Basketball League CEO Talks Leadership To KYLA Graduates
Basketball League CEO Talks Leadership To KYLA Graduates
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Basketball League CEO Talks Leadership To KYLA GraduatesNORTH WEBSTER - Evelyn Magley - the first woman in the world to own a professional men's league and the CEO of The Basketball League - had four volunteer Kosciusko Youth Leadership Academy cadets clapping, snapping and chanting “KYLA” at the front of The Owl’s Nest in North Webster Wednesday night.
She then had those four cadets leading everyone else at the graduation banquet for the KYLA Class of 2023 in clapping, snapping and chanting.
So what does that have to do with leadership? she asked.
“Leadership is the action of leading a group of people, or organization. Different styles of leadership. And action! In order to be a leader, you must take action!” Magley answered. “What does that mean? Who then is a leader?”
She said the young people in KYLA had to interview and participate in the leadership program. They weren’t able to sit down and be in the background, but had to come in front of everyone, to volunteer.
“Everybody didn’t volunteer. I didn’t see everybody’s hands going up. There were some that were willing to take the chance and they don’t even know me,” she said. “Boldness. Powerful. Willing to take the chance to be a leader. It says, ‘Many are called but few are chosen.’ ... That passion, that ability to want to participate is there. They have the support of businesses. They have your support. But, parents, we’re living in a crazy world right now. It’s time to wake up. Your babies are taking chances with people they don’t know. Are they ready? Do you have them ready? Are they ready to fail, or are we protecting them?”
The only way to be a leader, Magley said, is having the willingness to volunteer to take the chance to fall on your face in front of everybody.
“Is your child ready?” she asked.
We’re living in an age of social media, which Magley called a “modern-day poor man’s way of a People magazine.”
She told the parents at the graduation ceremony, “Your child is on display every day of their lives! They’re being judged. Let me tell you something: How many ‘superstar’ children convert over into youth megastars and then jump into the world of an adult superstar? Not many make it, do they?”
She said not many make it, and we’ve seen many fall on their face because people are judging them constantly. She told the parents their children are being judged every day like they’re superstars through social media.
The thing about being a leader, she said, is that you have to know who you are.
“If you don’t know who you are, and you listen to the world, who are you? The world will own you. They’ll own every move you make. They’ll make every judgment on you. ... What are going to do being a leader when the world is judging you? My suggestion is, you must know who you are,” Magley said.
How does a person know who they are?
“It goes back to where you come from. By the support of the family and loved ones. By people in the community that are helping you guide your way through this journey, to be able to help you get to where you need to be,” she said.
The only way youth of today will make it as future leaders, Magley told the parents, is if they know who they are and they have their parents’ support. People have to know that they are cared for, and children need to know their parents care for them.
Magley said when she grew up, she grew up in a family that did not share or say, “I love you.” When you grow up and don’t hear those three simple words, she asked if a person knows who they are and if they are loved.
She posed a question to the cadets, asking them what kind of a leader did they want to be? To parents, she asked them what kind of leader are they.
“I know it’s putting a lot on your plate, but they’re going to draw on the strength of you when you go through those hard times,” she said. “... But the question is, what kind of leader are you? And the question is, who are you?”
Magley is a former music teacher and, after again asking “Who are you?,” she started singing “Circle of Life” from “The Lion King.”
“That’s right,” she said. “From the day that you came on this planet, you were a leader.”
She then told a young man sitting at the front of the room named Nolan that he was not a mistake, he was divinely placed on this planet and that from the moment he took his first breath to the day he takes his last, there will never be another him.
“Never! You’re special, Nolan. You’re special! No one can take your place. No one can do whatever it is like you. Don’t ever forget that, no matter what anybody says about you. There’s only one you,” she told him.
Magley also told him not to let social media take who he is away from him and that he did not need to be like anyone else.
She concluded by telling parents that they’re a family and the opportunities they are giving their children and their investment in their children “will not return to you back void. So be there for them.”
She told the KYLA students they are the “bomb-diggity” and that their parents are proud of them.
“Stay focused. Don’t let this world kill that passion inside of you because, for me, that passion has been placed there by our Creator,” Magley stated. “The only way to complete it is to go through the pain, so when you have those bad days, it’ll be OK, I promise you. Just hang in there. Keep fighting.”
Before Magley’s keynote speech, three of the seven Project Proud teams gave presentations on their projects.
The “Tree Planting - The Growing Foundation” team raised funds to purchase trees and organized the planting of those trees near Pike Lake and Oakwood Cemetery. Team members were Elizabeth Heckaman, Justine Ocken, Senate Shaw, Caroline and Katelyn Stump.
“Care for Cardinal” included Var Bobba, Ana Brito-Rosales, Lena Doll, Abigail Goble and Caleb Lechlitner. Their project was to conduct CPR training for Cardinal Services’ clients, which the clients said they wanted to learn.
The third team that presented was “Toys for Pre-K” and included Jocelynn Faulkner, Leah Forshtay, Catherine and Sophia Johnston and Cameron Manuel. They collected gently used toys and books in collection boxes at churches and then gave them to preschools.
The other four teams did projects with Destiny Rescue, Animal Welfare League of Kosciusko County, Combined Community Services and The Beaman Home.
After Magley’s speech, diplomas were handed out to the high school juniors, representing the high schools of Warsaw, Wawasee, Whitko, Triton, Lakeland Christian Academy and NorthWood.
It was also announced that the student at-large KYLA board members for 2023-24 will be Elizabeth Heckaman and Senate Shaw.
KYLA is a nonprofit organization that provides an opportunity for high school juniors in Kosciusko County to learn about leadership and become informed about the community they live in. Applications are being accepted for next year’s class. Current high school sophomores are eligible to apply.
The application, as well as additional information about KYLA, can be found at www.kosciuskoyouthleadership.org. The application deadline is May 17.
