(upbeat music) - The challenges facing boys and young men in America have reached what some call a crisis.

Two leaders making an impact on young men locally, Dr. Eric Gravenberg of the HAWK Institute and Wornel Simpson of Team Sage, join us to share their insights on helping boys mature into successful men.

Dr. Gravenberg, how would you describe the current state of boys and young men in our society today, particularly the African American males that you work with?

- Well, Scott, thank you for that question.

You know, it's a challenge for our young men out there.

It's probably been exacerbated because of the pandemic, but even before that, some of the research we've done out of the HAWK Institute shows that there are a lot of challenges and they're multifaceted.

Young men are confused now about sometimes their identity, how they fit into society.

When they're in schools themselves, they don't feel connected to those schools.

And there is also the kind of trauma that many of them face, and particularly African American young men in our communities.

So the situation is dire, but challenge is not insurmountable.

And so with our programs, we really look forward to try to address those challenges in a positive and a very affirmative way.

- Wornel, how do young men find you and your program and what are typically the circumstances that compel them to reach out and find you?

- My original background as far as working with kids started at the Salvation Army, and I was the Youth Services Committee chairperson for a number of years.

And because of the fact that I was very visible at the gym for three or four years, I met a lot of young men.

And when I was asked by four moms to start a youth basketball program to coach their sons, I already had kids that were just waiting in the wings to actually participate and be on my program.

In addition to that, the Salvation Army has a very good year-round basketball program, and many of the coaches that coached there on a regular basis, they wanted to also be coaches with Team Sage when I first started.

So I had a cache of people right from the very beginning that were willing and wanting to be a part of Team Sage.

- It's interesting when you listened to Dr. Gravenberg's opening comments and talking about these challenges that young men are facing.

You had mothers, you said, waiting in the wings for you to coach their sons.

There seem to be so many pressures out there, and one of them that is in conversation all the time is about social media.

What role does social media play in exacerbating the challenges that the young men that you're interacting with face today?

- Number one, it diverts their attention.

It takes a lot of attention away from a lot of other things that they probably should be concentrating on, but they spend a lot of time on their phones.

They spend a lot of time on Instagram.

They spend a lot of time on TikTok, and that's just the way that it is now.

You know, they are looking at other people and they're what appears to be their lifestyles and things that they're doing.

And they're comparing themselves with other people.

They are really afraid of criticism, because that criticism could be channeled and be seen by millions of people.

I mean, social media is really, I'm glad we didn't have it when I was younger.

- Hmm, interesting.

- It's good for educational purposes in terms of being able to access and learn a lot of things, but a lot of times you're accessing and learning the wrong thing.

- I am curious.

Dr. Gravenberg, for you, you and HAWK Institute, the mission seems very, very clear in terms of what the change you're trying to affect.

But take us back.

What was the genesis of the creation of your program?

- Well, Scott, the genesis of this program came from a very tragic incident of one of the co-founders, Mr. Richard Nelson, his daughter was shot protecting her son in a gang shootout at a barbershop.

- That was in South Sacramento, right?

- It was in South Sacramento.

And so from that pain, we tried to figure out what do we need to do in terms of working with young African American males to change their trajectory.

You know, I have a long background in education and put together a number of programs.

So we decided that we needed to really take a look at the research, who was doing what?

What were some of the underlying causes?

And from that we did a pilot program that really emanated into how we've developed the HAWK Institute now.

But it was from those incidents that we really wanted to begin to focus a lot more on three things.

One, their personal development, two, their academic development, and third their economic development.

Those things we feel are the underpinnings in terms of how to reach African American males.

We found from our research and practice that those pillars, if you will, are applicable to a lot of young men.

- Regardless of background.

- What's that?

- In other words, regardless of background.

- Indeed, correct.

- And Wornel, I've heard you tell stories before about these young people that come into your program and you talk about what it is that you and your fellow coaches provide them.

Describe for us just succinctly, what is it that these young men are thirsting for that you and your program are providing?

- A lot of young people these days, male and female, actually, they're looking for somebody that loves them.

They're looking for somebody that looks at them for being them.

They are looking for people that can accept their authentic self.

You know, they're looking for people that can understand some of the things that they're going through and understand some of the mistakes that they might make and understand that it is okay to make a mistake.

And they're all correctable.

And a lot of kids, they just want somebody that's in their corner.

That's the most important thing.

Give them a safe place, a safe haven, away from the school environment, sometimes even away from their home environment.

It makes a big difference.

- An interesting thing that I've heard you speak of is that sometimes even kids who have, what we would think of as a intact family unit and parents that surround them, that that's not even enough sometime, because of some of the other social pressures that you and Dr. Gravenberg just described.

Can you give us an example of one of the kids that you've touched in terms of what they were looking for and what you were able to provide and the impact that the program's had?

- You know, there's one young man, and he's still a big part of my life.

In fact, he was with me this past Saturday and I went to his house and picked him up and we went to Natomas High School to watch the varsity basketball team practice and for him to give them a few pointers.

But when I first got this young man, he was in the sixth grade, he probably was the very best player in the Sacramento area in his age group.

Everybody knew his name.

I walk in a gym with him in the sixth and seventh grade, and little kids would see him and say his name out loud.

I mean, he was really well-known and noted.

And he ended up being the all-time leading scorer at Inderkum High School.

He was all league all four years.

He was the MVP of the league his junior year.

He was also a great football player.

He was good at track and field.

He was almost like a man amongst boys.

And he had a real good, solid family background.

His mom and dad weren't together any longer, but his mom was very supportive.

His dad was very supportive as well.

And I used to call him my Iron Man.

I coached him from the sixth grade through the 12th grade.

He never missed a game all those years, but he was such a great athlete that everybody pushed him to be, you know, they thought he was gonna be a NFL defensive back.

Everybody thought that, even some of my trainers thought that.

And so everybody looked at him almost as like a specimen, more so than being the young man that he really wanted to be known as.

And he got injured in his junior year playing football, and he had a, I think some type of torn spleen or something like that.

And he came to me afterwards and he was like, "Coach, I don't wanna play football anymore."

But everybody, all his friends, all his family, they wanted him to continue to play football, because everybody thought he was gonna be in NFL defensive back at some point in time.

Well, this kid, he went through high school, he graduated, he went away to a junior college.

First one he went to, it didn't really work out the way that he anticipated.

And he transferred and went to a junior college outta state.

And he played there for another year.

And then he came back home.

And I think because of the fact that he didn't measure up in his own mind to the expectations that he had, he started having some difficulties.

And in fact, I didn't see him at one point in time for almost a whole year.

And when he finally did reappear, he came by my office and I said, "Where you been?"

And he said, "Coach, I feel like I let you down."

And I was like, "Hey, you could never let me down."

And you know, since that time he's had some other issues that he's dealt with.

But he's a fine young man.

He's a father now, and he's providing for his family.

And you know, at one of the videos that we did recently at one of our practices, he was interviewed and they asked him, "Why did you come back, you know, to help Team Sage?"

Because I'm coaching a whole new group of kids now, all these kids, they're between the ages of 12 and 14.

So here he is out there with me helping me at the age of 28.

And the interviewer wanted to know, you know, "What brought you back?"

He said, "Brought me back, I never left."

And so that is real similar to the impact that we've had with a lot of kids down through the years.

- You know, if you take that thread, Dr. Gravenberg, it sounds like this sense of connection that Wornel's describing that this young man had to the program, "I never left."

But it's about being part of a community.

And, you know, again, to go back to some of your opening comments related to social media and what I would almost recharacterize as alienation that young people are feeling, what is the impact of having community or what's the importance of community to making sure that young men have more options in their mind and more activities than just aspiring to either be in sports or maybe an influencer or something like that?

- Well, you know, I'll sum it up in a word of one of our graduates from the program who at the graduation ceremony, he was a keynote speaker and he said in essence, why he really resonated with HAWK is that he couldn't be what he couldn't see.

And through HAWK he could see that there were possibilities that we gave him that sense of community.

We gave him a safe place that Wornel talked about.

We gave him options, we exposed him to things that he hadn't thought about.

And in that exposure changed his attitudes and beliefs.

And from that, that's the kind of cauldron of connectivity that we provide both Wornel's program and mine to give them that sense of community, to give them that sense of purpose.

I think the other thing that's really important to point out, Scott, is that we really reinforce some of the critical thinking skills.

In fact, Wornel and I have kind of a saying, we brainwashed them to think for themselves.

And in this age of social media, it's important for them to have that kind of sense of how they fit in this world, how they can decode and demystify it to give them the confidence.

And then when we inculcate that with community, it is a powerful thing in terms of some of the things that they're able to accomplish, because of that belief in themselves and because of the support that that community provides.

- You know- - And one other- - Oh, go ahead, go ahead.

- ... comment I have to make.

It's regarding the young man that I was speaking about.

- Sure.

- They asked him a question about Team Sage and what did it actually do for him in his life.

And he said, "That Coach Wornel and Team Sage took us places that we had never been and we felt like we belonged."

And that just made me feel so good- - Tell us more about that.

Tell us more about that.

What did he mean by that?

- Well, when we travel and we play in tournaments and we play typically in tournaments all across the state of California and a lot in the Bay Area, Southern California, the Anaheim area, and also in Las Vegas and Reno, and a few times we've actually played in Tahoe too.

But whenever we travel, all of the kids are, it's two to a room.

I don't have four and five and six kids in a room, or the whole team in two rooms when we travel.

So there's two kids in each room.

We have sit down dinners together, we go to different universities and visit.

So when we're down in Anaheim, we go and we'll visit UC, Irvine or UCLA, we go to Las Vegas, we've been to UNLV when we play other tournaments in the Bay Area, sometimes we'll play at San Francisco City College and we'll be there for three days and then we'll leave and we'll come back through Berkeley and we'll go to UC, Berkeley, we'll have pizza, we hang out.

I spent a lot of quality time with all of our kids and I still try to do that now.

Even, we recently, were in a tournament with the newer kids up in Reno and we make sure that we do a lot of social stuff together and we have pizza parties, we go bowling.

We just do a lot of things to, you know, promote friendship.

And I recently, well last summer actually, I rented a gym, because I wanted to get back on the court, 'cause I don't coach the teams like I used to on a daily basis.

I mean, I used to do practices two, three times a week and playing almost every weekend.

But I don't do that anymore.

But periodically, I'll rent a gym and maybe for a eight to 10 week period of time, I'll do workouts.

And the workouts that I supervise are for not only the kids, but also for the coaches as well.

And so the very first workout that I did last summer, nine of my former players came out to assist me.

And they're all 27, 28 years old now.

And so, you know, one of the things that I realize now is that the kids, their attention span is not quite what it used to be.

So Dr. Gravenberg and I came up with a concept called Court-side Chats.

So we have a certain protocol that I utilize in our practices.

And then right before we actually really get started, before we do, well, I can't remember right now, if it's before our exercises, right after our exercises, I'll bring in Dr. Gravenberg and he'll come in and he'll have words of wisdom, you know, and it might be three minutes, might be five minutes, but that's our court-side chat.

And maybe he'll talk about communication or he'll talk about teamwork.

And so whatever he talks about in that court-side chat, I make sure that I use that information and use some type of drill, do something in the practice to reinforce the things that he talked about.

- So there is a lot of money spent by government, by philanthropy in lots of places, supposedly addressing issues related to young men.

And it runs the spectrum.

If you were talking to the leading corporations, the leading philanthropists, the leading policy makers who have the power to allocate resources, where should they be going that they're not, or if they are going there, there need to be more of them.

Wornel, I'll give you the first shot at this.

- Give more money to Scholar Athletes Global Emerging Team Sage and also to HAWK Institute.

These two organizations, we work hand-in-hand.

We work really well together.

Dr. Gravenberg and HAWK, they provide all the tutors for all of the kids that are in the Team Sage program.

Team Sage has a 3.3 minimum grade point average requirement.

And if you don't have that grade point average- - Really?

- Yes, we have a 3.3 minimum grade point average requirement.

And I don't know if you know this or not, Scott, but we have since 2009, and we have had hundreds of people go through our program.

We have 100% high school graduation rate and we also have a 70% college graduation success rate.

We have had kids that have been incarcerated in high school, strong armed robberies and home invasions, and they still got out and ended up going and graduating from high school and actually even going to college.

They didn't all graduate from college.

But then, but we also realize now that college is not for everybody.

Everybody can't get a degree.

- There is also the possibility of opening a business.

Dr. Gravenberg, what would be your response to the question?

- So let me respond to that first with the why, why should they?

Let me give you a short story of one of our graduates, it's typical of many of the folks that go through HAWK.

Harold Grigsby, the gentleman that was in Stockton and was really caught up in kind of that life, if you know what I mean?

Had seen a number of his friends succumb to gun violence, was in the juvenile system, decided after he got out of the juvenile system to come to Sacramento to get away.

He actually sought HAWK out, sought out Mr. Nelson, one of the co-founders.

And in that whole process, he became a mentor.

We convinced him and work with him to go to Sac City College.

He was such a stellar student and great mentor that he was able to get enrolled at UCLA with high honors, some of it with our assistant, but mainly on the strength of his academic background.

From there, after he finished UCLA, he got accepted to Harvard University and he just finished, got his law degree last year.

And so he's coming back to work with us and also some of the young men in the Stockton area.

So that's the why.

The where would be to expand some of the footprints that we have in the schools locally.

We have a budding multimedia unit that we're really working with to help youth kind of share their stories.

And it's real important for them to really be learn the craft in terms of multimedia, so employment is a possibility.

We'd like to put resources in some of the things that we've been doing to, we can expand our financial literacy component.

Wornel's background is ideally suited to help them break that generational poverty by wealth-building.

And then the last piece is that we're really getting ready to launch what we call our Center for Urban Entrepreneurship.

Not all young men wanna go to college, but we wanna make sure that they have the tools and resources to go to college, but a lot of them wanna be entrepreneurs.

We're looking at a partnership with Sac State right now, but there's where the resources should be and it's all driven by the data that we have on our youth.

So that's would be my answer, Scott.

- It's interesting you talk about partnerships.

One partnership that you both have is with a fraternal organization, Sigma Pi Phi, also known as The Boule.

And full disclosure, both of you are archons within that organization as well as I.

What types of support is the community providing in organizations like Sigma Pi Phi in helping you all double down on the resources that are immediately available while you wait for the rest of the policy makers and others to catch up?

- Well, I think it's important to point out that, you know, first, the folks in Sigma Pi Phi, their mentorship, you know, resources for us, they support, they've adopted both Team Sage and HAWK, I think that's powerful.

From our initiatives, we've awarded over 30 scholarships this past year.

But more importantly, organizations like 100 Black men organizations such as My Brother's Keeper, the Roberts Family Development Center.

We're all looking at ways as to how to leverage our resources more effectively.

So we have talked about and have set the groundwork for what we call the courageous leaders kind of continuum, if you will, of all of these organizations trying to figure out how can we leverage the resources that we're getting to have maximum impact?

And that's always a challenge, because sometimes the resources that we're getting we're in competition.

But I think what's really important about this group is that there are no political egos.

We've learned to submerge them egos for the good of the whole, because we are in crisis.

But I can tell you the young men that come to our program, they're not as in crisis as if they participate.

And certainly they are stellar examples of giving back to the community.

- It really resonates Wornel and is compelling to hear about how your graduates keep coming back and they're paying it forward.

Your background is in wealth management and that's what in your professional life you're known for.

How is it that you helping these young men in partnership with Dr. Gravenberg and others start to figure out whatever their path is, how to get on it and how to create, you know, all forms of wealth, not just financial, but obviously important, but so that they too can be in a position to act as you and Dr. Gravenberg have on improving and extending community?

- A lot of the on-court learning centers around team building and cooperation and willing to share different ideas and seek out different ways of doing things.

And they're able to take that off the court and do the same thing.

So like I said, we have a 70% college graduation success rate, and the other 30% are all entrepreneurs, every single one.

And they're doing different things.

We have social media influencers, we have artists, we have people who are managing performers.

My son, who's one of the Team Sage members, Kellen Simpson, he is managing three groups in out of Los Angeles.

And he's going back and forth between LA and New York all the time.

He's on first name basis and has the phone number and able to call the president of Columbia Records in New York, who was one of the top five people in the music industry.

The same thing with the president of Atlantic Records in LA.

We have another young man.

The first time I opened up the gym again this past summer and invited the kids to come out for me to coach them, he came out, he's a social media influencer, everybody knows who he is.

And after the practice, he opened up his trunk and he probably had about 50 to 100 pair of shoes that were inside the trunk to give out to the kids.

We love on the kids.

We spend time with him, we take 'em places, we ask questions, we try to find out exactly kind of what's going on with them.

They open up to us.

They tell us all kind of things that sometimes their parents don't know.

I have had parents tell their kids, "If you can't play for this man, you can't play for anybody."

- Wow, and I think that the messages and the theme that we'll arrest on is, we love on these kids.

Congratulations to you both and we look forward to hearing more about continued success.

Thank you both for joining us today.

- Thank you, Scott for having us.

- All right.

And that's our show.

Thanks to our guests and thanks to you for watching "STUDIO Sacramento".

I'm Scott Syphax, see you next time, right here on KVIE.

(upbeat music) All episodes of "STUDIO Sacramento", along with other KVIE programs are available to watch online at kvie.org/video.