports was founded in 2019.

With a mission to inspire student athletes on the Gulf Coast to maximize their potential.

They've been increasingly impactful in doing just that in a number of ways.

And we're privileged to be going deep with my friend and do work.

Co spot, co-founder and director of operations.

Donte Shepherd, Donte, thanks so much for being in.

And Steve, it's always great to be with you man.

Really excited and and congratulation man I love the new show.

I appreciate that.

So I gave a little bit of an intro about it, but what really what do works.

It's all about.

Well I mean Steve do work.

Sports is a multi-faceted sports company.

Like you said, we're really focused on helping student athletes maximize their potential.

And we do it.

And three different focus areas.

One, exposure in this new age of social media, highlight films and all different ways that they can be recruited by, colleges, etc.. We want to make sure that we share their story, that we captivate that story.

And so we do that by going out to events, sporting events, hosting sporting events and just taking the time out to capture their, special moments.

Those big time moments, for athletes, we also do it and, development.

Steve, we believe that developing the student athlete holistically is really important.

So we want to focus on not only the athleticism, but their academics and their emotional intelligence.

And so we try to host, life and life skills and character development workshops.

And then lastly, we focus on performance because it's about them performing at the best of their ability.

Steve.

And so we host events for that as well, to give them a chance to have some healthy competition.

So how did the idea get started?

You know, how did how did you come to it?

And then how did you get started doing it?

Well, Steve.

Yes.

You know, I was a coach for ten years.

Love, football, my entire life.

And, I had an opportunity to, really get into the development of athletes as a football coach.

Special.

When I was at Escambia High School with, head coach Willie Spears, really gave me a chance to do the academic, the athletic and the social development of athletes.

So when I stopped coaching, I wanted to stay in that area.

I ended up connecting with my friend Jose Stutz, who was really into media, was already covering youth sports in the area and do work.

Sports is the epitome of collaboration and partnership.

We came together, put our hands together and said, why?

Let's not do it alone, let's do it together.

And that's why we came up with do Our Sports.

Yeah, it's actually it's great stuff.

And before we get into the in-depth on all the different facets, you brought a little video and show some examples of exactly the kind of work that do work does.

Check it out.

Do work.

Sports is all about exposure.

We provide exclusive media coverage for sporting events, host media days, and conduct exclusive interviews with top athletes in the area.

We utilize some of the best technology to capture athletes greatest moments to make sure they're exposed to their fans, colleges, scouts, recruiters, and all of the mascots.

We invest in the overall development of the student athlete.

Are you compiling?

Are you committed to what the coaches are saying?

I sure do.

Are you just the wife?

Are you commit?

Kaleigh said, I just do it committed, said coach Tom.

By providing mentorship, leadership in life skills, workshops, athletic training and coaching.

We want to make sure that every athlete excels academically and athletically.

And so today we had a great day.

Our guys really learn what growth mindset is.

And I hope that they go out into the world and they take a growth mindset into the classroom, a growth mindset at home, a growth mindset into the community.

And most of all, a growth mindset in their sport.

Because this a sports mindset.

Performance is important for an athlete to perform at a high level.

They must compete.

We encourage a competitive nature, but with integrity.

We create atmospheres that nurture growth and self-improvement through our competitive sports teams or our sporting events such as tournaments and All-Star games.

We also include training that focuses on athletic and mental development, which will allow an athlete to maximize their potential and somebody to work for.

So obviously, you guys are doing a lot, so.

Yeah.

So how much is the.

Is there a need?

How much of a hunger is there out there for this type of stuff?

I, I think that people are starving for it, Steve.

I mean, you know, back in the day, it was all about just the news or the newspaper that really covered, sports.

But now, it's the more the merrier.

The more people who can do it, the better.

The more exposure, the better.

And so, it's been a high demand.

It's so much of a demand that we normally can't cover it all.

We really focus on football and basketball, mostly because of that.

And we just sprinkled in the track a lot.

Yeah, but you're going to a lot of games.

I mean, you go out to a lot of action, a lot of different events.

How do you do it?

What's your crew like and how do you kind of plan what you do?

You know, what we learned is, you got to bring people in who already is passionate about, you know, videography, photography and love sports.

So we've partner with others and, and we give them an opportunity to go out and do it.

We have our, you know, core team.

But then we have several videographers and photographers throughout, Escambia County, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa who do all of this with us.

So it's a it's a team effort, Steve.

And we got roughly about 12 of us.

And you hit it hard on social media.

I mean, you have a website, you've got YouTube channel, but really Facebook and Instagram, that's kind of your bread and butter.

So what's your plan with all the stuff you put on there and what kind of response have you gotten?

Yeah, I mean, we've gotten an incredible response.

Our plan is Facebook is really for the parents and fans of athletes.

So we try to give as much exposure on there.

And what we've noticed that the athletes really run on Instagram, they love to see their videos, their pictures and things of that nature.

So we just try to make sure that we share what is the focus for each platform.

Sometimes we duplicate it based on whatever that is.

And then, we want to continuously push as much content as possible.

So partnerships gives us that opportunity.

In the past two months, January and February, Steve, we had over 3 million views on our social media.

Incredible, unbelievable.

And you also do in-depth interviews, and those have got a lot of hits and probably the most popular one on one of the most popular ones.

Waymon Jordan Jr.

Yes.

Who, Escambia High grad also played a Catholic football player.

What the JuCo route.

And they ended up signing with the University of Southern California.

You got you brought a little clip of one of your interview kind of set up.

What what this is, man, this this was an opportunity for me to sit down with Wayne and just hear his journey.

A lot of people didn't know that he had to go to junior college out of high school, but he worked.

He worked any work that put himself in the position that he is now, and he shared that with us.

And that process of being recruited fathers took it out.

This first offer line and then from there schools.

Is this rolling and rolling in every week talking to me, coming in and they still calling to this day like and this is honestly a blessing because I remember when nobody was calling my phone, I was just one and I was just one on one call or one text like so.

I don't take none for granted.

I'm thankful for every school that ever talked to me and stuff like that.

So it's been really just a hard journey though, to trying to choose what school.

But I'm going to find one.

And with all that being said.

For the next few years.

I'm going to be going to.

The University of Southern California.

So that last picture right there is a picture of him actually at USC.

He's an incredible story.

Oh, man.

You know Wayman story.

Steve, is what we all hope for.

A young man who worked hard and maximized his potential.

And he's doing really well at USC right now.

I'm really looking forward to seeing this upcoming season.

I plan on flying out.

Oh, yeah.

Take me with you around.

Yeah.

All right.

So you guys also do a lot of events.

So you put on media days, you have tournaments, you have all star games.

So, what are some of the things that you do there and the kind of need and impact with those.

Well, I think Media Day gives parents and players an opportunity to, get exposure.

Players are able to interview.

Interviewing skills are so important.

So they get that shot, especially if you're not a star.

You don't normally get that shot unless you are a star and and parents get a chance to see them.

I love the, event, especially like tournaments, because again, it's all about performance.

You want to see what they've done in the off season.

What are they doing on their own time, and then watch it unfold on the field or on the court.

And so our seven on seven tournament is really big.

Flag football is really big right now as well.

So we host, those tournaments and you really partner with a lot of the high schools and youth, youth programs to kind of get these things done.

Oh, yeah.

You know, these youth programs really want to see the players get reps. And so these tournaments really assist with that.

We host, later on this summer, a high school tournament as well.

And again, that gives them a chance to see their kids in real time and be able to compete against, other teams.

Mentorship is another big part of the organization.

So how is that structured?

How do you set up, you know, opportunities for these young people to get mentored?

Well, you know, one of our biggest mentorship programs is that Pensacola High School, through a program called pride, the pride program, gives us a chance to go in with the athletes, able to set up speakers for them.

I serve as a speaker, but I'm also able to do specialized training with them.

And then we partner with other organizations to bring forth that mentorship, because we need as many people within the community that's connected to these athletes.

And one of those organizations is the 100 black men of Pensacola.

What are some of the lessons, you know, that you try to impart?

Oh, well, I mean, one thing is just overall self-efficacy.

It's important for athletes to have confidence, but not just confidence on the field, because that sometimes could be false, because it's about that only that time or event.

We want them to have confidence on and off the field.

So we focus on self-efficacy, leadership, trust, and even toughness.

You know, toughness is bigger than just being strong physically strong.

But are you mentally tough?

You know, what would it really take for an athlete to be broken.

And sometimes that's just a tough, test in a classroom or a project.

And so we want them to be tough.

So we really work on all of those different topics and we customize it for coaches as well.

Yeah, definitely valuable lessons.

So and I yell something really big right now on the high school level, starting to really take off where athletes can, you know, capitalize, monetize, you know, their name, image, likeness.

And you've been involved in a lot of ways with that.

So what's your opinion, first of all, of an ideal and how have you tried to be involved?

Well, I think it's great for the athlete.

I think is good for them to be able to, make money off of their name, image and likeness.

The thing is, they need to understand is that you may not be able to capitalize till you get to college, but you can't start in college.

You have to start building your brand now.

So your social media is important.

How you communicate with people and who you are networking with is going to open those doors for them.

And you've developed relationships with a lot of these athletes, you know, is that as a mentor or as an advisor, how important has that been for you personally?

I think it's been great, is very impactful for me because I'm not coaching day to day in and day out anymore.

So I get to stay connected to the game.

But most of all, I'm able to share my knowledge and my wisdom and it's all about you passing down what you know.

You know.

Steve, a mentor of mine, told me that a cup that is empty is a wasted cup, but a cup that is full is even worse.

And so you got to have somebody to pour into and someone to pour into you.

You mentioned, your coaching days.

Being honest can be a part of it under Willie Spears, who was very innovative, you know, did a lot of got to generate a lot of excitement.

Also a lot of controversy back then.

Yeah, with some of the promotion stuff that you guys did.

But really that was really ahead of its time a little bit.

No doubt about it, man.

I tell you what they had to apologize to, the running back of USC, Reggie Bush, for the things they did.

We owe Willie Spears an apology because where we're at now with email, with social media, he was the innovation of that.

And and we were scared of what we didn't know in our community.

But I was on board.

I believed in it then and I really believe in it now.

That's why we created do Work sports.

And I will say coaches are on board for it now.

Yeah.

But you know, the world has changed.

It's yeah, they've caught up.

They've caught up to a lot of things you guys are doing.

Okay.

So what's next.

Where do you go next.

Would do work sports.

I mean again we want to continue to expand our exposure, our media.

So we're looking to expand into our youth league.

We're looking to actually cover them on a more regular basis.

Coming up, this football season.

We're looking to also, start our all star series and our camp series this summer.

And then most of all, expand and development.

I'm really looking forward to going over to Pine Forest High School.

They just hired me to come in for development for their athletes.

So shout out to coach McDowell and any school that will want us to come in and talk to their kids about leadership and development, because it's about three fold exposure, development performance.

All right.

It's great stuff, Donte, that you do and good luck with all of it.

And thanks for coming on.

Hey, I'm always excited to be here.

And remember do work.

There you go.