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Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta. It’s time for Charitable Georgia. Brought to you by B’s Charitable Pursuits and resources. We put the fun in fundraising. For more information, go to B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. That’s B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. Now here’s your host, Brian Pruett.

Brian Pruett: [00:00:45] Good fabulous Friday. It’s another fabulous Friday morning and we’ve got three more fabulous guests. Uh, and it’s been a crazy week of weather. It’s warmer than day today, the last several days, and it’s going to get even colder tomorrow. So I hope everybody’s got their Eskimo jackets ready, some hot chocolate and movies ready for tomorrow because it’s going to be really, really cold. Uh, if this is the first time listening to Charitable Georgia, this all about positive things happening in the community. And as I mentioned, we’ve got three fabulous guests this morning. And my first guest is going to be Vicky Bates from Made in America. So Vicky, welcome this morning.

Vicky Bates: [00:01:15] Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:16] So, uh, you and I have met, uh, actually, just, what, a couple months ago. Networking. And, uh, you’ve got a pretty incredible story of overcoming and over achieving, I guess. And also, uh, overcoming adversity. You’ve, uh, had breast cancer. Uh, you just had hip surgery. You’re already walking around from hip surgery. So that’s pretty awesome. So if you don’t mind, share a little bit about your background. Then we’ll talk about what your, uh, how you got into what you’re doing.

Vicky Bates: [00:01:39] Okay. My background. Well, you know, Brian, I’m a little older than you, so my background is more extensive. Where do you want me to start? So background, I guess. You mean, like, with my business. So, um, my cleaning business came when I was about 30 years old, and. Oh, I just told my age, because now, you know, I’ve been in business for blah, blah so many years. But anyway, um, just as a stay at home mom, and then, um, my daughter’s dad lost his job, and, um, and then I just had parents, friends that started asking me to clean for them. And I have a home ec degree, so that’s kind of my background. And, um, so that’s where Made in America started. And within about a year, I started hiring people and, you know, just enlarging the company, duplicating myself. And, um, so fast forward 28 years, um, Maid in America has been in business. Oh, gosh. I feel dirty saying that because that is what they say as old as dirt. But, um, and so that’s a little bit about how Maid in America started. Um, God’s really blessed my company ever since then. And, um, really thankful for a lot of things that have happened since I started. Um, so.

Brian Pruett: [00:02:56] Well, if you don’t mind, can you talk a little bit about your experience of going through the breast cancer and surviving? And so can you give some people listening? Might need some hope to hear about what? Yeah.

Vicky Bates: [00:03:03] And I hope they hear this because, um, my breast cancer journey started, um, nine years ago. So next year I’ll be celebrating my 10th year. Awesome. And I’m getting my first tattoo. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Very tiny. My husband’s going to hate me, but, um, so I was diagnosed nine years ago in March, and, um, it’s what’s called ductal cell in carcinoma. Um, that’s actually the best breast cancer to have. Um, um, it’s the same breast cancer Suzanne Sommer had originally. And of course, she died later from a more aggressive breast cancer. And so, um, so when my journey started, um, it’s a little different. I had, um, my doctors that, um. Well, I need to back up. My girlfriend, who had told me about Suzanne Somers, had also had the same breast cancer I had. So, um, she told me, Vicky, I want you to read two of Suzanne Somers books before you go and do any aggressive, um, um, you know, measures that your doctors are wanting you to take and, you know, which would be chemo and radiation. Um, and so I did. And my husband is a professor at Kennesaw State University. And his background is, um, you know, a lot in the health industry, does a lot of research. So he understands how to interpret, um, you know, research and all the lingo that goes with it. So we did a little research and found out that I was at a low risk for reoccurrence.

Vicky Bates: [00:04:37] And so I opted not to do the chemo and the radiation. And I also opted not to take a really nasty drug called tamoxifen. And I’m not saying that those are inappropriate measures. It just it wasn’t my journey to do that. So I took a more, um, natural approach. Um, of course they took the tumor out. Um, the first time they thought they had gotten all the margins clear and they weren’t quite sure about one margin. So they went in, um, and took out just a little bit more. And so that’s all I did. And, um. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I don’t do, um, mammograms anymore either, just because there’s so much radiation way less now than there was then. So I’m not saying I won’t ever do one, but, um, but I do thermography and sonograms and regular checks, and I see my breast specialists every year. And so they’re just they’re happy with everything. And so it means changing your diet a lot. Um, so I did a lot of that. And, um, um, sugar is probably the biggest get off your list in your body kind of, um, thing you need to. And so I so I really watched my, um, sugar and some other things in my diet and exercise is just, just extremely, extremely helpful. And so since I’m married to an exercise physiologist, he will back that up.

Vicky Bates: [00:06:05] And so I was already exercising a lot, playing tennis, going to the gym and all those things. Um, unfortunately, right now I’m not going to the gym and exercising because I did have a hip replacement. And, um, that was exactly three weeks ago. And so, yeah, I’m, um, not using a cane or a walker. Well, you start out with a walker and then a cane, but, um, so I feel pretty blessed there. I got to be a little careful. She’s the bionic woman now. Well, in one part of my body, I hope to not see any more bionic parts. Um, and so. But once I started my breast cancer, um, journey, um, because I did have to change and modify a few things, I found out about a nonprofit organization called cleaning for a reason. Um, and so they’re based out of Texas. Um, and then I found out, well, a little bit about them and thought, well, you know, I own a cleaning business. And what do they do? They partner cleaning businesses all over the world or not. The world, the country and, um, some other countries, um, to provide free cleanings to families who have a member that might be going through, um, cancer treatment. And so I’m like, well, I’m just so going to do this. And part of my decision also, um.

Speaker4: [00:07:24] All right, I have.

Brian Pruett: [00:07:25] Well, I had cleaner. I don’t have a tissue.

Vicky Bates: [00:07:27] I’m going to get through this.

Brian Pruett: [00:07:29] Figures. Every time I don’t have a tissue, somebody cries and I have a tissue. Nobody cries. So, Kevin, I got somebody to cry. But there’s a joke there, so we’ll. We’ll talk about it.

Vicky Bates: [00:07:36] No, but I had a little nephew that passed away eight years of age, um, from brain cancer. And so we watched that journey for two years. Um, and so he’s my little hero. He’s one of the reasons why I also opted to be a partner with. Thank you. Brian. There’s my tissue. Well, who cares if my mascara runs? That’s right. You’ve seen it before.

Brian Pruett: [00:08:01] Nobody’s watching. They’re just listening.

Vicky Bates: [00:08:04] But anyway, those are good tears. And so he’s he’s in heaven. And, um, so he was, um, a lot of the reason why I decided because I, um, was able to help my brother and his wife a little bit with their house cleaning by sending some help when he was going through that journey. So, um, so we have been providing, you know, those services for about, um, seven years now because it was a couple of years later that I found out about them when I, um, first was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Brian Pruett: [00:08:37] So, so could you, uh, somebody might be listening again. You don’t know who. Never know who’s listening, who might be going through this kind of the same journey. Could you just give somebody some some advice on, you know, uh, just a little bit of glimpse of I mean, you’ve already talked about a little glimpse of hope, just kind of what to do and maybe who to. I’m sure people talking to and reaching out is something to do, but what what can you give some advice on?

Vicky Bates: [00:08:58] So I guess more specifically, when you find out you’ve been diagnosed with an illness, I always recommend that you listen to your doctors, of course, but to also do your homework and do your research and find out what some other options might be. How can you get healthier for some of the treatment coming up? I mean, I have a good friend, Susan Guthrie, that, um, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me. Sharon had a double mastectomy recently, and it runs in her family. That was a very aggressive form of breast cancer. She had to do what she had to do. Mine was not aggressive. Mine was the best kind to have. But I had to pay attention. And I was glad I didn’t go through the chemo and the radiation because that’s really, really harsh on your body. Um, but I just recommend that, um, that’s a good time to really, um, to really deepen your prayer life, um, and find out who your support system is. Um, surround yourself with others that can give you some of their experience and advice. So I did that with my friend Sue Madison, who was an exercise, um, instructor at the Y. Um, over in Kennesaw. Kennesaw at cornerstone. And, um, and then, of course, I read some information she recommended, which was Suzanne Somers, like I said before. So I just did a lot of reading and so recommend, man, just when you find out what that diagnosis was, do your research all about it and find out what others have done. Find out what your options are.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:30] And I think the support system is huge because a lot of people, uh, I know some folks who just want to curl up in the corner and shut everybody out, and that’s not not what you should do. So reach out to some folks. And I mean, we’re all community. We’re here together, help support each other. So, um, so, by the way, I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but go owls. I’m an alumni from KSU, and I actually spent some time working in the, uh, office where the sports. Exercise physiologist professors are. So how long has your husband been there?

Vicky Bates: [00:10:58] Gosh, he’s been there about 15 years. It’s the nursing college. It’s in the nursing college building.

Brian Pruett: [00:11:03] Yeah. So when I was there, it was actually in where the gym is. So they moved. So, um. All right, so I had mentioned that you and I met, uh, doing some networking. So that’s one of the things we talk about on here is networking. And, um, I’ve been networking Atlanta now for about 30 years. And there’s, there’s always some bad things, but there’s more good things if you do it right. Uh, you got a positive story you can share about networking?

Vicky Bates: [00:11:26] Oh, absolutely. Um, I think a lot of people go into networking thinking what they’re going to get out of it, and about how many business cards they’re going to hand out. And I’ve learned it’s really not about you. I mean, in a roundabout way, what goes around comes around. That’s true. So what can you give to that networking group? What can you provide and how can you help others in that group? Um, I think so many people that are in networking, um, oftentimes are new in their, um, their job or the company they’re representing or their business. And so oftentimes they’re a little awkward when they go into a group. So sometimes I’ll look in that room for someone that looks like they’re just alone. And I’ll go up and speak with them. I always highly recommend look for that person that’s trying to hold up that corner of the two walls over there and introduce yourself, and instead of giving your card out, ask for theirs. Find out a little bit, a little bit about them. And you can always, um, text or email and share information about your company, your business, or how you can help later. I really think in the moment it’s about it’s about others.

Brian Pruett: [00:12:38] And so I hope other people are listening because we I talk about that all the time. Don’t go in and try to sell something because it’s you’re not going to do it. You got to learn about the other person, take interest in them. And as you said, what goes around comes around. So, um, you’ve been generous when you first met to donate something for a prize at one of my trivia shows last, actually, it was in October. Mhm. Um, and then since then you’ve actually jumped on board to be one of my deluxe sponsors for the trivia for the, for this year. So first of all, thank you for doing that. Um, but I wanted to ask you, other than the fact that, uh, you’ve gone through your journey with breast cancer and stuff like that and you had the, the support around you, but why is it important for you to be part of the community.

Vicky Bates: [00:13:17] Um, part of the community, because we’re not meant to live on an island by ourselves. Um, and in the community where you give back. So I. I read this little book one time and now I can’t remember the name of it, but it was about your. Your crowns that are. Well, your blessings that you’re going to receive in heaven. And I’m a believer, and I know where I’m leaving and where I’m going when my time is up here, I know where I’m going to be. And so that’s where we’re going to hear all the hallelujahs. And so we might not always feel them or hear them here, but I know that the least little thing that I can input in someone’s life. I’d rather it not be seen, because I know my Heavenly Father is going to see that. And I know two and hope that it blesses that person. Just, um, just a gentle hug or just an eye contact, um, a handshake, telling someone, you know, you’ve got just a beautiful smile. You should do that more. Tell my husband, I said, you know, you’ve just got this handsome smile. You should do that a lot. And, um, because he really does. So, um. That’s just kind of how I feel about that.

Brian Pruett: [00:14:35] All right, well, uh, you can obviously tell you enjoy having a good time as well, because you and your team Wednesday night were having a good time.

Vicky Bates: [00:14:42] Oh, yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:14:43] And we’ll get you out there. Right. We’re going to get you out there for trivia. So, um, so, uh, Vicki, let’s talk a little bit about Made in America. We talked a little bit, just a little bit about it. But first of all, I want to know how you came up with the name because I obviously I like the name Made in America. Obviously it’s made not mad, but Shirley, but how you came up with the name and then we’ll talk about more of the business. Well, I.

Vicky Bates: [00:15:02] Better make sure my ex-husband hears this because he’s the one that gave me the name my daughter’s dad. And, um, he has always teased me. He said, you know, I’m going to get some rights to that one of these days.

Brian Pruett: [00:15:12] Oh, there you go.

Vicky Bates: [00:15:12] Um, so he came up with it, not me.

Brian Pruett: [00:15:14] All right. Um, well, so, uh, uh, is it just residential? You do commercial as well?

Vicky Bates: [00:15:20] Oh, we do residential. Um, uh, we specialize in residential, but we are just now expanding our commercial division. Um, so, um, which would be offices, uh, facilities in, um, larger commercial industrial areas where they have, you know, break rooms, bathrooms, offices, um, that type of commercial and then, um, and then we also serve um hoa, um, community amenities. So if you’ve got a neighborhood you live in that has a large clubhouse and some bathrooms, pool, bathrooms, um, we have several accounts that we serve there, and we really love those accounts. Um, so those are the majority of the areas that we service.

Brian Pruett: [00:16:07] Okay. And what part of metro Atlanta where all do you serve?

Vicky Bates: [00:16:09] Okay. So we serve all of Paulding County and cities around. So let me just describe this or tell you the cities, because it’s not every city within all the counties around. So um, so Acworth and Kennesaw hub, um, and I did start in Paulding County, so that would be Dallas and Hiram, um, parts of Douglasville that go into Paulding County. Um, and then, of course, Powder Springs, you wrap yourself around to, um, um, parts of Marietta. We go to northern and western Marietta. We don’t go into eastern South Cobb. Um, and so we also. So we also serve Woodstock and Canton, I think Holly Springs. So I think I did a big circle. Hope I didn’t miss anything. There you go. Cartersville. Oh my goodness Cartersville. How did I miss that right. Love Cartersville and Emerson. Um, and so those areas of Bartow County.

Brian Pruett: [00:17:07] Okay. Um, so do you have any advice you can give some people who just love clutter?

Vicky Bates: [00:17:14] Love clutter? Why? Do you know what’s growing inside of clutter?

Brian Pruett: [00:17:19] Obviously they don’t. So just just give some tips on some cleaning. And you know, obviously other than hiring you, what can people do to kind of, you know, keep it from getting to that point?

Vicky Bates: [00:17:28] Well, work on it, um, one day at a time. So I recommend getting, um, a project list. Um, that helps me a lot. But if you what really helps is when you hire a cleaning professional cleaning service that should free up your time for the projects. And so we all have those projects, those spring cleaning projects where we’ve got to attack that closet, we’ve got to attack that catchall table that’s got all kinds of stuff. If I could tell you the stuff that my technicians see, I’m like, I’m glad they hired me. Now they can get rid of some of that. But it’s just you just got to, like, put it into bite sized pieces. You can’t just go at it all in one day. So you just got to break it down.

Brian Pruett: [00:18:09] So folks who might not have ever used a cleaning service and they have tables like you just went with stuff on it, but specifically stacks of stacks of paper and all that. How do you guys go about, do you guys throw just throw stuff away, or do you kind of organize it so people can go through that?

Vicky Bates: [00:18:24] And, well, I’m going to tell you, no, we don’t. When you walk into someone’s office space, you’ve got to respect the office space. So if you came in my office, I have stacks. I don’t want them touched or moved. And this stack represents one thing and this stack represents another. And if you were to walk into my husband’s office. Well, there are stacks on the floor, stacks on the credenza, but he knows what’s in those stacks. And so they’re there for a reason and a purpose. So we respect that and we will clean around that. But when we go into other areas where you’ve got a kitchen table and a few things, we’re going to move as much as we can. But we do want to respect someone’s working space, right?

Brian Pruett: [00:19:07] Yeah. Um, what all is involved in the cleaning? What all do you guys do?

Vicky Bates: [00:19:12] Um, pretty much anything that’s not a liability to my technician. Um, where she’s not climbing, um, or she’s exposed to hazardous, hazardous, um, material. You know, if there’s a room that, um, has, you know, animal droppings and that kind of thing, we’re not. I’m not going to make her do anything that I would not want to do, but, um, so it’s pretty much all the surfaces in the kitchens and bathrooms or bathrooms specialists. So we know to disinfect in those areas. Um, and we don’t just clean around and cut corners, we actually move things. Um, and it’s a top to bottom scrub. All of my technicians have gone through a cleaning excellence program through Made in America. Um, before I even I do want to tell you how I hire this is really important. So before, when I’m interviewing someone, um, of course, we check all of our technicians when we hire them, their background through a national, um, background service. So there’s a whole vetting process. Um, and so before I hire someone, I feel like she’s first I hire people that have experience, I have her clean my house, and she gets me a three hour sample of her cleaning skills. And if for any reason, I see stuff that I feel like is not trainable, I’m not going to hire her. But, um, that’s where we start. And then the next day, she goes out into the fields with one of my three, um, well, four trainers, one of my four trainers, just the two of them. They spend a day cleaning about three, 2 or 3 clients homes. Um, she, um, and then after that, she’s able to go out by herself. So we don’t do team cleaning. It’s solo cleaning. So there’s no bumping elbows. Um, there’s no rotating faces like you would see in a team.

Vicky Bates: [00:20:54] And, um, and then there’s more rapport built between my employee and that client. That client. The other thing, too, there are a lot of companies that use subcontractors, and we don’t all of our cleaning specialists are calling my cleaning angels are actually employees, so we take good care of them. And, um, another way we take care of them. So they take care of my clients is we pay them well, I make a lower profit margin and pay my technicians probably more than I would get paid if I were the one doing the hourly cleaning. And so we have less of a turnover and more loyalty. Um, so but back to the cleaning. So it’s pretty much everything. We have a list of what’s considered basics, what most people want day to day. Um, we have what a lot of people start with, which is our most popular cleaning. It’s called the deluxe top to bottom. It touches a lot of high and low surfaces. It’s kind of like a big spring cleaning. Um, and then we have an add on, you know, list, so no clients. Cleaning profile is the same. I mean, we got a basic list. Um, and then I customize as needed. So I tell my clients, hey, this is your cleaning, not mine. So there’s my basics. That’s the foundations. Is there anything you want to add or take from that? And so that’s what we do. But the liability part if there’s China crystal, that kind of thing, we’re not going to touch grandma’s stuff because you can’t replace that. And my clients know that. Um, and the other liability would be to my technician not climbing on anything below beyond one step or bunk beds, because her health and her safety is important. Right.

Brian Pruett: [00:22:35] Can you give somebody an idea of what the basic package is and looks like and then maybe what an add on is?

Vicky Bates: [00:22:40] Okay, so basics would be cleaning all of your countertops, your faucets, your sinks and detailing, not cursory cleaning. It’s going to be um, um, some of the the cabinets. It’s going to be the outside of all your appliances, the inside of your microwave, your tables, your furniture, your knickknacks. Um, we specialize in floor cleaning. So, um, the sweeping and mopping and, hey, with our floors, we use a company called a private company called Norwex. And that’s they carry some of the highest fiber on the planet. So after Christmas, when all the throw up is there, the glitter, the tinsel and everything. So it grabs all the glitter that a regular mop or broom won’t, won’t pick up. So we use pretty expensive cleaning products and materials and um, of course, dressing, making beds. Um, we’re specialists in the bathroom, so top to bottom, tub showers, toilets inside out, disinfected. Um, and we now make our own disinfectant, um, so that we know that it’s more nontoxic. Um, and then, of course, mirrors and, um, um, cobwebs, uh, shutters, blinds, window seals, uh, light fixtures, ceiling fans, wall vents and then add ons will be things like thoroughly washing your baseboards. Most people don’t want that every visit, right? So why make an ongoing service impractical? Because you’re going to get charged for that. So I try to make it real practical. So the add ons would be like washing baseboards, washing doors, door frames, um, washing walls, um, fully washing cabinets top to bottom. Most people, most people don’t want their cabinets or need them washed top to bottom every visit. So it’s an add on. So we try to just keep it real practical. So a windows we do we do the interior windows. Um your garage if you need your garage swept a mop that can be an add on. So there you go.

Brian Pruett: [00:24:37] There you go. Um, so what um, I just had a question and went out of my head. Um, yeah. Um, so when you guys are cleaning and, and, uh, working with individuals, what, um, how often would you recommend somebody do you guys do, like, packages or do you do it one time or what does that look like?

Vicky Bates: [00:24:58] Everybody’s different. So the majority of our cleaning, um, clients are bi weekly, have a lot that are just monthly and have quite a few that are weekly. And then we have our occasionals that call us when they need it. Um, so it really is up to that household. If you’ve got, um, a lot of kids, you’re probably going to need it more often. Okay? And everybody has a budget, so it depends on that.

Brian Pruett: [00:25:22] Okay. So if somebody listening wants to get a hold of you for your services, how can they do that?

Vicky Bates: [00:25:26] They can call me. Um, so my number is 770. Well, don’t call me right now because I’m busy, but it’s forwarded anyway. My business manager gets it, but it’s (770) 427-4448. You can also text me. You can also go on our website if you want to get a free cleaning quote. Um, go to made Made in America and that’s I in America. And then GA as in Georgia. Don’t forget that part because you’ll get the wrong cleaning service. So it’s made in America. Ga. Com and forward slash quote will take you over to a three minute, um, form to fill out, submit it, and then I’ll get back to that person with a quote.

Brian Pruett: [00:26:07] Awesome. So I do have a question on on how you guys do the quote, because that kind of brings up a question in my mind. Anyway, um, without looking at the, the the space, how do you guys go about doing a quote?

Vicky Bates: [00:26:18] So without looking at it, um, I’m pretty good at ballparks and so I can give good ballpark. I can also show it to give an exact quote. But when you’re doing a first time cleaning, it’s really hard to know how long a technician is going to be there, because you can walk through and see it with your eyeballs. But when unless you’re down on your hands and knees cleaning it, um, um, time is money. And so we charge for time. And so I give a good ballpark on how long we feel like it may take. To clean the first visit. And then once we’ve cleaned that first visit, I have a little follow up, um, that I send to that client first, want to make sure they were happy. Then I have a follow up to the technician, and that follow up system that I use helps me to give them an exact quote for what their cleaning would be every time.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:08] Um, so you you actually are going to be part of something coming up this Thursday. Mhm. You want to share about it.

Vicky Bates: [00:27:15] Oh yes. I’m really looking forward to that. That is the second annual. Is that right. Yep. Okay. Um Acworth Business Expo and yeah I appreciate you inviting me. I’m looking forward to it.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:27] Um, so come check out Vicki and her her booth. It’s going to be 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday night at the Acworth Community Center. So got any you want to get? You got any surprises coming up? You gonna do anything surprising there? No magic tricks or nothing.

Vicky Bates: [00:27:40] Oh, I try not to do magic.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:43] Show off your your bionic hip.

Vicky Bates: [00:27:45] Oh, that would be really a disaster right now. Nothing magical there.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:49] All right. Yeah. So just come by, check her out. We got about 32 vendors right now. There’s still some time to sign up as well. If you guys want to sign up, you can reach out to me, Brian at B’s. That’s B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. So Vicki, thanks for coming on and sharing a little bit of your story. Don’t go anywhere. We’re not done. But um, I’m going to move over now to Anna Bostwick right. Yeah. And Liz uh, sure. Do it again because I’ve already forgotten how you say it.

Anna Bostwick: [00:28:14] How you say your last name. Liz.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:28:16] Oh, Cicerchia.

Brian Pruett: [00:28:17] Cicerchia. Don’t see, I had to totally mess that up. But you guys are with ESP. You and me, right? Correct. Yeah. So, um, for. We’ll get into that in just a second, but, um, we’ll start with you and I. Can you share a little bit about your background?

Anna Bostwick: [00:28:30] Yeah, yeah. Um, first off, thanks for having us. We’re really excited to be here. Liz and I are pumped, excited to share the mission of ESP and grateful for this opportunity. Um, a little bit about me. I’m from South Georgia, uh, born and raised in Swainsboro and then went to the University of Georgia, where I graduated with a degree in special education and an emphasis in adaptive curriculum. Go Dawgs. You know, still feel like we should have made the playoffs, but that’s for another conversation.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:28:57] I agree.

Brian Pruett: [00:28:59] Um, I don’t, but we won’t talk about.

Anna Bostwick: [00:29:01] Yeah, that’s okay. We’ll drop that. We’re good friends right now. Yeah. So I graduated from the University of Georgia. Um, that’s how I kind of got involved with the ESP. What started as me having to meet credit hours and get volunteer hours for my major of special education, and volunteering with ESP quickly became something that I just picked up doing in my spare time, because the minute I walked through the door, I was able to see how special it was and, um, how much the mission was really impacting the lives of so many families and so many participants, and really changing that community of Watkinsville Athens for the better. Um, so graduated from the University of Georgia, went on to teach for five years in between Athens and DeKalb County. I taught self-contained special ed, really enjoyed certain aspects of it. But around the fourth year I started really noticing that the skills which I actually kind of noticed during the pandemic, when we were taken out of the schools and were teaching from home, what I missed the most was the interaction between myself and my families and my students that I was teaching in person every day, and I really realized how much I missed that and that the the connection was the piece that I really enjoyed. So about that fourth year, I started thinking about what my career could look like after that. So insert ESP, I started emailing some people and lucky enough they were expanding or relaunching in Atlanta. So I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. That’s a go into a whole story about that and talk about tissues. I would need them. Um, talk about God. Thank. Put me where I needed to be at the right time. But, um, yeah. So I started there about a year and a half ago, going on two years, started as a program coordinator and have transitioned into a program manager and get to work every day with people like Liz and, um, really cool people who have taught me more about myself and teach me a lot more than I’m able to teach them every single day.

Brian Pruett: [00:30:58] So you shared a little with me about, uh, some yesterday when you, you and I sat down and, uh, she was talking about you, Liz, a lot.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:31:05] Oh, wow.

Brian Pruett: [00:31:06] So, uh, she said you’re the, uh, the first original what we coffee person, right? Or something like.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:31:12] That? Um, yes, I am the first original. Um, we actually call it, um, juristas. It’s like barista, but with adding joy.

Brian Pruett: [00:31:24] Nice, nice. Can you share a little bit more about that? What do you guys do?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:31:32] Um, I actually at first initially I did start out. I first heard about it through a good friend of mine who I know really well, who has been part of ESP. Then he was like, okay, I should get more involved with this. In urban, more involved with it in an Athens since 2005.

Anna Bostwick: [00:31:58] What about Liz? What a joy. Sisters do. Like, who do we work for? What’s the company you work for?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:32:03] It’s actually called Java Joy. Okay.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:07] And do you guys? Is it like a mobile thing or do you go into a facility or both?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:32:12] We actually are mobile, but we do have a permit place at the, um, Mercedes-Benz, which I highly recommend. I’m going, by the way.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:21] So if you go down and see the Falcons of the United, make sure you go see Liz.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:32:24] Yes.

Anna Bostwick: [00:32:25] Kart 116.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:27] Nice. Awesome. So Anna, let’s uh, talk a little bit. First of all, I’m curious about the name. Do you know a little bit how the name came about for the the foundation for ESP?

Anna Bostwick: [00:32:37] Um, so it stands for Extra Special People. And that’s exactly who we serve. We? Yes, we serve people that have unique abilities, um, that are unique in their own way. And we really, um, like to exemplify the fact that we celebrate those disabilities and the abilities of all people and that it’s not something to shy away from. It’s something to be proud of when you have something that’s unique about yourself. So we really celebrate all of our participants and our families in every single way, which is exactly what the name sounds like.

Brian Pruett: [00:33:07] Extra special people, right? And I like the you and me part right there in that too. So, uh, that’s really cool. And I also like the, the participants aspect of it. Right. Because, uh, as you mentioned, it is one of the, uh, I guess, uh, people in society kind of look down on folks like that, and they’re all, we’re all human. Yeah, right. So, um, Liz, what’s your favorite part about being a part of ESP? What do you what do you like doing the best?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:33:32] Oh, wow. For me with the power of ESP and Java Joy, I made some great lifelong friends.

Brian Pruett: [00:33:46] Awesome. That’s awesome. And you said you’ve been with since 2005. Is that right? Yes. Awesome. So, Anna, share a little bit. You told me yesterday about some of the programs you guys do. Can you talk a little bit about those?

Anna Bostwick: [00:33:58] Yeah, absolutely. Um, Liz filled chime in anytime you want to, girl. Okay. Um, so we have a couple of different things that we do. We have some umbrellas that we like to call them under. We have 360. Hooray! And then Java Joy 360 is, um, our events that we do once a month. We call them club events. It’s a way for our participants to be able to really have a social two hours and be able to mingle with their peers. We’re doing a really fun one coming up on the 26th. Do you remember what it is, Liz?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:34:29] This one actually coming up on this coming Sunday. Oh yeah.

Anna Bostwick: [00:34:32] We are having one on Sunday, which we’ve had a great partnership with Elite Skills and Fitness, which is a local business in the Marietta area, and they have welcomed us in and are providing karate lessons for our participants this Sunday. But next week we are having a masquerade ball to kind of kick off Mardi Gras and get in the get in the spirit of that. Um, but yeah, we do club events once a month. And it is not only is it a way for our participants to be able to hang out and just do what anybody else would do on a Friday night, but it’s also built in respite for our parents. It allows our parents to be able to go out to dinner with their friends or, you know, go grocery shopping or fold the the load of laundry that’s sitting on the rocking chair that they haven’t gotten to. It’s really, um, two birds with one stone kind of situation. We also do family support, which that can look lots of different ways. It can go from helping a family that’s struggling with, you know, keeping their lights on to providing a free meal after a surgery or something like that, and also family dinners once a month where we invite every single one of our families, new and current, to come in. It’s a free meal. It’s a really informal setting for our families just to be able to chit chat, get to know one another, talk and mingle in.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:35:44] A some training as well.

Anna Bostwick: [00:35:45] Yeah, some training sometimes. Um, it’s really a way for our participants and our families to get to know each other. I always say the people that can talk the highest of ESP and that can advocate for us the most, are our families that have been a part of it for so long. They’re the ones that can really spread the mission and speak to how it’s changed their lives directly. Yes. But yeah, so that is some things that we do with our 360 programing. And then we also have hooray, which is our camp portion of ESP. We have eight weeks of day camp in Athens, Georgia or in Watkinsville, and two weeks of camp in Rome and in Atlanta, Georgia. We’re really excited to say that we are having our first summer camp in Atlanta this summer. So yeah, two weeks of that to look forward to. We get to partner with the YMCA of the McClusky YMCA in Marietta and also the Georgia Highlands College, um, in Marietta, the campus. So really, really excited for the.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:36:41] Sometimes it’s sometimes KSU as well.

Anna Bostwick: [00:36:43] Yes, yes. Um, and then we have Java Joy, which is what kind of Liz was talking about and referencing earlier. It is our way to provide meaningful employment to adults with disabilities. Um, it’s really how we launch in new cities and how we expand. It’s a way to push forward our mission. Um, we recognize that 87% of adults with disabilities are able to work and do not have the opportunity to work, and lots of times it’s great opportunity, any, any kind of employment opportunity for our adults with disabilities. But we wanted to make sure that they were forward facing and have the ability to engage with community members and really, you know, advocate for themselves. I think everybody can tell that Liz is perfectly capable of talking and being able to express what she’s thinking and feeling and has all the skills to be able to do that. And we want her to be able to provide a space for that. So Java Joy, we really are. We are a mobile coffee cart that goes into metropolitan Atlanta. We serve all areas of Atlanta, really. We go into the we really disrupt the workday. We go in and be and able to form those meaningful connections with adults and different places that may not have the opportunity or have ever had the chance to interact with somebody with a disability. And it’s a way to show that like, hey, we’re just like you. We are normal. We can do everything you can do. We are just here to kind of advocate for our participants and allow them to do that themselves. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:38:06] Now there is a specific age range you guys work with. Are you guys work with all ages?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:38:10] Um, it is all ages. But in order to be a barista, you had to be 18 and over, all right.

Anna Bostwick: [00:38:16] Correct? Correct. So like Liz said, we serve all ages zero to no upper age limit. Our oldest participant right now is in Athens, and she’s in her 60s and our youngest is probably four months old. Um, wow. We really pride ourselves on being able to accept everybody at the stage of life that they’re in. And we also accept all disabilities. So whether. You have ADHD or down syndrome or cerebral palsy, you are welcome in ESPs doors and not only welcome, but you are going to be celebrated from the moment you walk in until the moment you leave.

Brian Pruett: [00:38:45] Awesome. So, um, you probably already mentioned this, but share again the areas that you guys are in.

Anna Bostwick: [00:38:51] Yeah, yeah. So right now, specifically in Atlanta, we are localized in the Marietta community where we are doing Liz’s from Marietta. So she loves it. It’s in her backyard. Um, we are localized in the Marietta community where we are doing all of our 360 programing that I mentioned earlier, like our club events, our family dinners, stuff like that. But we also we welcome families. Although we’re localized in Marietta, we have families that are driving from Stone mountain, from Buckhead, Brookhaven, all over the metropolitan area, and Java Joy, like I said earlier, you know, really serves all of Atlanta. So anywhere that’ll book us, we are. We will. Like I said, we’re mobile. We can hitch the trailer to a car and we are on the road. It takes. Liz has had some early, early mornings. I think we served. We had the privilege last week of serving the Georgia Chamber of Commerce at exit issues at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. And what was that wake up call, Liz about 3 a.m., something like that.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:39:44] Yeah.

Anna Bostwick: [00:39:44] Yeah, yeah. Early.

Brian Pruett: [00:39:45] You just stayed up all night, right?

Anna Bostwick: [00:39:47] Early wake up call, but worth every second. We really enjoy it. Um, but then is as far as statewide, we have our original location that started in Watkinsville, Georgia. It has. It’s about 37 years old. We’ve been here for a while now, and it’s really flourished from where we were serving about 15 families to where I think it’s 900 families now in Athens. So we’re serving, um, over over 1100 families statewide right now. And then our other, um, city that we serve currently is in Rome, Georgia. So kind of Dallas area is a halfway point. Um, but yeah. So we’re currently just, uh, reiterate in Rome, Watkinsville and the Marietta area.

Brian Pruett: [00:40:27] So you shared with me the story yesterday, too, of the, uh, the CEO. Now that how she took over, could you share that? Because that’s pretty incredible. Yeah, yeah.

Anna Bostwick: [00:40:34] Yeah, I love sharing.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:40:36] Actually. She’s actually a personal friend of mine that I’ve known for much longer than Ispy actually first started. Yeah.

Anna Bostwick: [00:40:46] Awesome. Yeah. Liz, Liz and LA are very close. Um, but yeah, I think Laura’s story is truly just a testament to the person that she is and how, um, I think you can look at ESP from where it started and where it is now to see how much it truly means to her. But just a little about that. She, um, Martha Wiley was our founder of ESP. She started it just because she saw a need for the community of people with disabilities to be able to gather on a regular basis, that there’s not really anything for them to do after school. There was no social activities or anything for them to participate in, and she saw a need for that. So she would meet anywhere where there was a prison parking lot, church parking lot. Um, she just needed some space. So that started. They had summer camp. Um, and then I won’t get into all the nitty gritty about all of that, but Laura was not ten years old. She was a sophomore in college, and Miss Martha, unfortunately, was diagnosed with cancer and sat them down and told them that this was it essentially, um, that if ESP was going to continue, it was up to them. And she handpicked Laura at 19 years old, old to take over esp um, Miss Martha unfortunately did pass away, but she left, in my opinion, esp to the only person that could have done with it. What they did. Laura, like I said, was 19, took over, she became a student and uh, um, executive director overnight. And she turned ESPN to what it is today. She is still currently our CEO. She has been in Leadership Atlanta. She is um, you can see her all over. She has a podcast or is working on getting a podcast. She’s working on a book deal. Um, she’s just great and has been such a driving force with ESP and truly has a heart for serving our participants and making sure that they are getting equal opportunity in this world.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:32] That’s awesome. So you and I met on January 2nd at a referral rally. Yeah, yeah. So obviously you do some networking as well. So, uh, share a positive story of networking for you.

Anna Bostwick: [00:42:42] So networking like I said, we have actually I don’t know if I did say it. We have just come to the Marietta area in March of 2023. So we haven’t been here even a even a year yet. Um, but it’s been great. So networking has been something that’s been very new and something that we’ve had to really lean into since we’ve been in Marietta to make sure that our name is out in the community. But just I mean, the referral rally was so positive in itself. So many positive experience like yourself came out of it. And I just have to reiterate what you said earlier about it was so important to listen to people as they were explaining what that they did and not try to push your name forward, but really figure out ways that you could help. Um, that naturally, I feel like comes for employees of ESP to be the people that help and support and do things like that. So it’s been great just to be able to provide that kind of, um, experiences for people and how wonderful it’s been to be a part of the community and really get our name.

Brian Pruett: [00:43:36] Out there. So. So, Liz, I have a question for you. What’s the you said you made some really lifelong friends from from this. What’s a what’s a favorite thing for you of meeting new people.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:43:46] Um between new people and and also old friends as well. Um, most of them actually do live in Athens, which I really want to live there, by the way.

Anna Bostwick: [00:44:03] What’s your favorite part? Liz, what’s your favorite part of meeting new people?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:44:11] For me. I just say I’ll just mean for me. Like me, like I’ll be like saying, hi, how are you? Mhm. Just the.

Brian Pruett: [00:44:19] Simple things.

Anna Bostwick: [00:44:20] Yeah Liz is great at making connection and just getting anybody to talk. She has no problem. And being the first one to speak up. Um she is I mean there’s a reason why I supposed to be here today. She is great at spreading the mission and just making people feel extremely.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:44:34] And we do have a great team with Hayden, Emma Barton and Hayden and Taylor. Mhm.

Anna Bostwick: [00:44:40] Yep.

Vicky Bates: [00:44:41] Awesome, awesome. She’s got a great handshake.

Anna Bostwick: [00:44:43] She does have a great handshake. She does.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:44:46] We also do give hugs. Yes.

Anna Bostwick: [00:44:48] So that is something that Java Joy does. As we say. You get your cup of coffee and then you get a hug. Um I think Laura talks about this all the time, and she’s going to kill me for not knowing the right number, but I want to say it’s eight hugs a day that you have to get nice. That does like something for your that releases some endorphin in your brain. So Java Joy likes to fill that gap and likes to make sure that we are providing those hugs and a cup of coffee to start out your day.

Brian Pruett: [00:45:11] So, speaking of hugs, uh, March 21st I’m doing another. It’s a it’s called the America’s Hometown Hero Expo, and it’s veteran and first responder owned businesses and businesses that want to hire them and and just support them. But we have a group coming and they were on the show, uh, a few a couple months ago called paws for life. And they’re bringing Rufus out, and Rufus gives hugs. So if you want a hug from Rufus, come on March 21st to the Acworth Community Center. Now, Rufus, when he stands on his hind legs, is looking you in the eye. Okay? His front paws are on your shoulders. He’s literally giving you a hug. I’ve got some pictures. I’m getting a hug from Rufus. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m getting a hug from Rufus. That’s just awesome.

Anna Bostwick: [00:45:50] Yeah, yeah, I think I put Liz and Rufus up against one another. Yeah, well.

Brian Pruett: [00:45:55] You guys will have to be there to get because we’re going to have a booth. That all it is, is come get hugs from Rufus. Oh that’s awesome. Liz can come and get your hugs from Liz and Rufus. Cool, cool. There you go. So, uh, and let me ask you this, um, you shared just a little bit already, but why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Anna Bostwick: [00:46:11] Um, our mission. I’ll just go ahead and say it is to create transformative experiences for people with disabilities and their families while we’re changing communities for the better. So it’s in our mission statement to make sure that, yes, we’re serving people with disabilities and their family, but we’re also serving our community on a daily basis. It’s a way, in my opinion, I feel like you’re fulfilling God’s mission and God’s Word when you are, um, serving people that aren’t like you in a in a way. So it’s a way just for people in our community to be able to serve their community and be able to be a part of ESP. I always call it you get bit by the bug. Once you come to one ESP event, you’re going to come back to a second. It is truly a magical experience, so it’s just important for us to have the community involved, to really buy in and to lean in to our mission and be able to be a part of something that’s really unique and really special. Um, we’re excited, like I said, to be in Marietta, we’re pretty new here, which I’m again, so grateful to have this opportunity to be able to kind of spread our mission and spread the word and get people to know about ESP a little bit more from this area. But the community is a big part of that. We can’t do this without community members. We can’t do this without the support of the community. So it’s important for us to be a part in every way that we can and to have people joining us.

Brian Pruett: [00:47:24] So. So, Liz, do you uh, obviously you love giving hugs. Yes. And that that can make anybody smile anyway. But you smiling and giving hugs, I’m sure, uh, brightens anybody’s day. But why do you like being in the community?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:47:38] Uh. For me. The for me, being a community is a I can do more. Mhm.

Brian Pruett: [00:47:48] Mhm. There you go.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:47:49] Yeah. And plus with, with being a barista you actually start out with a actually a brown apron not a right. Because you have to get 20 hours before you get your white apron with your name on it. Mhm.

Anna Bostwick: [00:48:04] Mhm. This is exactly right Java Joy. It’s treated just like any other job. There’s an interview process. There’s a training period and we take it very seriously. There’s job improvement. We have professional development. We have all that fun stuff. So we treat our jewelry pieces just like you would treat any other employee. But Liz is exactly correct. And you have graduated to your white apron, haven’t you, girl I.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:48:25] Have, yes, we have a thing called, um, a white apron ceremony when they fulfill their. I’m going three hours. We do a white apron ceremony and and usually a. Senior priestess. We give it to them. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:48:41] That’s right. Awesome. Well, I can tell you, if you gave me a white apron, it’d be stained pretty quickly. I spill stuff. That’s why they made.

Anna Bostwick: [00:48:47] Bleach, right?

Brian Pruett: [00:48:48] Yes. So, Anna, how can other than the financial aspect of it, how can individuals and businesses get involved with the ESP? Absolutely.

Anna Bostwick: [00:48:56] Um, volunteers we need we are serving so many participants right now, and, um, our families are just really flocking to ESP, which is I think it’s a testament to how much our families need the services that we’re providing, and they need that support group that’s built in within ESP. So a great and easy and free way to get involved in ESP is just to come volunteer. You can find what we are doing on our Facebook page ESP Atlanta. Or you can go to our website esp UNM, org.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:49:27] And Instagram and.

Anna Bostwick: [00:49:29] Instagram. You’re right esp Atlanta, we have our own Instagram page. Um, Liz is a frequent, um, source or subject of our Instagram page and on our posts. But, um, yeah, I would just say that volunteer is really where we need our community members, and it is a easy way to be able to see the mission in action and be able to see the way that we are transforming the lives of our participants and our families. Yes, obviously the financial support, we’re a nonprofit. We can’t do it without that financial support. So it’s a great way we always invite people to come volunteer to kind of, um, see what we’re doing, and then they want to give us their money after they see it, because they truly do see how special it is and how wonderful the things that we’re doing are.

Brian Pruett: [00:50:13] Do you, uh, you mentioned something that’s coming up Sunday now, but you had some other events that’s coming up pretty soon too. Do you want to share about that?

Anna Bostwick: [00:50:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, a way to for families, if any families are listening that have a child or an adult with a disability or know somebody that has a family member with a disability, you can fill out our new family interest form by by going to ESP, um, org. Um, but yeah, some of the events we have coming up this Sunday, like I mentioned, from three to 2 to 4, we are having a karate class at Elite Skills Fitness on January 26th. We are having a masquerade ball at another wonderful, great partnership that we’ve been able to form here in Marietta. We are currently housing our office space and all of our programs, club events, family dinners, things like that out of First United Methodist Church of Marietta, which they’ve been wonderful, great host, um, great connections, but that’ll be on the 26th, that masquerade ball and then followed on the 31st of January. We will have our family dinner.

Brian Pruett: [00:51:13] Yeah. Awesome. So I do have another question. Um, if somebody is listening and maybe new to having, uh, somebody in their life that, you know, has special needs, what kind of advice can you give them?

Anna Bostwick: [00:51:27] Um, I actually have a stepbrother with down syndrome, so I don’t even know if we were able to chat about that yesterday. But the advice I could give you is that you’ve hit the jackpot, in my opinion. Um, I always say my stepbrother’s name is Seth, and that if everyone in the world could be a little bit more like Seth, the world would be a much better place. Um, I think you look at it as obviously your life is going to look very different. You’re not going to be able to have the same things that you maybe dreamed of for your neurotypical child, but man, oh man, the experience that you’re going to have with a child with a disability are completely unique, but so special in their own ways. And really, um, I think that they are the gifts from heaven to be able to have the ability and the opportunity and the privilege, in my opinion, to be able to have that experience of working with somebody and being able to have a family member with a disability is just really special. So my advice would just be, you know, don’t look at it as an opportunity that’s being taken from you would be looking at it as an opportunity that some people never get the chance to have, and that it really is unique in its own way.

Brian Pruett: [00:52:34] Another thing that I would say, and this goes for anything, but also don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Anna Bostwick: [00:52:37] Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, that’s a big part of ESP is that we have we haven’t launched the program here in Marietta or in Atlanta yet. It’s called ES play. It is a way for our babies. We like to call them 0 to 3 years of age to be able to gather. They participate in music therapy, and it’s a way for our children to be able to start building that support system, but also our families. Um, I can’t imagine going home. Well, I need to start imagining I’m actually, you know, uh, me and my husband are welcoming a baby boy this summer, so really excited about that. Thanks. Thanks, but I can’t. I’m trying to slowly wrap my head about it. I guess it’s coming one way or the other. Leaving a hospital with a child, much less leaving a hospital with a child with a disability. You’re really just kind of sent with no resources and nothing to be able to tap into and no support system. So ES play ESP recognized that and created ES play to be a place for that. These families can come and have that support system right out of the bat. We have some mothers that are still. Found out that their child is going to have down syndrome. Um, so we want to provide that space of support and that space of community for our families to be able to ask questions and have a the opportunity to really seek help in any way that they can.

Brian Pruett: [00:53:52] Right. Hey, Liz, what kind of advice would you give?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:53:56] Uh. Mm for me says I’m the. First kids with down syndrome in my family.

Anna Bostwick: [00:54:10] What kind of advice would you give? What’s what’s special about you?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:54:15] Um hum.

Anna Bostwick: [00:54:19] Can I help you out?

Liz Cicerchia: [00:54:20] Uh, yes. Yeah.

Anna Bostwick: [00:54:21] I think that Liz is capable and and able to do anything that anybody else does. I think my advice would be that when you see somebody with a disability is not to assume or not to just, um, the stereotypes that come with people with disabilities is completely false. And I think that it is important to look at each individual and their unique abilities and be able to really get to know them.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:54:47] Yes.

Brian Pruett: [00:54:48] And I would agree for you guys, you obviously you can’t see in here, but Liz is a firecracker.

Anna Bostwick: [00:54:52] She is she is that.

Brian Pruett: [00:54:53] She’s lighting up the studio. I can tell you that. She’s got the red.

Anna Bostwick: [00:54:56] Hair to match.

Brian Pruett: [00:54:57] Yes. Um, so you you work for a nonprofit, so you haven’t really started a nonprofit. But let me ask you this. If you were to start a nonprofit of your own, what kind of advice would you give somebody who might be thinking of that or even trying to look for a job for a nonprofit?

Anna Bostwick: [00:55:11] Um hum. Um, networking. I think getting your name out and really spreading the mission for nonprofits is important. People. There are more good people in the world than bad people, I really think, and people that want to help and want to be a supporter. So just making sure that you’re sticking your neck out and you’re not afraid to talk to people, um, Laura Whitaker is the queen of that. She is not scared to talk to anyone. She will spread. Yes, I agree with that.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:55:38] Yeah.

Anna Bostwick: [00:55:38] Liz, um, she will spread Espy’s mission any chance she got, she gets. So I think it’s really important just to take every opportunity you have to network with your community and network with people that want to help you spread your mission.

Brian Pruett: [00:55:49] Awesome. Share your website one more time.

Anna Bostwick: [00:55:51] It is ESP you and me, the words Y-o-u and me.org.

Brian Pruett: [00:55:57] All right Vicki, I’m coming back to you because I forgot to ask you a question. So you obviously started your business. You said we won’t say how long again, but give somebody some advice who might be thinking about starting a business. What would you tell them?

Vicky Bates: [00:56:10] There are so many things you got to really pay attention to. So. But mine’s a for profit, so. Right, right. Probably a little bit of a difference. Um. Well.

Vicky Bates: [00:56:23] Starting a business is knowing what you’re kind of knowing what your goals are going to be in that business. I think that’s really important is setting goals and you’ve got to know resources. So any new business starting needs to have resources that they trust. They probably should do that first. Um, who is going to be your human resource? Um, you know, company or person, um, who is going to be your accountant, who knows your business, who is going to be your, um, your banker that knows your business. So the things that all of the, the cogs in a wheel that, that facilitate a business running smoothly, make sure you’ve got trustworthy resources set up first. And make sure you set up your business correctly, um, you know, through your accountant, however that’s supposed to be because I had to reestablish mine early on because I had not set it up correctly. So and having really good business systems will come out of that.

Brian Pruett: [00:57:25] Right. And the same thing, don’t don’t be afraid to ask for help. Right.

Vicky Bates: [00:57:28] Oh yeah. Absolutely.

Brian Pruett: [00:57:30] Um, all right, so as we wrap this up, I always like to do this too. So, um, I would like for each of you to share either a word, a quote, just a positive nugget for somebody listening today, the rest of 2024 and beyond. So, Vicki, what can you share?

Vicky Bates: [00:57:46] Hey, put me right on the spot. So it’s probably, um, a scripture. And um, I think it’s we just get so tempted to be anxious when we’re in business or in endeavors. And so is to go to my Philippians Scripture, and you put me on the spot. Now, I can’t remember it, but it’s, um, be anxious for nothing. But in all things, um, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds and your checking account.

Brian Pruett: [00:58:19] Liz, you got something you can share that’s positive? Good quote.

Liz Cicerchia: [00:58:23] Um, since I also do work at chick fil A as well in Marietta. Um, definitely. Since we were just honoring MLK day, I would. Definitely after just a very quick quote that, you know, go after that awesome girl.

Brian Pruett: [00:58:45] Very good. Make sure you go by and see Liz at Chick fil A in Marietta. Anna, what kind of what you got?

Anna Bostwick: [00:58:51] Um, I think I would just say to be open minded to new experiences and new people that you could meet, especially with espe, you come across people that are unique in every single day and every single way. So just being open minded to that would be my advice.

Brian Pruett: [00:59:07] Awesome. And the last thing that I like to do is to thank you as a lost art. These days you talk about the simple things. No, thank you is just simple, but it’s lost art. So first of all, Vicki, thanks for what you do for the community and especially those with the cancer, uh, and being the uh, being hope for those who have, uh, are going through that and gone through that. Liz, thank you for being a light in this dark world. Thank you. And, Anna, thanks for what you’re doing for the, uh, the, the ESP group and and all the community as well. So everybody out there listening, let’s remember. Let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta. It’s time for Charitable Georgia. Brought to you by B’s Charitable Pursuits and resources. We put the fun in fundraising. For more information, go to B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. That’s B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. Now here’s your host, Brian Pruett.

Brian Pruett: [00:00:45] Good fabulous Friday. It’s another fabulous Friday morning. And first of all, everybody happy New Year. This is the first show since for being back from the holidays in 2024. So I hope everybody had a great holiday season. And um, even though it’s kind of nasty weather out there, it’s still a fabulous Friday. We’ve got two fabulous guests this morning. If this is your first time listening, Charitable Georgia is all about positive things happening in the community, whether it’s a business, individual or nonprofit. And I’ve got two guy. I’m like a little kid in candy store this morning. I got two guys in the studio. I got to call friends too, but they played professional sports. I get to dream about playing professional sports. So Nathan Bates, Kenny Graham, Jr., thanks for being here this morning.

Nathan Bates: [00:01:23] Of course. Thanks for having us.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:01:23] Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:25] So, uh, Nathan, we’ll start with you just for just for a second. Um, you currently work with CMIT Solutions in Marietta, but you, uh, played college ball at Georgia State, and then you went on to played in the angels organization and played professionally in Mexico. So share a little bit about your background, if you don’t mind.

Nathan Bates: [00:01:42] Uh, yeah. My, uh, I moved a lot when I was younger. My dad was, you know, in corporate sales job. So bouncing around quite a bit, quite a bit. Um, and then, uh, went to high school down in the Peachtree City Fayetteville area, went to Starr’s Mill down there. And then, like you said, three years at Georgia State, um, as a pitcher, uh, playing baseball and pitching, was drafted by the angels in the 15th round and was bouncing around the minor leagues, traveling all over the place, doing that and having fun doing it. And until it wasn’t fun anymore, after about eight years, um, you know, got engaged, getting ready to get married, had some some other things going on and priorities had changed. So it’s time to take a different direction there. But loved every second of, uh, of the playing, playing career. And like you said, now I’m in it sales for a company called Cmit Solutions. We do it for small, medium sized businesses up in the Cobb, Douglas and Paulding County areas. But, you know, really anywhere in metro Atlanta. So, um, yeah, thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun. You know, I’ve played in a couple of, uh, golf tournaments, um, that you’ve invited me to a couple of charity scrambles, been on a panel to talk. And whether it’s, you know, giving back and having a conversation or donating money, it’s just a lot of fun to be involved in everything you do and happy to be invited to do it. Awesome.

Brian Pruett: [00:02:51] Well, I appreciate that. And we’ll get back to you in just a second. So, uh, Kenny Graham Jr, you also played pro ball. You were with the White Sox for a while, and then you actually spent one year in arena football until the nasty Covid thing hit. But. Right. Absolutely. Give us a little bit about your background if you don’t mind. Uh, yeah.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:03:06] So originally from Laurinburg, North Carolina, um, born, uh, my mom and dad, uh, they actually still happily married. They actually just celebrated 32 years of marriage last week. Uh, I did my undergrad at North Carolina State University, had a degree in computer engineering and minor in public speaking. Um, I actually wasn’t drafted. I was an undrafted free agent. Um, at that time, they had something called the American Baseball Institute, um, down in Clearwater, Florida, at the Phillies, uh, spring training complex. And it was like an institute for guys who got overlooked in the draft or guys who got released. And I went down there for a tryout. Me and my dad and my uncle, um, I just happened around, like, a six for 60. Um, I topped out at 110 miles an hour from the outfield, left handed. Uh, and then I took BP. My BP sucked. Literally. I was so nervous. I was 19 years old, so I was nervous. And it was over 600 guys at this tryout and everything. We had ten swings and everything. I hit, hit my back, hit the tarp and went back into the screen. Um, and I looked at my dad and my uncle. I said, yo, they’re sending me home like I’m not coming back, because the next day was like the inter-squad day. And I was like, dad, I’m going home, man. Like my BP sucked. So the next day it rained out. So we had like an off day. So we go back the next day and they called the names out for, you know, for the Inter-squad games. And they said Kenny Graham Jr. And I’m like, what are you talking about?

Nathan Bates: [00:04:33] You hit 110 from the outfield run A64. Yeah, exactly.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:04:36] So and that’s exactly what they told me because I asked I said did y’all not see my BP. They was like nah, you looked a little uncomfortable up there. So make a long story short. They said, we want to see what you look like in game like situations, so they can’t really determine off of a little tryout style. So, um, I ended up going three for four, two bombs and a double. Made some plays in the outfield, you know, some diving plays, man. And I had a representative from the Chicago White Sox and Dominican Republic out of Boca Chica. Um, he literally came up to me and said, hey, we want you. Um, I was like, I’ve never been out of Country Day in my life. You know, I’m a spoiled little boy from North Carolina. I love my mom and dad like I’m still in school, so I ended up, like, leaving. Aren’t for that year. I moved to D.R. for that summer. I played in Dominican Summer League, played for the Los Tipicos with, uh, Robinson. Cano’s father was our GM, Jose Cano. I mean, um, yeah, Jose Cano. And then I ended up staying there for like a whole year. And I played winter league over there as well. And then that’s literally how my whole career started. Say I bounce around in the minors for a little bit. Um, tore my knee. I got married at 24 years old, so I’m 34 now, so I got. Little younger, uh, a lot of baseball players.

Nathan Bates: [00:05:47] Right?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:05:47] Right. Yes, yes. Uh, you know what I mean? We got, uh, my, um, my previous wife, she had three kids before me, so I took care of them as my own once we got together. And then we have our seven year old daughter together. So I got four kids. You know what I mean? Um, so basically, what happened once I got hurt in 2017, I just, you know, I tried to bounce around, said bump baseball. And like you said, I mentioned you mentioned arena football. So I started training for arena football down in Tampa. I went down there, I think I as a matter of fact, I reached out to the guy that trained me on email and I said, hey, man, I play pro baseball. I’m tired of baseball. Don’t want to look at it. I want to play football. I got a lot of anger and aggression. I want to hit somebody. Can you train me? I’ve been able to.

Nathan Bates: [00:06:29] Do it in baseball.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:06:30] There you go. I was like, can you train me? So they emailed me back and said, fortunately, we can do it. I was like, okay. So it was a little expensive. It was like $2,200 a week that I spent. But I was like, I told my wife at the time, I said, look, I got to go for a couple of weeks. Make a long story short, man, I did NFL combine training, totally different. So I got a whole nother respect for NFL players. Football players, totally different. The first day warm up, I felt like I was about to die just in the warm up. Yeah, we didn’t even do speed and agility. Not even training yet. It was just the warm up. Wow. My lower back was tight, so after the first week I was fine. And then, um, I met some good NFL guys, some Buccaneers guys at that time. Arena ball is right around spring training. So when the Yankees guys came in, I got to meet CC Sabathia and all them boys. So they were trained there too. And then the Tampa Tornados had a tryout and I went to the tryout. Now, mind you, I’m a little flashy. So I pulled up to right. So I pulled up to the tryout in a drop top BMW. Okay. I was like, yeah, I’m I’m gonna show out. And my trainer was with me. So I’m the only guy that walks in with a trainer. So now everybody’s looking at me. So I’m like, all right, I got to show out.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:07:36] So make a long story short, man, I ended up we ended up doing the drill. I did good on there. And then we had to run the 40 and I ran a 445. And I thought I ran that. One of the owners was like, yo, get his number right now and he comes. So the player developer, he was like, uh, you know, I had my my college shirt on and he said, uh, man, you went to ANC. I said, yeah, I did. He said, uh, when did you graduate? I said, man, it’s 2011. He said, wait, wait, wait. You play in the NFL? I said, no. He said, you play football, right? I said, I ain’t never play football a day in my life. He said, what you do? I said, I used to play pro baseball. He was like not looking like that. And I said, yeah, man. I said, I just, I’ve always been a football guy. I just never played it. My dad wouldn’t let me. So he was like, man, I’m gonna send you a contract at night. So make a long story short, I get home back to the hotel, I check my Facebook, I get a friend request from both owners, the player developer and the head coach and the starting quarterback. And they they messed me and said, you’re getting a contract tonight. I looked over at my wife and I at the time, went to Vegas, celebrated, signed it on Facebook Live. Boom, played arena football. And then Covid happened.

Nathan Bates: [00:08:44] Especially after not not having done it previously. That’s incredible.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:08:47] Yeah, I played defense. I played defensive end too. As soon as.

Nathan Bates: [00:08:49] You said, I mean, you got to have some kind of physicality to throw 110 from the outfield too. I mean, I do, but mine is just leverage. I don’t have that. I got that strength that you got. But you run A64. Yeah. There’s some other sports they’re gonna come knocking like yeah yeah yeah.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:09:01] Right now I’ll be transparent. If I knew what I knew now. Especially at baseball because I’m a lefty. If I knew what I knew now I would. Yeah. Because when I was in college, I was like 96 off the mound with no mechanics. But I got to respect you, too, because y’all did a lot of conditioning. And when I used to see the conditioning in college, I was like, I’m not doing that, and I don’t know how to swim at that time. So we making swim pitchers doing swimming workouts in the pool.

Nathan Bates: [00:09:27] Which is the best thing you can do health wise to keep your arm. Yeah, I believe it’s great. But so I before I when I turned ten I stopped swimming. My sister was an All-American swimmer in college Georgia Southern. Yeah. And I swam for a couple years. And when I was ten, I was like, this is worse than running because all you’re doing is going back and forth, except for, you know, you could drown. And I just my arm never felt better, but I was like, it’s still not worth it.

Brian Pruett: [00:09:48] So I read a story about Lenny Dykstra. Now, it wasn’t swimming, but he was in the pool. And, you know, Lenny Dykstra was a switch hitter and he the what I read was he took 100 swings on from both sides underneath the water with the bat.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:10:01] Now I do that surprise me.

Nathan Bates: [00:10:03] Yeah. Yeah. Because that’s, that’s a way to get resistance without putting any stress on anything, any, any joints or anything like that. Which is why it’s so great for pitchers, because all they do, you can only throw so many pitches off the mound, you can take a lot more swings, not unlimited, but you can take a lot more. It’s not like going to a gym and shooting a basketball. You can’t just stay there for eight hours and get shots up. I mean, there’s a limit. So being able to to add some of that work in without putting the stress on your body is really good if you can do it.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:10:26] But again, that’s old school. If you can, if you can do it.

Nathan Bates: [00:10:29] Yeah. If you can do it, I’m not worth it to me.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:31] So I got lots of questions. So hang on for the ride. All right.

Nathan Bates: [00:10:35] Um, so I’m sure we’re both used to it, right? Yes.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:39] Um, well, well, first of all, I want to. I just want to. I want to do this. So you guys, again, like I mentioned, have done some things with me for fundraisers and I’ve started my business a B’s Charitable Pursuits and resources doing community fundraising. And, uh, like you said, Nathan, you’ve recently done some golf tournaments and we did the locker room chat and, uh, Kenny, you were it was a while ago, but you came out to the thing we did in 2015. Can you believe it’s been that long?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:11:00] I had just moved here in 2014 and I got.

Nathan Bates: [00:11:03] Drafted in.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:11:04] 2015. Really? Oh, man. Dang, I got you by a long shot. He made me feel old, man. So our our.

Brian Pruett: [00:11:10] Mutual buddy Eric Greens when he got us connected. Yeah yeah. You know but we did the thing when Skip Wells. Yes. We did the trivia night for his, you know, 25th.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:11:19] I was 25 years old. Big dog. Damn. I’ve been in Georgia that long. That’s crazy. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:11:26] So first of all, I just appreciate you guys coming out and giving back to the community. Um, so, uh, Nathan, this is going to start with you with this question. So. Obviously playing sports and and being in professional sports. While you may not have had the name in the major leagues, but you still were professional. Mhm. Um, just give me a reason why it’s important for you to be part of the community now.

Nathan Bates: [00:11:51] Well, I think a lot of it was like the culture or, you know, whatever sport it is in the locker room, and you get that camaraderie with the team and you build a lot of really good relationships. And that’s, you know, half of the fun of, in my opinion, of at least baseball. If not, you know, most professional sports is that those relationships and that camaraderie and the and the culture you build in the clubhouse. And so that was one of the things when I retired, that was one of the things I was kind of I realized I was missing, and the more I went out and was doing networking and, you know, doing sales and business development in, in our area, that was one of the things I realized that was, um, it was good to me on a selfish level because I got to, you know, build more relationships, get to know some really good people and, and expand, you know, network and center, new to the Marietta area, you know, getting to go around in a lot of places like that. But, um, but giving back was a really, really important to me because there’s the more I think about it, there’s so many people that helped me get where I am, and without almost any one of them, I wouldn’t have gotten there.

Nathan Bates: [00:12:45] Um, and so even if it’s just something small, you never know when someone you’re going to say something about a sport and oh, hey, my son plays baseball. Could you talk to him? Even if it’s a five minute conversation? You know, I still answer the phone every time my high school pitching coach picks up, because I know it’s always because he’s got a student with him or a kid with him, a high school player, and he asked me a question that he knows the answer to, but he just wants the kid to hear a professional baseball player or former professional baseball player say it. So it’s important to me just because of one way or another. There’s a lot of ways to give back, and a lot of people did that for me when I was younger, and it’s extremely important for me to to do what I can to do the same thing. However, that, you know, looks right.

Brian Pruett: [00:13:22] Kenny, how about you?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:13:23] Um, I’m actually in the same boat with him, and I’m all about giving back, um, especially the environment that I grew up in. Um, so, like I said, if you don’t know too much about Laurinburg, North Carolina, we’re actually ranked number one most dangerous place to be in the state of North Carolina. Wow. And I mean, when I tell you we’re beating Charlotte in Charlotte is extremely big. Excuse me, but like, my hometown is one high school, three middle schools. At that time, we had five elementary schools. You know what I mean? So but the way the time is now, there’s nothing to do for the community, nothing to do for the youth. Um, and it’s almost kind of like, man, if you don’t get out, you’re stuck. So it’s like when I go back home and I see people that I graduated high school with that’s 34 or 35 years old, and they’re looking like they’re in their 50s and stuff now. You know, it’s kind of sad to me because at the end of the day, you know, they probably didn’t get that opportunity like I did. And again, it’s it’s about networking. I’m a relationship person. Um, I just I just really big on, uh, developing great relationships, not burning bridges.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:14:23] Um, so I feel like being in the community, like you said, you’re going to have a lot of individuals that get to see you. Um, you will have somebody who say, like I said, I want to play sports. I want to play baseball, or just somebody that say, you know what? This is somebody that’s been through something and look where they are now, you know what I mean? And they use baseball or another sport or even a business to use that as a platform to get to where they’re at now. So like I say, it’s real very pivotal that you are in the community as much as you can. Um, that’s one thing I hated about covet, because I had so much I was going to do in the city of Tampa, Florida. I mean, my my spiritual advisors there, like I said, the Tampa Tornadoes football team, um, especially in the rural areas, um, I wanted to do so much, um, you know, doing that. And it’s, uh, man, I just hate, covet happened, but things happen for a reason. But again, being being connected in the community is is very pivotal for me.

Brian Pruett: [00:15:15] You guys both mentioned it. And, uh, so it’s a good segue because I always ask this too. So you both talked about, uh, networking and and Kenny, you’re right on. It’s all about relationship building, right? Most people come in and networking if they’re new to networking and they try to sell, sell, sell. And that’s not the way to do it. You got to learn about the other person and build that relationship. Um, so let me start with you, Kenny, because you’re you’re now training kids, right? Right, right. Um, do you get to do much networking now?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:15:43] As I do. I do because I’m gonna be honest. Uh, a lot of people ask me what I do.

Nathan Bates: [00:15:48] You train baseball or football?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:15:49] Baseball. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, let’s let’s let’s let’s be transparent. I can’t do younger kids.

Nathan Bates: [00:15:56] Oh.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:15:57] No, I get it. High school pitching. Yeah, high school. I I’d rather do college, at least you know what I mean. And then just do pro guys. But high school is my limit. But again I get to network a lot because of the fact that a lot of people ask what I do, you know, like for work now. And I’m like, I just chill, you know what I mean? Just because of, you know, the relationships that I had. And God’s kind of put me in a position to where I don’t have to, you know, punch a clock anymore. And I can just march to the beat of my own drum. So I do have a lot of time to network. Um, and again, being in the the Milton and Alpharetta area is so many baseball guys out there. Yeah, so many. Like, I didn’t know that Dexter Fowler went to Milton High School, you know, and I live.

Nathan Bates: [00:16:41] Across in that.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:16:42] Area. Right. And I live right across the street from Milton High School. You know what I mean? We was talking about baseball facilities in the area, you know, uh, uh, Chris Buczek. Mhm. Um, is that precision? I coached that precision a couple of years back.

Nathan Bates: [00:16:55] Was a coach in the angels organization. Well, sorry. He played in the angels organization and then coached at Georgia State as a as the pitching coach when I was still going back in the off season. So I know Chris.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:17:03] Yeah, you know what I mean. Him and then I’m real good friends with Ryan Vogelsong. I know.

Nathan Bates: [00:17:07] Vogelsong, yeah.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:17:08] Just because of the fact that I coached travel ball with the bombers. So, uh, Ryan Snare, I.

Nathan Bates: [00:17:13] Almost never have a conversation with a baseball player. It’s like, you know, this guy is like, oh, yeah, he never is happy where it’s like, nope, don’t know any of those guys.

Brian Pruett: [00:17:20] Well, I mean, you’re both are. Well, you North Carolina but local growing up. Right. And he’s still now here.

Nathan Bates: [00:17:25] So East Cobb baseball is nationwide even though it’s in very local to I mean, I live right next to Sprayberry now and Sprayberry is Five-a but still not really a powerhouse in terms of baseball. And there’s all kinds of other high schools up here, along with, um, uh, what is it, North Point now? Is that other.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:17:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nathan Bates: [00:17:41] Facility up there that’s not as big as East Cobb, but it’s getting there. And so this is a hot spot in the country for sure.

Brian Pruett: [00:17:47] Yeah. So so Kenny, let me ask you this. Do you have a positive story you can share about networking that’s kind of helped you?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:17:53] Positive story about networking. Oh, man. Okay, I could be positive networking. Uh, let’s go back to Ryan Vogelsong. All right? I’m to the point where I’m good friends enough to call him by his nickname. And basically, again, I used my public speaking skills to and my baseball background to talk to Vogey. Right. So I’m coaching his son. He played on my 13 youth team with the bombers last year. And, you know, he he spoke to me on the phone when I asked him that he wanted to play for me because, like, it was my first year with the bombers. So I was kind of new to the organization, but a lot of the kids were already on the bombers, but they was going through transitions as well as far as coaching wise. So I definitely had to win all the parents over. So I’m talking to Vogey and um, and he let me know, hey, this is who I used to play for and everything. And I’m like, wait, I’m on the phone with a World Series champion. Like his statue was outside of the San Francisco Giants, like stadium. And this man is telling me he trusts my coaching with his son.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:18:52] So I’m like, all right, I got to make sure I come correct. So I just always I was not doing no starstruck or try to be like buddy buddy type just because of who he is. I just kept it honest. Um, and I guess my networking and the way I kept it honest with him, he felt comfortable enough to come to me about his frustrations with his son, because he expects his son to be a certain type of way, because of who he was. And he felt comfortable enough to, you know, talk to me. And I was able to build that, that bond with him and be like, hey, man, it’s okay. Like, let your son, you know, break out on his own time. He’s not you. But just because of that relationship and that networking, I did. Now he’s spoken to the front office with the San Francisco Giants, and they picked up my resume. And there’s an opportunity in the fall, in the off season of 2024, that I can get the outfield coordinator job with the Giants, which is one of my goals. So that’s that’s a positive thing for me, and.

Nathan Bates: [00:19:48] That’s not usually something that someone just comes right into. Usually you got to be in the system and get promoted. Even as the coaching side of things, it’s very similar.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:19:55] Yeah. So it’s just like I said, just for me, just being who I am. That’s another thing too, about networking and be authentic. Yeah. Be your true self. Don’t try to be nothing you’re not. And then at the end of the day, you know, if that’s what God wants for you to happen, you know that relationship is going to happen. And like I said, you know, it’s not concrete, but the fact that he even thought of me right to, you know, give ask for my resume, send it to the front office. And on top of that, they just gave him the job to be the special assistant to the GM for this season. Right? So. Right. You know what I mean. But yeah, you.

Brian Pruett: [00:20:26] Just talked about being not being star struck. Now look, I’m going to tell a little story on myself. So one of the things that I did back when I worked for I won’t name the company because it was not a good thing, but the best thing that came out of it was, I got to meet a lot of you guys, former athletes, right? And I maintained those relationships. And I always tell somebody, somebody sends me a text or somebody calls me and I look down and it’s one of you guys. I’m like, I’m like, I seriously like a little kid in a candy store. And then I go, what’s up, man?

Nathan Bates: [00:20:54] Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:20:56] So all right, Nathan, what about you? You know, I do a lot of networking and some of the same groups, but how about you? What kind of story can you share a positive about? Networking?

Nathan Bates: [00:21:03] Um, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of positives that have come out of networking. And a lot of times, again, as I, there was probably a couple of months in between the end of my baseball career, in the beginning of, I would say, my, my real job, my real world job of, you know, sales for an IT company. And I realized very quickly that even though at first it felt like I was tooting my own horn to stand up and say, hey, I played professional baseball for seven years. Um, but every time I did that, there was a literally a line of people of 4 or 5 people waiting to talk to me after the networking event. Um, and so finding a way to kind of not try to look like I’m puffing my chest out when I say it, but realizing that that adds a lot of value and it creates a lot of credibility for me. And so there’s a lot of times where people have come up and was like, hey, I know, I know, you probably don’t do this a lot anymore, but my kid’s eight. Or, you know, he really wants to be a baseball player. Is there anything you can tell him? And then it turns into the, you know, 30 minute conversation of, you know, what’s what? Sports does he play? How you know, what team is he on? What are these coaches telling him all that stuff. And so for me a lot of the positive is people, again, like you said, they they see me at a networking event. All they hear me say, they hear me be honest and they can tell I’m being myself.

Nathan Bates: [00:22:06] Um, and then they’ll come up to me and ask me for my advice on how their kid, who, you know, most parents love more than anything in the world, how they should approach their sports career. And to have that trust is, I mean, that that happens quite a bit, which is really great. Um, but I will say that talking to, to people and having the conversation go from networking kind of into sports a little bit and then kind of like we’re doing right now, eventually it turns into, hey, do you know this person or do you know this person? Oh, I know somebody that would I’d be great to connect you with. And so I’ve gotten some business doing that, which is great. It’s not really the I mean, if my boss is listening. Yes. That’s the that’s the reason, you know, you want to get business. But, you know, I just want to build relationships with people and be able to, to help people however I can. So that’s a lot of the positives is really just the little things of. Going off topic and people being like, hey, my son’s ten and he wants to get into pitching. I don’t really know how to teach him how to throw a curve ball. Can you do it? And I’m like, no, I’m not teaching your ten year old how to throw a curve ball. I don’t want him to hurt his arm. Right. And like you said, I’m not going to lie to you and tell you. Yes. Just because I think that’s what you want to hear. I was told not to or I wasn’t really allowed to play professional.

Nathan Bates: [00:23:09] Not professional. I wasn’t allowed to play organized sports until I was like ten. Um, you know, no tee ball, nothing like that other than soccer. Because soccer at that age isn’t really the same thing as it is once you get older. Um, and I hated it because I was all my friends were playing those sports. My parents would never let me, and now I get it. And so a lot of those conversations that I have with parents of, of athletes now, um, it kind of comes full circle. And so that’s where most of the positive outcomes for me, outside of the obvious, you know, building network or building relationships and having it, you know, grow our business is just the the questions I get were again, like Kenny said, people asking for advice on how they should coach and bring up their kid. Right. And it’s just it’s really rewarding to help. But like the same thing he said at. There’s only so young with baseball that you can start training and teaching kids. And so there’s a fine line. There’s a lot of parents that want him to start when they’re six, because that’s what all the East Cobb coaches are saying, that you got to start them now, and they got to specialize because everybody’s specializing now. And that’s the only way they’re going to get. So a lot of those conversations I get that you can maybe kind of tell, since you’re in the room with him getting fired up about it a little bit right now, because pitching is so much different than other sports and even even playing a position in baseball. Bat. Right. That’s what.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:24:19] It is.

Nathan Bates: [00:24:20] Yeah. And that’s like I said, I almost am shooting shoot myself in the foot for being too transparent and too honest sometimes. But when it comes to networking, I refuse to change because that’s it’s it works. And I feel more comfortable telling people what I truly believe, especially when it comes to again, I’m going to relate it back to the I because I hear it all the time. It’s like, oh, curveballs and sliders. How’s my kid? Throw one. Your kid doesn’t need to throw, right? Um, and so that’s just being able to really make those parents understand that, hey, this isn’t the end of the world. They’re eight years old. A lot of that is mostly the positive experiences I have. But they’re they’re all over the place almost every day when I’m out, you know, all the networking events that I go to and see you out, there’s always somebody that, you know, some kind of conversation, um, that’s at least an uplifting conversation. If not, you know, a physical, tangible positive that comes from it. So.

Brian Pruett: [00:25:06] Well, most people, everybody’s listening. So there’s no cameras in here so they can’t see. But most people probably think you played basketball because you’re how tall I do that.

Nathan Bates: [00:25:13] I’m six eight. Yeah. That a lot.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:25:15] Yeah. When he walked in I was like, yeah, he whooped. He did.

Nathan Bates: [00:25:17] But yeah.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:25:19] I want to piggyback real quick though, when you said about, uh, you know, not trying to pump your chest when you say you play professional ball, it’s very therapeutic to hear somebody say that sometime they say that’s what they did. But not coming from a cocky standpoint. Right. Because I do that a lot, you know what I mean? But for real for me when you like I’m six, three, two, six, five. So clearly I look like an athlete, especially because all I wear is athletic clothing. Right. So the question is going to be asked what it is that I did or what I do. Um, and so I of course, I would bring that up. And again, sometimes it is it’s a great conversation starter as well. Absolutely. Um, you know what I mean, like you said, how people look at you, but there’s a lot of people who don’t understand that neither. So, you know, I’ve been around a lot of people who will be like, oh, why you tell somebody you play this, or why you got to let somebody know that? And I was like, honestly, you don’t understand.

Nathan Bates: [00:26:15] Sometimes I’m not doing it for people to think how awesome I am, right? I’m not doing it for people to to tell people how great I am.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:26:21] That’s right. Right. And also, you don’t understand some type of the conversations that can happen. Like I’d be like, give you real quick my, uh, my, my, my wife and I before we, uh, you know, when we were together, uh, we was on a cruise ship, man, back in, like 2016, I think. And we did, like, an eight day cruise. And of course, like I said, out at that time, I was really in shape, you know, walking around my shirt off and stuff. Right? So it was an older couple and the guy was like, man, what do you do? Like you play ball or something and you ask, I’m not going to lie. So like, yeah, so you know, I play pro baseball, whatever. And um, kid you not. Next thing I know, I had a full, like, bottle of Louis Vuitton. I mean, uh, Louis. Louis the 13th. 14th. Yeah, yeah, it was sent to our state room. Literally. And I was like, where did this come from? Because I’m looking at my bill like, I’m not paying for this.

Nathan Bates: [00:27:09] That’s right. So we go.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:27:11] So we go to dinner later on that night, and him and his wife comes up to me, to us at the dinner table. He said, you like your gift. I was like, wait, that’s from you? He was like, yeah, man. He said, I’ve never met a pro athlete before, and I love baseball. So I was like, oh, so this is what that title sometimes have. But again, it still opens up other type of avenues as well to people like, okay, look, what can I do? You know what I mean? Even if it’s not from a sporting standpoint. They want to understand your mentality and you can give them some mentality things to help them get to the next level that what they’re trying to achieve. So that’s why yeah, it was just very therapeutic. Hear you say like, okay, I say it sometimes and I try not to say it like I’m sticking out my chest. And a lot of times when I do it, I’m not sticking out my chest, but I’m going to let you know I work my behind off for this. So yeah, yeah, I throw that in there and there’s.

Nathan Bates: [00:28:00] A they hear all the time like, oh yeah, it’s a grind. And it is. And I mean high school baseball is probably what people relate it to. And if they play college ball it’s the same thing. They oh yeah I played college ball. It’s just. College ball is hard too, because you have to balance the schedule, but it’s just a whole nother beast. Mentally. It’s just wearing different level and the same thing. When my wife’s in public and someone will ask, I mean, like Brian said, I’m tall. And so someone asked, oh, did you play basketball? And I’d say, no, I played baseball, and it kind of naturally turns that’s like, oh, where’d you play that kind of thing? And then my wife would be like, why did you have to tell him? Like, well, I know they didn’t ask if I played basketball or baseball. Right, right, right. They were looking at me like you played something. So you’re not getting away from me, you know? So I. Yeah, I get it. And the longer the longer I’ve been out of the out of the game, the easier it is for me to to say it without feeling like I’m sounding.

Brian Pruett: [00:28:43] There’s a difference between confident and cocky. And I think what? Because again, now I grew up around sports. I played in high school, uh, I went to a private school, so the only thing we had was basketball and volleyball. Believe it or not, we had a guys volleyball. So that’s what I played. And I was manager for the basketball team. Um, but I grew up around sports all my life. I went to Kennesaw State, worked in athletic department. I was a sports writer for a while. And, uh, so I’m just a big, big fan, and and it’s I’ve dealt with guys who played professional sports who had the nose up and said, you know, they’re better than you because they got to that level. And look, I mean, I I’ll be honest, I’ll, I went my buddy Chad Blake. You’re welcome. Chad Angel auctions. He was doing a silent auction for Marquis Grissom’s golf tournament a few years ago. Okay. Um, Pete Smith, you know, played for the Braves, came in with a with a little jersey that was for, uh, a nine year old boy whose mother had sent him the jersey asking for his autograph, but he knew he was coming to that. So he was trying to get all the other guys that were playing for the golf tournament to sign. This little boy had cancer. Okay. I’m probably going to get shot if he hears this story, but I’m going to say it anyway because it just they say never meet your your heroes. Mhm. Bo Jackson was there and would not sign the jersey because he said, I’m not here to sign any memorabilia. And he was just I mean, he was so rude about it.

Brian Pruett: [00:30:03] And I’m like, all the other guys are signing. Yeah, this is for a little boy with cancer. Here’s the letter from the mother. He just walked off and as he’s leaving, I tried one more time and he didn’t even acknowledge it, you know? And it’s just, you know, things like that. It’s just. It’s hard to see something like that when you’re trying to do good in the community. And and I mean, you guys, I mean, let’s face it again, I can only dream about being a professional. You guys made it, right. Uh, even if you didn’t make it to the big, big levels, you still were there. So I think it’s awesome that you guys come in here. And the majority of the guys that I hang around with and do things with and invite to are the are you guys that give back to the community and love doing, I mean, Kevin’s event, the the locker room chat. That was awesome. You know, I mean, it was there was eight of you there, but you’re talking about knowing about a professional athlete and asking. So last January I take my mom to Kroger. We’re in Acworth. And you know how you cross people up and down the aisles, right? And everything. And this gentleman’s walking up and down the aisle, and he’s massive, like he’s tall, but he’s also built. Right. And people think I’m crazy when I say this, but we’re on the peanut butter aisle. He picks up the massive family jar of peanut butter and sticks it in his cart. And I looked back at my wife and my mom, and I said, he played. He played something.

Nathan Bates: [00:31:19] Mhm.

Brian Pruett: [00:31:20] We get behind him in the checkout line. So I go up to him and my mom and my and my wife are just shaking their heads like being you. So I said who’d you play for. He’s like, oh, he’s kind of played for the Patriots, the Panthers, the Chiefs and then the BC Lions and Stephen Williams. Right.

Nathan Bates: [00:31:37] Okay.

Brian Pruett: [00:31:37] So uh, and then I got him to come to some events too after meeting him because I told him what I did and he gave me his number. And I’m like, sweet, there’s another one, right? No, but it’s just kind of cool, right? Because again, you guys are used to that, I’m sure. Right, right. But but the fact that he took the time to talk and we’re in the checkout line, so he’s wanting to get out and everything, but he time he took to me and talked about it. So, um. All right. So I got a couple uh, like I said, I got a lot of questions. So we, we, uh, we talk about life on here as well as business. And, um, well, I’m going to ask a couple of these first. So before we get into that. So, uh, Nate, you talked, uh, you spoke at the, uh, Morning Joe and shared a story about, um, adversity and your complete turnaround on the thought. Would you mind sharing that?

Nathan Bates: [00:32:21] Sure. I thought you were going to say something about Ronald Acuna story I told you. Um, no.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:26] Not unless you want to know.

Nathan Bates: [00:32:27] It’s quick. Um, no. It was there was a lot of things throughout, um, my college and professional career that were almost career ending for me and could have been, um, college. I was I got in trouble over the winter break my freshman year before the season even started. Um, and out of 14 pitchers, I was the 14th one to get an inning that year. I mean, I was lucky to be on the team. Um, but they they gave me an inning and I think it was the bottom of the eighth against Georgia Tech at Georgia Tech, and the score was like 16 to nothing. They had scored in every single inning that they had hidden. And so basically it was a Tuesday, and they didn’t want to waste any of the pitchers that they usually use on the weekends. So they were like, hey, good luck, go for it. You know, hopefully you can get out of it. And luckily 1 or 2 of them were pinch hitters, but got three up, three down and ended up getting a couple more opportunities and played well from there. And then sophomore year had a something went wrong. I was pitching at Ole Miss and was topping out at 80 miles an hour and uh, so took a couple of weeks off and kind of fought through that. And again, like I mentioned earlier, I was drafted in the 15th round, was never really a huge prospect.

Nathan Bates: [00:33:36] Obviously. Again, if you see me, I’m pretty tall. And that was you know, I was very late developing physically. And so that was all of the people that were looking at me were like, yeah, you know, he’s got a good frame. Once he puts weight on, he’ll develop. And so that was most of my, uh, my draw when I was in college. But between those two injuries and then got lucky, got a chance to, um, to prove something when I, when I got signed with the angels and then, you know, right. As things got going with the angels, I was throwing a little bit harder. They moved me to the end of the bullpen. And then I had, uh, an elbow injury that was not. I didn’t feel a pop like a lot of the guys that have the full Tommy John surgery feel. So they tried a PRP injection, which has been known to work on a lot of other parts of the body, joints, muscles, things like that, but not as much on the ligament and the elbow. That’s just a very high stress, not a natural motion. And so it’s less successful there. Um, but it was recommended to me and we tried it and ended up not working. Hindsight is 2020, but still can’t look back and say, I would have tried anything different and had my my Tommy John surgery came back from that and with a month left in the year was pitching really, really well.

Nathan Bates: [00:34:41] Throwing upper 90s was consistent, you know, felt as good as I had in my career. I was, you know, six seven, six eight, 245 I put some weight on. I was really feeling good. And then the next year was Covid. So, you know, I went to got invited to some big league spring training games, was pitching. That was when Joe Madden was our manager. Um, pitched in a game, you know, threw okay, came out of the game. Joe Madden patted me on the butt and said, hey, we really like you. Keep it up. And the next day is when they sent everybody home for Covid. So they had an off an alternate site that they invited a lot of guys out to that year. Um, I was not one of them, which was a real mental shot. Somewhere in the middle of the year there, I got what I thought was Covid ended up testing negative, but was, you know, lost 20 pounds. And so the whole time I was that year, I was working out, trying to stay in shape in case they called me to be ready. And then I physically wasn’t ready and getting towards the end of the year. And so even if they did call me, there was no way for me to be ready. And so that was a mental, um, real.

Nathan Bates: [00:35:36] Mind game. Really? Um, and it was, it just it always felt like throughout the, the 8 or 9 years of me playing baseball, it was like, right when I felt like I got going and got some momentum, something out of my control happened. Um, to where I’d have to kind of take a step back and reevaluate and go from there. But, you know, I’ve actually heard it a few times lately, and maybe that’s or recently I’ll say this quote and, um, maybe it’s a sign, but I’ve heard a few times in the last week, you know, you make plans and you hear God laughing. And regardless of what you believe, I mean, you can make plans, you can have all this set and have all this lined up to for what you want to happen, what you think’s going to happen. And then one thing can throw it all off the rails. And there’s plenty of that. That happened during my career. And it’s, uh, it was not as quick of a learning process as it should have been. But just instead of saying, oh, woe is me, and oh, this isn’t going to get to happen anymore. And and maybe if some of that stuff hadn’t happened, then maybe, you know, I would have gone a different route and maybe I’d still be playing baseball. But, um, you know, that’s not really something I think about a lot because my like I mentioned earlier, my priorities changed towards the end of my career once I got engaged.

Nathan Bates: [00:36:36] And, you know, now we have a house and I’m have the flexibility in my schedule to work from home. And we have two dogs and two cats. And it’s and it’s a I love the situation I’m in now. But if I hadn’t had a lot of that adversity to kind of keep my myself in check and keep me that perspective, excuse me, that perspective at the front of my mind, then, you know, it could have gone very differently, and I could have still been thinking about that. What if? And not focusing on the here and now and then, who knows what could have happen? So there’s all kinds of stuff, and I’m sure every athlete has very similar stories. I mean, we heard some from Kenny earlier. It’s, uh, there’s there’s a lot of things that can go wrong, and it’s just up to you on how you respond to them. And so the first couple times, maybe I didn’t do what I should have, but it happens enough. And it’s kind of the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So eventually I got to react differently. I got to do something else. I got to make the best out of this. So, well.

Brian Pruett: [00:37:27] You shared somebody somebody said, actually said something to you, right. One of the players.

Nathan Bates: [00:37:31] Oh yeah. It was uh, well it was one of. Oh, are you talking about during my surgery? Yeah. One of the players was, uh, a Dominican guy who was a younger guy, and there was some guys complaining about, you know, we’re in the we’re in Arizona, and there were some younger guys that weren’t there for the same reasons I was there. I was, you know, on a rehab assignment from AA. But still, in terms of perspective, there was this young guy that was really nice, spoke a little bit of English, and I would talk to him every once in a while, and he came up to me one day. He’s like, you know, it’s really hard to hear these guys and not as good of English. But he’s like, you know, I don’t like hearing these guys complain about their paychecks. I was like, yeah, you know, it’s it’s frustrating. It could be a lot worse. And he was like, I don’t even see my paychecks. I was like, what do you mean? You should definitely be seeing your paychecks? And he’s like, well, I they’re sent straight to the Dominican because I don’t have a dad. And my mom is home, doesn’t have a job, and my sister is young and has health issues. So I’m the provider. He’s like, I don’t, you know, I have some of my friends pick up food for me or the angels will will be nice and bring in some extra food. He’s like, but you know, I don’t even know how much I make. And after a good bit of reflection, because that’ll hit you pretty hard when you’re not expecting it. And so just thinking about that in the situation that I’m sure he had to or was in now and not even talking about the situation, I’m sure he overcame to be where he was.

Nathan Bates: [00:38:40] Just again, that perspective is just if you’re not paying attention to it, it’s easy to miss. But if you if you are able to take a step back and see the forest and not just the trees, it’s, uh, that adversity actually, you know, people say all the time it’s how you respond to it. But being able to have perspective, I think, helps you respond to adversity, how you should in a way that you know is healthy and not to where you can look back and say, oh, this should have happened. I mean, every we’re all in sports. We hear the guys that are like, oh, you know, I would have I would have gotten drafted if it wasn’t for my I had our shortstop that was two years older than me at Georgia State. Had like a 890 fielding percentage as a shortstop. Wow. Won’t say his name, even though he probably won’t be listening. But, um, I mean, he after his junior year, he was like, oh, yeah, our head coach took my name off the draft board. I was like, that’s not how that works. He can’t do that, right? The teams have to do that. And so, I mean, you hear guys like that say things like that all the time. And it’s having talked to some of those guys and having some of the other experiences, it’s like, all right, that’s enough of a reality check. Like it could be a lot worse. I’m very happy with where I’m at. Don’t don’t get to that point. Right. So the adversity to me is just added a lot of perspective. Right.

Brian Pruett: [00:39:47] All right. So since you brought it up tell us the story.

Nathan Bates: [00:39:50] Yeah. So I was I was in the Fall League, which is a um a league for about a month and a half after the minor league season ends, that each organization asks about 5 or 6 people to go out and participate in. And there’s six teams total. And each team is made up of about five organizations. Um, and so the team that I was on was the Reds, the Yankees, the Mets, the Giants, and us. I think that’s everybody. Um, but we were playing the team that had the Braves on it, and I was pitching. And Acuna comes up and this is before he’s in the big leagues, and I knew of him. He’s a big prospect. He’s a good athlete. And they had played, uh, our AA team in the minor league season that year. So I’d heard of him. And so I threw a couple of off speed pitches and trying. To get ahead and trying to get him not to swing at one. I didn’t want to challenge him early and so I threw a slider one zero, tried to get back at, you know, even in the count with another slider. Same spot, two zero. I was like, okay, you know, my ball moves a little bit. I’ll try to get one, um, you know, middle inside because I’m sure he’s looking to extend his arms and I’ll try to maybe get get one back and try to sneak one inside on him since I went two away. And then it started away and ran back over, right over, right where you’d asked for it to be.

Nathan Bates: [00:41:03] If you were hitting batting practice in a home run derby, that’s where it was. And, uh, don’t look it up, because there’s definitely not a video of this on YouTube. Uh, but he makes contact. I throw a fastball, he hits it, and he starts to watch it and kind of puts the bat down a little bit, and I put my head down and say a four letter word that you probably can’t hear, but it starts with an F, and then as soon as I turned around to see where the ball was, it was bouncing over the wall. So it got there in about a second flat, and luckily it was just a ground rule double. Um, but yeah, he was he was the real deal like everybody had said he was. And then sure enough, the he was on second base and the very first pitch, right as I lift my leg, he’s three fourths of the way to third base, stole third right in front of me. And I was like, all right, I get it. You know, this guy’s the real deal. Everybody, every once in a while, there’s a really big prospect to come through the minor leagues. Everybody’s like, oh man, he’s the one. You know, his player comp is Mike trout. And I was like, all right guys, you can’t compare anybody to Mike trout. And then I saw him throw from the outfield. I saw him run. I saw him hit. And I was like, this guy’s like the next Mike trout. That’s pretty accurate.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:02] What’s funny though, Kenny, is he he talked about that story and said the same thing about YouTube at the locker room chat. And the little kid comes up to him afterwards thinking he’s going to. And he asked him, can what’s the video again?

Nathan Bates: [00:42:14] He’s like, can you show me this? I was like, yeah, man, I’ll look it up, give me a second. I got to find it, but I’ll show it.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:42:18] To you, I.

Nathan Bates: [00:42:18] Love it. And then he just didn’t really say anything and just kind of looked at me and gave me a high five. I was like, no one’s giving me a high five for that yet, so I’ll take it. There you go, I love it.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:27] That’s awesome. Well, talking about adversity, Kenny, you’ve always been through a lot of it. You talked about your injury and then Covid with the with the football into it, but you’re still really kind of going through. You just lost your grandfather, what, a few weeks ago and, and uh, your, uh, I mean, that’s.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:42:41] My OG because I didn’t know my dad’s. My dad’s mother passed away when he was 15, and, um, he didn’t know his father. He had a stepfather who passed away way before I was even thought of. So my only grandfather was my mom’s parents. Um, and I’m the oldest grandchild on my mother’s side. And, you know, they were from New York, so, you know, there was a lot of distance between New York and North Carolina, of course. But, you know, when I wasn’t playing summer baseball, when I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in New York. So, you know, that was my that was my OG man. You know, that’s where I got my swag from. You see my pictures with all my fedora hats or whatever I got there from him. So it was a it was a hard thing, uh, losing him a couple of weeks ago. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:43:25] Well, and you’re, uh, I mean, you’re still kind of going through a divorce, so, I mean, you’re you’re you’re kind of going through all kinds of stuff right now. So just share a little bit about what adversity has, I guess, taught you.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:43:37] Um, absolutely. It goes back to what you were saying, man. You know, you want to tell God your plans. You know, you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. Um, again, I’m not big on divorce. Divorce is not an option for me. But sometimes that’s just how the cookie crumbles, you know? Um, and like I said, she and I honestly are actually, like, better. We’re, like, better for each other as best friends. And that was my best friend before. And again, man, we we got married. I was 23, you know what I mean? And she was 30. She was just getting out of her first marriage, you know, and I’m still a young buck, you know what I mean? So I had a lot of growing to do, uh, within that marriage. So, you know, I’m not going to sit here and say, oh, it was just her fault or point of blame. And I had a lot of learning to do. I had a lot of growing to do, of getting married at such a young age. And again, you know, she had three kids from her first marriage. So I’m playing bonus dad to a two year old, a six year old and a 13 year old at the age of 23. So, you know, I had to learn how to, you know, grow up extremely quick, be a man that way.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:44:40] Like I said, we had our baby girl. She’s seven now. We had her in 2017. Excuse me. Then, you know, we had a business together, you know, that’s extremely successful. Um, and like I said, man, it’s just we just started to become two different, totally people. I wanted certain things. She wanted certain things, and we just couldn’t get it right, you know what I mean? And I can honestly say, too. And a big advice for you, man, especially getting married. Just make sure God is at the center of your marriage, because once you. Absolutely. And that’s what I learned. Now, once you stray away from keeping him in the front of your marriage, um, you know, that’s where you know, the devil come in and start throwing any type of adversity. And I always used to hear her say, I used to always worship her as my God, because I did. I used to, you know, Brian, man, that was that was my. That was my love. You know what I’m saying? Like everybody, even Stevie Wonder could see that. That’s. Yeah. You know, Stevie Wonder could see man, that was that was. You know what I mean? Sorry, Stevie.

Nathan Bates: [00:45:36] What?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:45:36] I’m just saying. Like every everybody can see that. You know what I mean? That was truly like that. That was my best friend right there, man. And, um, you know, like I said, just to finally get to that point where we had this having this conversation where it’s like, okay, we can’t get it right, you know what I mean? It was very detrimental to my mental for a while. Um, she was just like, look, man, we’re going to be best friends. We’re always going to be in each other’s lives. And I wasn’t trying to hear that at first. But again, the adversity that we all been through or whatever, it allowed me to mature and to see that. And as well, the kids are now seeing a more healthy interaction between us. So like I said, I mean, I’m always over there, you know what I mean? That’s my homie, you know what I’m saying?

Nathan Bates: [00:46:17] And y’all aren’t sitting here talking behind each other’s backs. Yeah.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:46:19] Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, she definitely wants me to I mean, she even told our seven year old the other day, she was like, uh, because I have I have a full time. And she was like, Savannah, don’t you think you need to let your dad live his life a little bit? Because it’s always she and I. She was like, let your dad found love again. You know? I want your dad to be happy. Don’t you want your dad to be happy? She was like, yeah, I do. So, you know, um, make a long story short. Now, once I heard that and she gave my daughter that briefing and I heard my daughter’s voice, she was like, okay, yeah, I’m cool with it. So, you know, now I’m out there on a limb now, you know, met somebody, you know what I mean? So, uh, it’s just a it’s a beautiful thing, man. But like I said, just adversity. I, I love it. I feel like you have to embrace it. You have to embrace the adversity. Yeah. Um, and if anything, you talk about adversity, man, I always look at my father and like I say, even my mom, my dad’s, uh, my mother’s dad, um, you know, being an African American, owning a business in Brooklyn at that, where he was at, it was a hard thing. He had seven cleaners in Brooklyn back in the day, you know, going through, you know, the segregation times and everything.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:47:24] And, you know, the lack of equality, man, it was a very, you know, very rough thing for him. I didn’t hear too much about it, more so I heard a lot about my dad’s upbringing. You know, my dad, like I said, my dad not knowing his father, um, losing. He’s the baby of my my, my my aunts and uncles, you know, being in the room, seeing my grandmother, you know, flat out on the floor, like, passed away. He he witnessed that, um, my oldest uncle, who I never got to meet, my Uncle Harold, he was the oldest. Um, and he’s actually my motivation for baseball. He got drafted to play for the Athletics. Okay, um, as a catcher. But what happened was, um, my dad was telling me that my uncle’s, uh, female at the time had my uncle shot up and killed, so he never got to go play. And my dad was a kid and was in the other room and witnessed everything happen. Um, you know, my dad told me stories about how, you know, I said we’re from a small country town. So it was a lot of country where I’m from. Um, so there was a couple of prisoners that basically broke out of prison, and they came to my my dad’s house at the time when my, my grandmother was still living and basically broke into the house, had them, like hostage and everything. Wow. Where my dad and uncles used to have to, like, eat rabbits and birds and stuff to, like, kind of survive.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:48:40] And what happened was when they tried to make their move, they tried to steal my my dad’s stepfather’s truck and it stormed extremely bad. And it was a dirt road. So the truck ended up getting stuck. So that’s when the law enforcement finally found him and everything. So dad and my dad had colon cancer in 2005. My dad fought in two wars. You know what I mean? He’s been through PTSD. Um, I mean, I even witnessed my mom literally packed up me and her stuff because my dad’s PTSD and the medications that the military had him on was so bad to where she was about to leave. So just seeing my dad just go through all the adversity as a man, you know, and just I always used to hear him say, I didn’t name you after me for nothing. You know what I mean? Sometimes I wish I didn’t name you after me because you wouldn’t be going through adversity. So he feels like it’s a curse that he named me after him. So just seeing him going through all the adversity that he went through as a man, um, just kind of was like, you know what? Look at my dad now. You know, he’s went through everything. He’s 65 years old, looking like he’s still in his 50s. You know what I mean? He’s gotten every car he wants now.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:49:46] You know him and my mother doing good. He’s got some grants, some, you know, some grandkids. And this is like, man, everything that my dad go through, look at the character that he is now. So I feel like for me, the adversity that I’ve been through from being heard, you know, going through divorce right now, um, being married so young, oh my gosh, that was that’s a whole different story, right? Being married so young, taking care of somebody else. Kids. That’s not yours. And you’re dealing with the bitter father that’s still in the picture. You know what I mean? That’s a lot for at that age. Yeah, that’s a lot for somebody at 23, 24 years old. Um, so like I said, I feel like adversity is is a great character building and it build the character that I am now. And that’s why I walk out. I walk with my chest out, not because of what I did, not because of what I played, but I walk with my. Chest out just because of the fact that the adversity that I face and I know that God has brought me through all of that. So it’s like when somebody try to judge me as a character or try to, you know, judge my character is like, you can’t tell me nothing about being a man because you don’t know. You don’t know what I’ve been through. You know what I mean?

Brian Pruett: [00:50:50] Yeah, we’ll come back to that in a second. I am going to mention, though, March 21st. You get too much, both of you there. But I’m we’re hosting a first annual America’s Hometown Heroes Expo in Acworth, and it’s for veteran owned, first responder owned businesses. And a portion of the proceeds are going to the Outer Circle Foundation, which is a nonprofit based in Dallas, Georgia, that works with veterans and first responders on PTSD and suicide prevention. Um, and the gentleman that runs it, Matt Payne. Matt and Buffy, you’re welcome. Shout out for you. Um, he’s a 16 year Air Force vet, combat specialist, as well as a retired police chief at a new Jersey. So and he suffered so so we’re going to come back to this in just a second. So I got a couple questions and there’s a lot to talk about. We don’t have time. But I do want to ask a couple of questions. Um for you. So so Nathan, I’m going to come to you for a second, share a little bit of the experience on what it’s like, the differences, I guess you would say. I wanted to ask you this in the locker room chat, but we didn’t get to it. I might ask this year, but can you share a difference, uh, of the experience of a difference between traveling around the minors in the, in the, in America and then playing pro in Mexico? What kind of share a little bit about that difference?

Nathan Bates: [00:51:59] Yeah, it was uh, well, first of all, the obvious difference is, I mean, the cultural difference between English and Spanish is one thing. And then the thing about the Mexican League is that there’s teams like Tijuana, where I don’t know if any of you all have seen videos of the games in Tijuana, but it’s they’re called, like the Yankees of the Mexican League because they make the most money, but they have like six mascots at every game, like four on the field in foul territory while the game is going on and pitches are being thrown and music is being played, it’s just a totally different environment. Um, but yeah, I mean, they’re traveling around the I, I got very lucky that the only place I haven’t played baseball in America is the Pacific Northwest. So, I mean, I’ve gotten to go to big Sky country, Southern California, Northern California, Arizona, Texas, southeast obviously played up in Maine and all that for the first year of college ball. And one of the summer college leagues I played in was the Necbl. So I’ve been very fortunate to travel a lot, but it’s, uh, yeah, in the minor leagues, it’s still kind of a hybrid in between, like you’re on your own and like a college situation where it’s very structured and everybody’s telling you what you have to do all the time. Um, and in Mexico, it’s like, we’re not going to tell you what to do if you don’t do it. You’re just gone. I mean, and that’s to an extent that’s kind of how it is in the minor leagues, but there’s a little bit more of a safety net, like, hey, get it together.

Nathan Bates: [00:53:14] This is, you know, don’t be late. All that stuff. There’s no warnings in Mexico. If you’re late, you don’t pitch well. I mean, I showed up, that was the only time in my career I’ve been released, and I deserved it. It wasn’t pitching well at all. It wasn’t. Wasn’t throwing strikes. Um, but they also have a certain amount of American born players or foreign born players that are allowed to be on the team. Um, and there’s obviously there’s not a whole lot of, uh, Mexican people that are six foot eight. I’m not saying there’s none, but it’s less likely that there’s any Hispanic heritage or Mexican heritage in me with my height. But you can only have so many. And so they’re on an even shorter leash. Like if you’re not performing, they got to get those spots filled with people that are, you know, they know what they’re doing. And I played with Addison Russell. Pablo Sandoval was on that team. Josh Reddick, uh, Carlos Martinez with the Cardinals. I mean, it was a big, big names on the team, which I wasn’t expecting when I went down there. Um, and even there was a guy. You remember the guy for the Athletics that took the knee during the national anthem? The first one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he’s down there. Okay. That dude is big. He’s like your height. He’s maybe 290. He has the biggest hands I’ve ever seen. This dude. I mean, physical specimen. Anyways, I’m getting off track.

Nathan Bates: [00:54:15] Um, but, yeah, I mean, the traveling is a lot different. I mean, it’s still bus rides, really. I mean, you get to Triple-A, then you start flying just because the leagues are so big. But, um, the bus rides are are in the minor leagues and in the Mexican League, but the, um. The the I’ll say the I’m trying not to get myself in trouble here, but the precautions and the parameters on which the trainer or the what the trainer adheres to, what he is allowed to and not allowed to do is different, I’ll say, in Mexico versus the minor leagues. And that was a bit of an eye opener even, you know, as little as I was down there. I mean, you just again, it’s a little bit of kind of a downhill flow from just the being Mexico versus the United States. I mean, you go into you can get Xanax and a bunch of different pills just from the, uh, pharmacies down there. I mean, they’re over the counter. So there’s just a lot of, uh, what seems like a big deal in America is not in Mexico. Um, but there’s I would say 90% of it was just a cultural difference, and it was a bit of a shock. I mean, I speak enough Spanish to get by to tell people I’m learning, and then I, you know, I can hold a conversation. I was just fine down there, but it’s it was a it was still a cultural shock, even though I was kind of expecting it. But what was the locker.

Brian Pruett: [00:55:29] Rooms like different, I’m sure even in the minor.

Nathan Bates: [00:55:31] Leagues. Yeah. They were. I mean, there’s a lot of cards, which is in the minor leagues too. There’s a lot of a lot of similarities. Um, but it was, it was a little bit different just because, I mean, I had never been in a locker room with that many big names in the big leagues. I mean, there was, what, three World Series champions in that locker at any point? Um, obviously Pablo Sandoval Kung Fu Panda being the big one. Um, but the amount of talent that was in the room, I just feel like there was a lot more in depth conversations when it would I mean, locker room conversations, they’re very rarely about baseball or the sport you’re playing. Um, but I feel like there was a lot more intentional and very fine tuned. Uh, things to pick up from the baseball side was the biggest difference. Just because, I mean, a locker room you’re sitting around changing, waiting around for BP or for the game to start. So there’s only so, so many things you can do, um, when you’re waiting around like that. But yeah, I would say the, the actual sports conversations were very lots of nuggets to be picked up from guys like that for sure. Kenny, you.

Brian Pruett: [00:56:26] Shared a little bit, but let me ask you, what’s it like the difference between going from baseball and playing arena football?

Nathan Bates: [00:56:31] Very curious.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:56:32] Oh, man. Um, it’s very different. It’s very different. Um, again, for me, with arena football is now it’s more physical, you know what I’m saying? It’s like, okay. It’s because like I said, I play in defensive end. So it’s like. And in arena ball, the office alignment are like six, eight, six, nine, 400 pound plus.

Nathan Bates: [00:56:54] That’s not as big of a field. I feel like you don’t got to they don’t got to move as much.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:56:57] Right. And that’s the thing too is it’s different from outside football because with outside football the defensive end he can have time to do six, seven, eight moves. You know what I mean. To try to get around that that that the offensive linemen and arena ball. You got like 2.5 seconds uh literally because it’s a 50 yard field. You know what I mean? So you got literally 2.5 seconds. So if you’re not, at least have your foot, you know what I mean? Past that offensive lineman foot. As you’re about to cut that corner within at least one and a half, two seconds, that’s it. Because the pocket collapsed so quickly. You know what I mean? Um, and again, that was just different, uh, especially with arena ball because now, you know, you’re playing on turf, but the turf that I played in, in baseball is different from this type of turf that you’re playing on arena ball. Um, the fans and everything is closer to you. You know what I mean? If you never if you ever been to a hockey game or whatever, it’s kind of like that with set foot. There’s no guard, there’s no no, you know, whatever the clear thing right there. Right. So arena ball, like when you hit somebody into the wall, you know what I mean? You got fans literally like patting you on top of the head, like hitting you on the helmet because they’re so into it. And I didn’t realize how many arena football fans there are in this, in this world, like in the United States. I mean, for instance, we’re playing against the Jacksonville Sharks. Okay. What else in Jacksonville is there Jacksonville Jaguars. So at that time, um, like I said, my ex-wife, she was sitting in the stands and she sat beside a guy who said that they have season tickets for the Jacksonville Sharks. They don’t give a rat’s behind about the Jaguars.

Nathan Bates: [00:58:31] I mean, it’s the right. Right. No offense, but that’s a good example.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:58:34] But it’s like they care more about the Jacksonville Sharks. And like I said, the environment um, you know the music during the games. Like I said it’s the crowd engagement the player engagement with the crowds. How fun it is. Um, and just learning the rules of arena football. Like I said, there’s three linemen, three on offense, three on defense. Right. And the reason why the scoring is so high, it’s really a receiver DB game because you got that one. You got that one receiver in motion. And that’s when the quarterback hits the ball. Once that receiver hits that line of scrimmage, that’s when the quarterback hits the ball. You know what I mean. So now you got that receiver. You know it’s one on one. You know. And if you’re not a good defensive back you’re not a good defensive player. You’re going to get schooled. Yeah. You know what I mean.

Nathan Bates: [00:59:21] Um it’s that timing makes a difference too. Like since you can kind of time as a defensive player, you can kind of time that receiver. Because if you. When he’s about to cross the line. Either he’s offsides. I mean, he’s going to beat you. So I feel like that’s.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:59:33] What helped me, honestly, was being a baseball player, the hand-eye coordination, you know what I mean? Seeing 90 something plus miles an hour, you know what I mean? Being able to hit that not all the time, but, you know, being able to touch it, getting ready.

Nathan Bates: [00:59:45] To hit it, the whole.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [00:59:46] Thing. So it’s kind of like and my trainer, who I was training when I was living in Loganville, his name is George Herron. Shout out to body by George. He’s the one who actually encouraged me to do football. He was a football. He went to Auburn and played. He played with Bo Jackson at Auburn. So you know, George encouraged me to do football. And he was like, Kenny, you got to understand, man, when a defensive guy that big throws his shoots his hand out at you and you’re so used to reacting to a 90 plus mile an hour fastball, like your fast twitch muscles are going to, like, help you in this game.

Nathan Bates: [01:00:17] You didn’t realize it. You’ve been training him the whole time you’ve been playing baseball.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:00:20] Yeah, right. So it was like, now when I’m training, even when I was in Tampa and I’m training, right? And then when I actually see the offensive linemen shoot his hands out at me, now I’m learning to swim moves, whatever. But with my hand and our coordination and the twitching, the fast twitch, it’s like, oh man, this ain’t nothing. Yeah, really.

Nathan Bates: [01:00:37] That learning curve is this big, right?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:00:39] Oh, you about to shoot him? Oh thank you. You know what I mean. It was it was different. But I wanted to pick you too. When you say you played in Mexico, you know, by me being in Dominican Republic. Mhm. Oh my gosh. Different. So that’s and that’s another reason why Vogelsong and I are real tight. Because he played in Venezuela. Oh and right. See just your reaction I’m.

Nathan Bates: [01:00:59] Supposed to be playing down.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:01:00] There right. You know he was like he said Kenny the fact that you played in doctor is like it’s very therapeutic to me because nobody I can’t talk to anybody about playing in Venezuela. They don’t get it. Yeah. And like he said man. Oh shoot man. We like I said of course I’m older than you. So this was 2011, 2012. And I was down there. So the mascots you know what I mean. The cheerleaders on top of the dugouts. And that was so hard for me being 20, 21 years old, finding out we can’t talk to the cheerleaders. And I’m looking at you like, what? What do you mean we can’t talk to them? Yeah, you talk to them if you want to. You might have a finger missing, you know what I mean? Um, like you said, the structure.

Nathan Bates: [01:01:41] The top of the dugout, like.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:01:42] Oh, yeah. Like that, uh, like they’re literally like. And again, like, I went to a black. I went to a HBCU. North Carolina ain’t. So you hear about you probably seen me post it like Jeho stands for greatest homecoming on earth. That’s our that’s our hashtag. So it was literally like a black college homecoming every single game. So when you have it and again when I played I played winter league there too for the Tigers. And that’s in Santo Domingo. That’s the that’s the capital. So I’m playing with that’s something that’s Hanley Ramirez from Miguel Tejada.

Nathan Bates: [01:02:15] A lot of the big names that are Dominican, they’ll play down there year round.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:02:18] They’ll play down here year round and that’s what I loved about it. That’s why I tell people, if you can play over there and keep up with them, man, you can come over to the States and kill because it’s a lot of big name players who just love the they love doctor so much, they don’t care about coming to America, you know what I mean? And like you said, being able to get stuff right over the counter that easy over there, the structure is you’re on your own type thing. It was a it was a very different issue. I faced the rawness Chapman over there. I didn’t say I was successful, I just said.

Nathan Bates: [01:02:52] I mean, you heard me talk about a union. I got nothing like.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:02:55] Literally I get over there. And that’s before he was a big guy. He was big and who he was. And basketball is big in Dominican Republic, too, especially in Santiago, because Santiago and Santo Domingo are two capitals and whatever. So Santiago, their basketball is real big. So I’m seeing Chapman at that time I got there, and we’re in this regular random field with goats in the outfield. I played center field, so there’s goats in the outfield. Okay, we’re at this and this is before the season began. They got especially the American players. They got us used to it, right. Used to the culture. So we was playing pick up baseball. You know, like pick up basketball. It’s pick up baseball. But they always had three umpires. It could have no fence, nothing whatever. But there was always three umpires and you always saw kids laughing. It was better than.

Nathan Bates: [01:03:39] Most minor league crews.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:03:40] Right? You know what I mean?

Brian Pruett: [01:03:41] Well, the goats were the field crew. I mean, come on.

Nathan Bates: [01:03:43] Still better than most other crews.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:03:45] So. And the thing is, when we get there, you have these little kids practicing training, whatever. And I tell you, striking out was very embarrassing because once you strike out, you got these kids laughing at you as you walk back to the dugout.

Nathan Bates: [01:03:58] Remember you the next time you come.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:03:59] Up and they remember you the next time because they’re like, man, we can do this. And we’re eight years old, 15 years old.

Nathan Bates: [01:04:04] And they’re probably right.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:04:05] Too, honestly. And so I just remember, man, they, uh, I get there. This is my very first day. And, um, I remember his name was Pierre de Vos. He picked me up from the airport, and I was like, man, you got some Gatorade or something? I’m thirsty. I just came from, you know, from North Carolina, man. And like, I got you, papi, I got you. And then it was a culture shock because I didn’t know everything was pesos. Right. So when we stop at the gas station, this man is $50. Yeah, the guy’s filling up the limo, and it’s like $175, right? I didn’t know it was pesos. So I’m looking. I’m like, what is this? And then I’m watching the speedometer go. I didn’t know it was in kilometers. Oh, yeah. So I’m like, do y’all not see this man going 130 miles an hour? I’m sitting in the back like. And everybody just man this thing.

Nathan Bates: [01:04:49] Smooth going 130.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:04:51] And I’m kind of nervous. So when we get to the field, man and Chapman is standing off to the side, he’s just in some shorts and a shirt. I’m like, man, that’s he play basketball. He got to be right. So they was like, Kenny, you going to lead off man. You’re not playing the field. You’re going to lead off today. And I’m like all right cool. So mind you I haven’t met all the team reminds you right. So they just got me from that from that workout. So it was a lot of American players I’m introducing myself talking to the Dominican guys speak no Spanish at this time so I’m okay. See. Right okay. So next thing you know man I’m leading off. I got my back turned towards the dugout just talking whatever. And then I hear POW! What the hell? I turn around, it’s Chapman on the mound now. In baseball clothing.

Nathan Bates: [01:05:32] Yeah, he’s got that big.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:05:33] Yes.

Nathan Bates: [01:05:34] His whole body.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:05:35] Yes, Lord. And mind you, this is before it was extremely developed. Right? So just imagine how wild and scary it was looking then. So I get up there and the very first pitch, I see it and I don’t see it. By the time I got myself set, the ball was already in the mitt and I was like, okay, but it was a ball. He did the next three like that. Okay, okay, so I got three zero count, right? I’m like, all right, here we go. He threw the same exact pitches right down the pipe. The next 31I swung and missed struck out. Wow. And I was like different. Yeah man. It’s it’s a it’s a different ball game. Well like you said most.

Nathan Bates: [01:06:11] People are like are you going to the Dominican in the off season. You just need to get some work in. And it’s like, no, you can get you get paid pretty well down there and there’s really good competition because I know pools for a long time will go down there. I mean, again, guys from the Dominican would just in the off season, right? They don’t like to take time off. They play baseball because they love the sport. And so when everybody sends them home they’re like, all right, we’re gonna go play more baseball. So even doesn’t matter if you’re a big leaguer, World Series champion, minor leaguer, everybody, you know, if you’re there. That’s why they have those games.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:06:36] And they take it serious because you represent now you represent where you’re from. So just to be from an American American descent and I’m playing for let’s say, tigers and I’m with that’s what Vladimir Guerrero and I mean that’s Samuel Sosa Manny Ramirez that’s a big thing over there. Right.

Nathan Bates: [01:06:52] And the loyalty and the country loyalty is way different than it is in America. Doesn’t matter where you’re from, whether you’re a Mexican born, Dominican born.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:06:58] It’s yeah. It’s patriotism.

Nathan Bates: [01:07:00] Yeah. It’s different than it is here. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [01:07:02] Well, we could go on all day. I do a couple of questions for we because I’m seriously. But I know you guys.

Nathan Bates: [01:07:06] I know we’re going on doing the same thing. I know you.

Brian Pruett: [01:07:08] Guys got to go somewhere, so. But I do want to ask this. Well, it’s going to wind up being a two questions. And then we got three more after that that we’ll try to make this quick. The and the sport of the business of sport. Let’s be honest. It’s a business. Yeah. Multi-billion dollar business.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:07:24] Absolutely. Absolutely.

Brian Pruett: [01:07:25] I’m curious on you guys takes being, um, former college athletes, former pro athletes. To me, the college game has gotten ruined. I don’t necessarily think the Nil but the transfer portal now. Football. Obviously you didn’t play the college football, but I still could see it. You know, you got these teams that went to the bowl games. These guys started transferring in and out. What are your guys’s take on the Nil and the transfer portal and nil now in the state of Georgia, the high school athletes get it, which to me is just insane. So, um, Kenny, what about you? What’s your what’s your initial thoughts on.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:08:02] Honestly, man, I’m I’m I’m I’m on both fences. Both sides. Um, because for one thing about it, if you are a player who’s playing at these power five schools, you know what I mean? And you’re extremely successful.

Nathan Bates: [01:08:13] You generate a lot of money.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:08:14] A lot of money. You know what I’m saying?

Nathan Bates: [01:08:16] I’m saying especially in football, basketball, baseball.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:08:18] Right. Sports, especially if your jersey is being sold in stores, you know what I mean? And then you have nothing like you can’t do anything about it, you know what I mean? And you still sitting here eating noodles and noodles, right? And you’re sitting here generating all of this, like I feel that, you know what I mean? Because. And then also, you know, even if you do have some type of conversation or sign something for somebody now, it’s kind of like it can be detrimental to your career as a college athlete and also going to the next, uh, going to the next level. And then on the other side of it, it now it’s kind of like you think about it, uh, you know, the girl that plays for LSU. Uh oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Like, if she doesn’t go to the NBA from a financial standpoint, it’s not really going to bother her, you know what I’m saying? And I feel like too, that can start killing the passion and the drive and the heart and the grit of an athlete, um, to really take the game serious. And one thing I tell my travel ball kids that I coach like, I’m not going to allow you to disrespect the game that I love so much. And really, that took care of my family for a while, and I busted my hand and went through adversity to get to. But now it’s like, if you’re now you’re saying at the high school level and like now it’s like these kids, they just going to go for the money. And that’s the thing.

Brian Pruett: [01:09:34] They’ve taken the passion away. And like you said, and in the love of the game is gone.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:09:38] Yeah, absolutely. I see that.

Nathan Bates: [01:09:40] There’s no incentive for it. At least it’s like, oh, all right, I’m good at this. All right. I’ll go be good in college and make millions of dollars. And who cares if I go pro?

Brian Pruett: [01:09:46] Well, and you talk about Mikaylah Williams. You know, the quarterback. Usc has come out and said, now first of all, he’s to me. He’s not that good of a quarterback. He’s proved that this year.

Nathan Bates: [01:09:54] Well he he spoke too soon.

Brian Pruett: [01:09:56] Yes. But he’s he’s demanded that whoever drafts him he becomes part owner. And I’m sorry four.

Nathan Bates: [01:10:01] Games.

Brian Pruett: [01:10:01] After that.

Nathan Bates: [01:10:02] Exactly. But either way.

Brian Pruett: [01:10:03] Right, Nathan, what are your thoughts?

Nathan Bates: [01:10:05] Well, obviously I’m sitting here shaking my head a bunch. I, I agree, I think there’s a way to do it and I’m on both sides of the fence. I mean, yes, beforehand, being a college athlete, I mean, I it’d be easy for me to be like, oh, it’d be nice if the nil was there when I was in school. But again, I wasn’t a huge enough prospect and I wasn’t a big power conference where I would have gotten anything different, really. Um, but for the people that a high school is way too soon, right? That’s ridiculous in my opinion. But I mean, in college, like you said, there’s once you get to college, there’s no incentive to try to go to the next level because you’re getting paid just fine if you’re good enough. Athlete at a big conference, big school in a decent sport here. So why not stay for four years and get paid? Because it’s safer that than to take a risk after the first year, even if that’s statistically and, you know, in the past, if that would be the best time for you to leave, let’s say, football after your freshman year. Now, why not stay four years? Because, yeah, there’s some money that’s guaranteed, but you might get injured.

Nathan Bates: [01:11:00] You never know. I mean, even before the end of the season, you could. Something could happen. So it’s guaranteed. It’s almost like, that’s great to get to the point where you can sign a contract that gives you guaranteed money in a sport, but you get guaranteed money in college now. So it’s really taking away from the incentive, right? Like you said, to to grind and to push to the next level. But don’t you? I do think there’s some compensation. I think there’s a middle ground. I don’t think millions of dollars in these. And I think it’ll all sort itself out. I think it’ll kind of just like most things do. It’ll kind of settle somewhere in the middle. Um, but they do need to be compensated, especially at the big schools where they are making the school money, the institution money, which is most of the conversations we’re having. Um, but I don’t think immediately allowing them to sign all kinds of endorsement deals and make millions of dollars is the answer. I think there’s a way to do it. But again, it’ll sort itself.

Brian Pruett: [01:11:49] And I do agree that, you know, obviously if they’re making the school money, they should get some. But, you know, most of these kids are getting the full ride. They’re getting the scholarship, they’re getting paid to the school. They’re getting their their meals, paid the books and all that. But you add now on top of it and again, you’re just diluting what the what. So I agree. Let’s touch just real quick on the transfer portal. What are your thoughts on that.

Nathan Bates: [01:12:11] I mean, I don’t really have that big of an issue with it. I think kind of the same thing. There’s pros and cons to it, but I just with guys like Dabo Swinney that refuse to use it, I’m like, hey, whether you agree with it or not is one thing, but you’re shooting yourself in the foot by not using it. And then I get it. If it’s for a moral or, you know, you don’t agree with it and you’re protesting it for the lack of a better phrase, if that’s why you’re doing it, then that’s fine. But don’t sit here and complain about not getting good players. And that’s the reason because you have the tool just like everybody else. It’s whether you agree with it or not. Again, a whole nother thing, but everybody can use.

Brian Pruett: [01:12:43] It and I can. I see where I think it’s gotten. It’s detrimental more to football than some of the other sports. What about you, Kenny?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:12:49] Uh, I feel the same as that way for me. I see a lot of players to, um, some of them do it from being from a spoiled standpoint because they.

Nathan Bates: [01:12:59] Don’t play like they thought they were going to play.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:13:01] Right? Because. And you know what I mean? And I hear a lot of talks about baseball. And just because I’m in travel baseball and which is a whole nother different ball game, but I hear it a lot now, um, where, you know, even coaching travel ball right now, you know, you got these kids, man, who’ve been praised so much coming up from like a young age to up into, you know, high school or whatever. And then it’s almost kind of like, you know, they get recruited to the school and now things aren’t going their way, you know, not not even because of the program is not good. Maybe just because they’re facing adversity and instead of them, you know, putting ten toes down and really like owning and embracing that adversity, they feel like, okay, hey, look, well, I struggled here for whatever reason. So now I’m going to go transfer to another program because I feel like that that program is going to, you know, stroke that ego.

Nathan Bates: [01:13:52] And then the coaches that they’re going to transfer to are telling them the same thing that the coach they were at. I could not.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:13:56] Agree with what you yeah, you know what I mean. So I feel like it’s like I said, I’m on the fence with that as well. Like if for for if you’re really not getting what you think you feel like you need out of it as an athlete at that program, then I get it, you know what I mean. But then like again, you know, then you got some players, man. They’re just they’re trying to chase. They’re trying to chase a ring. You know they’re trying to chase a stat. And again I go back to travel baseball. You got parents who will be you know like not a college parent. I got a parent who called me the other day and was like, hey, um, because I coached to eight teams with the bombers, so that’s the best teams. And I had a parent call me and say, hey, man, you know, I know my player may not play on your team, but I want him to play on your team. Just to say he played on the A team. And it’s like, but your son is starting every single day with the B team, and we’re playing in the same competition. We’re playing in the same tournaments. So are you more concerned about the name, or are you more concerned about the development of your son and I? Right. And I see that in the Trans Reporter, too. I see a lot of players now was like, okay, for instance, Coach Prime, you know, when Coach Prime left Jackson State, how many players go to the transfer portal when you get to win to Colorado. Right. And then yeah, they started off good. But then look what happened. Right. You know what I mean. So it’s yeah it’s.

Brian Pruett: [01:15:08] It’s well you talked about the parents. My my dad, uh, when I was really young, he was an umpire for, uh, this was Little league. Little Little League. And he lasted one season and he stopped because of the parents.

Nathan Bates: [01:15:20] That’s why I coached two weekends. Coached, uh, travel team. Uh, ninth inning down in Chamblee. I coached two, two weekends of in the fall. And I was like, I can’t do it. Yeah, I mean, it’s crazy. And I you absolutely agree with you saying that travel has put this, this thought into whether it’s the kids or the parents, like, okay, well, if I’m not playing and I want to play, I can just go to a different team until I find one that will let me play. Yeah. And that’s I think that’s what they’re trying to do in the transfer portal is like, well, people have been telling me since I’m seven that I’m the best, so why would I not be? And every time I’ve heard a kid say that, I was like, you know what? Chase Smith, best player, was recruited by every school in Georgia, played at home plate where I played on the big name travel team when I was a freshman sophomore, and I didn’t play with him junior or senior year, played with a different team that let me play both positions and that was fine. But I was like, you know what Chase is doing now? They’re like, what? And I was like, I don’t know. I didn’t even know where he went to school. I don’t even think he went to college. It’s like what you do in your sophomore year or even most of the time in high school. Really, in the grand scheme of things, means nothing, right? Absolutely. Really doesn’t mean anything. But I think a lot of the putting a lot of the the stress on succeeding and being on a big name team and being the shortstop or the center fielder or the leadoff three hole, whatever. And I think a lot of that, the them thinking that’s the most important thing and travel ball. And in high school, I think that’s also going into college and the transfer portal and it’s like, well did it in school and it worked. Or I did it in high school and it worked well. Transfer to USC now and then I’ll be a USC quarterback.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:16:44] Yeah college is that’s college is a different grind man. It’s you know what I mean. Like you say even at pro ball I was talking to a guy the other day and it’s like okay when you get to the Pro Bowl, especially as a position player, right. Like I was a center fielder. So it’s kind of like, clearly you were a center fielder. You’re good enough to be at this level. But there are other guys in the same organization as you that plays the same position. So now the thing is, okay, you’re a center fielder for the San Francisco Giants, right? You’re in the center fielder for the San Francisco Giants organization. But now what are you. Yeah. You know what I’m saying.

Nathan Bates: [01:17:20] Is, are there a lot of center fielders in front of you? Are there less right fielders maybe moving to right since you have a good arm? Maybe. Is that a career path? Right.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:17:27] I mean, there’s all kinds of what separates you now. Oh, you run A65. He runs A65, right? You hit 20 bombs. He hits 20 bombs. You know what I’m saying? What makes you different?

Brian Pruett: [01:17:36] Well, now you got the universal DH. That’s a whole nother topic, right?

Nathan Bates: [01:17:40] I just think it needs to be even. Whatever it is, it’s fine. Just fine as a pitcher. Dh right.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:17:47] Hey look, I’m not gonna lie, if I could D.H. and not worry about because when I got hurt, they moved me to first base. Okay. Hot corner, come on now. Right. If you can just be like, hey man, just DH.

Nathan Bates: [01:17:57] If it was just taking the throws and picking, I’d be great. Oh my god. Yeah. Oh dude I’m great. You hit a top’s a big lefty. Hits a top spinner at me I’m moving out of the way.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:18:05] Think about Big Papi hitting you a hot shot at first base.

Brian Pruett: [01:18:08] But, Nathan, you’re so tall, you can be able to get it.

Nathan Bates: [01:18:11] Well, I’m so skinny right by me. I don’t have any whip, you know?

Brian Pruett: [01:18:14] All right. Real quick, because I know we’re going to. Again, I could talk all day, so, um. But, uh, so I’d like for you to. Guys, this is a two part question to give some advice. And I know I don’t want to rush you on the advice, but if somebody’s listening that either A has a child playing sports, uh, or B that are wrapping up their career, whatever the case may be, it’s a two part question. I like for you guys to give advice on dealing with, uh, your mental health because you guys go through a lot. I mean, people I don’t think people realize athletes have a lot of mental health challenges, you know, because of the disappointments and whatever. But then also it give advice from transitioning from playing pro ball into getting back into society and doing a career. Yeah. So, Nathan, I’ll start with you.

Nathan Bates: [01:19:00] Um, yeah. I mean, I think the on the mental side of things, it’s have have an outlet, whatever that is, is fine. But just remember that whatever sport you’re playing, it’s not the only thing in the world. I mean, I played multiple sports, which was great. I loved going and playing tennis and soccer and messing around and doing all kinds of things. So I never got burnt out on baseball. Um, so I never in high school, at least in college, I never really had that, um, that dreading it or really hitting a wall or really having that mental frustration. But there was plenty of that, um, when I got to pro ball. And I think the biggest thing for me that helped me do that was even then, there’s 12 months of me, 18 months, actually, of me going into a facility for a few hours in the morning and then going back to the same apartment with three other guys every night. And it’s like, this is all I’m doing all day. I have to find something else to keep my mind off of it, or else all I’m going to sit there is this downward spiral of, you know, I’m not healthy. Am I doing everything I can to get healthy? What if it doesn’t work? And then your mind starts to go off on all these tangents that can really be detrimental and destructive, really from a mental standpoint.

Nathan Bates: [01:20:01] And so I would say the one thing is have an outlet, whatever that is, it can be, you know, another sport, it can be an art or a craft or playing video games, whatever. Going and hanging out with people, that’s fine. But you have to be able to disconnect from the sport you’re playing and be able to not take yourself too seriously. Um, and that’s that. It actually ends up going a long way for the player. Um, and as a parent, I guess just understand that because of a lot of the advice that people are getting now is you got to start them young. You got to like I said earlier, you got to play baseball young. It’s specializing is not that big of a deal. As everybody says it is the travel coaches and the high school coaches. Yeah, they all say it. And even sometimes in college, the first thing that they said to me when I got to pro ball, we were taking on the mound and I, you know, fielded a bunt down the third base line planting my foot and threw the, you know, ghost runner or whatever you call it out at first.

Nathan Bates: [01:20:50] And immediately one of the coaches looked at me and said, you played more than. One sport, didn’t you? I was like, yeah, I played basketball and they’re like, yeah, it’s really obvious. We we try to promote people playing more than one sport that cross athleticism. It helps for whatever sport you’re focusing on. But it’s like I said, it’s just all these the parents and some of the travel coaches saying, you’ve got to focus on baseball. You can’t you don’t have time for basketball. I mean, even when I was in high school, both of the sports were telling me I needed to quit the other one or else I wasn’t going to have a future in it. And it’s just it hurts my heart to hear that, because the kid that really wants to play is the one that’s starting to have all these negative thoughts, and it’s like, maybe I’m putting pressure on myself, you know, I got to do really well because all this stuff that my parents are doing for me and they want me to succeed, and it’s just it can be really, really destructive. So that’s what I would say from a, um, a sports side of things. And then from getting into the honestly, it’s kind of the same advice from going from the pro sports world or the sports world into the like.

Nathan Bates: [01:21:42] I said, the real job, it’s just after, you know, I still have that competitive nature. And I really I like to compete, but I can get that other places. You know, I play golf, I play men’s league basketball sometimes. And so I, I have that outlet. But just remembering that the sport that you’re playing is not the end of the world. There’s other things out there and there’s other things that you need to go enjoy and invest your time in and completely disconnect from the sport you’re playing. And to a bigger extent, it’s harder to do after the after you retire. But I was very lucky that I had a very soft landing spot. Like I said, a house and a fiance now wife with a bunch of animals. And that was where my priorities were when I retired. So it wasn’t as hard for me, um, as I as I’ve heard that it can be for other people. But either way, I would say the best advice is just have somewhere to go, whether it’s somewhere mentally or something to do that you can just disconnect and enjoy something. And it doesn’t have to be all the stress and pressure of whatever sport it is you’re trying to succeed at. Kenny.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:22:35] Yeah, man, I definitely agree. Uh, for me, um, I can also say, especially from a sports standpoint, an athlete, you I had to get to a point where I had to realize and my spiritual advisor helped me with this. The sport is not who you are. It’s what you do. Um, and, like, I know we didn’t get into it, but I was. I was suicidal, um, you know, literally about to jump over 400in Alpharetta to where I was in peach for hospital for, like, seven days by myself. Um, you know what I mean? Going through it by myself. And a lot of it came from my depression of being hurt, uh, with baseball. Try to get back into it. And then, you know, when I said bump baseball and I did the arena football thing, I’m thinking that my my, my life is back in order. You know what I mean? The money’s coming in now, you know, playing a sport. I’m back playing a sport. You know who the endorsements. And you know, I had an Adidas, uh, Adidas sponsorship, you know, so I got a lot of Adidas stuff. I had a core water sponsorship. Like, I thought I was a man again. Right. And then when Covid happened, you know, it kind of killed me. Um, it killed my whole mood. And then it was very detrimental to as me, as a husband. Um, so I had to get to a point where I felt like for me, if I didn’t was if I wasn’t successful in sports, like my life was over.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:23:53] But I had to understand sports is what I did. It’s not who I am. You know, I’m a father. At that time, you know, I was a husband at that time. You know, like I said, a coach, a leader. Um, and the biggest thing I can say is for that person transitioning, you got to find your purpose. You know what I mean? And that’s not easy. It’s not always easy. Oh my gosh. No. Um. And that’s why I stay grounded in my faith, you know what I mean? Like, I’m a real strong man of God, you know what I’m saying? And I really take that seriously. Um, because, again, you’re not going to find your purpose unless you have him, like, really seeking him and doing that. And once I got that comfort into finding my purpose and my spiritual advisor said, you know, um, I don’t know when or where or how, but you’re going to come back to the game of baseball. He was like, um, like I said, I threw everything away for baseball. I didn’t want to talk about it. I mean, my cousins Jackie Bradley Jr, right. Like literally, I mean, he was playing in the World Series. My dad was like, man, you talk a little jacket today. I’m like, yeah, I talked to him on Facebook and we talked on the phone, but we didn’t talk about baseball. You know what I mean?

Nathan Bates: [01:24:55] Because he probably knows.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:24:56] Yeah, you know what I mean? And me and Jackie’s not playing anymore. You know what I mean? Oh that’s true. Yeah. He reached out to me like, yo, what? You know, I need some help. He’s a family man, too. But it’s like, I didn’t. I didn’t talk about baseball anymore. Don’t talk to me about it. If you wanted to talk baseball, I was. I would be so irritated. Like, leave me alone about baseball and my dad. I had to stop answering my dad’s calls. During the World Series when Jackie was playing, I was like, dad, I don’t want to talk about baseball. I just can’t do it right. So but my spiritual adviser, Pastor Mojo, shout out to him, um, he was just like, look, Kenny, you’re going back to baseball. Whether it’s the play or whether it’s the coach, he said, but God is going to bring you back to there because there are so many other people that you can touch. You know what I mean? Uh, with that sport, with that platform. So I feel like now that’s why I’m coaching now, and I’m so passionate about coaching, and that’s why I want to go to the next level at the pro level, because I feel like the message that I have a 13, 14 year old kid can’t relate.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:25:53] The message that I have right now. I feel like the collegiate level players and the pro level players can’t connect to my message because for one, I got married young, you know what I’m saying? Um, I’m a father. Some of these guys are fathers now already. And my goal now is to build strong men outside of the game of baseball. So I feel like, you know, once you really tap into what your purpose is, and that’s what anybody, not even just an athlete, that’s just anybody who’s facing something now. Um, sometimes once you tap into your purpose, the money is not it might not be a lot of money, right? But at the end of the day, you’re getting that fulfillment that you’re tapping into what you’re what your assignment is while you’re here on this earth. And once you tap into that man, it don’t matter if you make $1 million or $10, $10 an hour. You know what I mean? That once you realize your purpose is that’s what’s going to take over the happiness and just make you be extremely happy.

Brian Pruett: [01:26:44] I’m living that myself right now, right?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:26:47] You know what I mean?

Nathan Bates: [01:26:47] And then I know exactly what you mean.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:26:49] And then, like I said, from the the parent aspect, man, let kids be kids, like, literally like my daughter, she’s seven years old and everybody sees my daughter like nothing against Natalie. Okay. Now we still cool. I love you, but Savannah has all of my athletic, right? Natalie has not one athletic attribute on her body. She’ll tell you, but the business. Oh, yeah, she’s top notch in business. And Savannah got that from her. But the athleticism. Savannah has it from me. So she’s in gymnastics. She’s in soccer right. She’s in dance. Mhm. Um you know what I mean. So and I’m wanting to put her on track because her gait is just so amazing when she runs. So it’s kind of like I remember I had her in dance and then I did gymnastics with her last year. And mind you, she goes to school in Johns Creek. So Mondays and Wednesdays was dance in Roswell from 4 to 530. And she’s in Ariel as well, and she’s the only kid under the age of ten in Ariel. So where they used the silks and they climbed up the silks and flipping and everything, that’s what she does. She does that too. And in gymnastics. Right. And then in gymnastics, I went literally one day for the first time ever. And the owner of the gym was bio gymnastics and and coming. And he comes up to me, he says, hey, uh, Coach Cameron wants to look at your daughter.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:28:01] And I was like, wait, why? What’s going on? He was like, he’s like, she she wants to see her. I was like, wow, what happened? And I was like, did I sign her up for the wrong class? He said, no. He said, have your daughter been doing gymnastics before? And I was like, no. He was like, well, we want to look at her. So Coach Cameron, she looks at Savannah for an extra 30 minutes and she comes and she said, hey, we want to put Savannah in mighty mice. I said, what does mighty mice? She said, well, it’s like an intro to real gymnastics competition and whatever. And she was like, and once she passes that, we’ll give her a test and we’ll start moving up the level one, level two, level three, whatever. And so basically I’m like, okay, how much is it going to run me? I was like, bump it, okay, let’s do it. So basically, make a long story short, Savannah was in Mighty Mites for like four months. And then January of last year they did her evaluation. They moved up to level one. Then literally after level one, three months later, they moved her up to level two, and her test for her to go to level two was to have the rope right all the way up to the ceiling, and she made it up the rope in 6.5 seconds back down.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:29:04] Right. And so basically they moved up to level two. But what it was, I had to realize when I say let kids be kids, Savannah gets out of school at 3:00 right from Johns Creek Valley Christian Cabin, Johns Creek. And then it’s like a 30 minute commute to, uh, um, to gymnastics. So my baby girl was only 5 or 6 years old. She didn’t have time to rest. Right. And then now they’re doing all this ab work, these fish holes and stuff. And baby girl just came to me crying one day. She’s like, dad, I’m tired, I’m tired. I can’t do it anymore. And I say, you know what? You’re only six years old. You know what I’m saying? It’s way too. I’ll let you be a kid, right? I’ll let you be a kid. So I say that. So now she loves. She wants to get back in gymnastics, right? And now that I met my my my new lady, Sarah, she, like said, play pro soccer before. She’s big into soccer and she’s a physical therapist now. So Savannah is so motivated to get back into soccer and she wants to get back into gymnastics. But when I say let kids be a kid right now in this age, just let let them be kids.

Nathan Bates: [01:30:03] Yeah. If you hadn’t done that, there’s a good chance she’d be like, I whenever you finally let me stop. I’m not going back to it.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:30:08] Right, right. And so it’s like I had to recognize that. So like, say the parents, man, especially when you travel ball kids, you know, man, I be in the baseball all of a sudden I see these parents, man with their eight year old nine year old kids and they, you know, just drilling them, drilling them. I’m just like, man, you’re literally going to be the reason why your child does not want to play a sport ever again, because you’re trying to live vicariously through, you know, through them, man. So yeah, that’s that’s that’s my that’s my advice.

Brian Pruett: [01:30:32] So real quick, you guys obviously are doing something. Now you talked about you’re doing the coaching and the training. Yeah. Uh you said high school age right.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:30:39] Yes.

Brian Pruett: [01:30:40] Uh, so if somebody’s listening, first of all, where can they get where where can they get a hold of you? And how? Um, if they want to talk to you about training.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:30:47] Oh, yeah. So they can definitely go on Instagram if they do have Instagram. And it’s at Kenny Graham Junior. Nothing. Um, of course, you know, my Facebook is Kenny K Graham Junior because CJ’s my nickname. Um, and, you know, that’s it. Um, Twitter. Uh, Twitter was big when I was in college back in like, oh, 7 to 11. So I’m just now getting back on that because now with me coaching, um, I’m starting to hear from other travel ball coaches who’s been in the game for a while that a lot of the scouts and a lot of the collegiate scouts and everything. There’s a couple of, uh, platforms. Um, that’s big on Twitter. And if you hashtag those platforms and things, these coaches go right to that now, like you don’t, you know what I’m saying? They just do that with the hashtag. Yeah. They just search the hashtag. So but definitely on Instagram and Facebook. Like I say it’s just at Kenny Graham Junior. Um, I’ve actually had a couple of guys, a couple of parents, um, reach out to me via Instagram. Um, just because of the content that I coach about me, you know, that I post about my coach and like I said, I’m very authentic. So if you go on my social media, you’re going to see myself and my daughter and you’re going to see me having fun being passionate about the coaching thing.

Brian Pruett: [01:31:52] So what facility are you at?

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:31:53] Uh, I’m at Grand Slam facility in Johns Creek. So we used to be the Georgia bombers, but we merged with a company called ZT, which is a real big out there on the West Coast now. So now we’re the ZT bombers. So we have, you know, 217 U teams, uh, 16 U 15 U 14 U 313 U teams because they have a southeast team now all the way down to eight U. And then I’m also the head coach for the Black Cobras, um, 18 U team and Black Cobras, actually a guy named Willie who named myself Black Cobra. Um, he’s a very big, uh, media content guy. Oh that’s big. I mean, he shoots, uh, he’s YouTube. Uh, I mean, he’s on a couple of teams now on contract, but every single kid in high school in the state of Georgia, especially in the area, who was trying to be somebody or some type of content, they utilize him. He goes down to the the, you know, the 17 U. Tournaments in Florida and West Palm and stuff. He’s real big. But he put an 18 U. Team together. And then of course, you know, I do collegiate summer league ball with the Brookhaven Bucks and the Sunbelt League. I coached with Corey Patterson. All right. Yeah. Another, uh, MLB champion. Yep. Yeah.

Nathan Bates: [01:32:57] I definitely know that.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:32:57] Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. He’s literally I’m I over tower him. Right. So it’s hard to believe that he has so much power when he played. But yeah. So he’s the head coach for the, um, Brookhaven Bucks we play at at Oglethorpe University. And then like I said, I’m the assistant coach.

Brian Pruett: [01:33:11] Next time we talk to him, tell him to respond to my text.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:33:14] Oh, I got you, I got you, I got you, man. But yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s where I’m at, man. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [01:33:19] All right. Uh, so, Nathan Cmit solutions. Marietta. So obviously it’s kind of in the name. What you guys do everything. Computers. Right? As far as, uh, the way shared a little bit about that. And how can people get hold of you?

Nathan Bates: [01:33:29] Yeah. So, um, our, our cmit solutions is a is a franchise. There’s about 180 locations around the country. Um, but ours is Cmit Solutions of Atlanta Northwest. We have a parent franchise that’s down in Peachtree City. Newnan area. That’s Atlanta southern Cmit Solutions of Atlanta, Southern Crescent. Um, but I am not the technician that fixes the computers. I’m in sales and business development, so I just find the people that need their computers to be fixed. Um, but the way I put it is anything that beeps or blinks we take care of and protect and monitor and manage and all that kind of stuff. Um, all the mobile devices, remote monitoring, the network and the data backup, the business continuity, all that good stuff. Um, but on LinkedIn and, uh, I would say Facebook, if you search Cmit solutions, uh, Atlanta Northwest, you can find us or, um, cell phone is (770) 584-0026. I’ve my mind was just about to say business card, but that’s hard to do. Um, but yeah, I mean, you can find us on, uh, on, on Facebook and LinkedIn and anything technical related, we offer free assessments. So even any questions or anything like that, we don’t charge you for it. We just like to help as many people as we can. And our goal is to just whether you become a client or not, just leave you in a better spot than than you were when we found you. So, you know.

Brian Pruett: [01:34:41] You share your website too?

Nathan Bates: [01:34:43] Uh, yeah. It’s, uh, just cmit solutions.com. And then that’ll take you to the franchise website, and, and you can find. Uh, Typekit. I think it makes you type in your zip code and then it’ll direct you to to the appropriate franchise. And that should be us. All right.

Brian Pruett: [01:34:55] So as we wrap this up, um, I always like to end this with a positive word or quote, starting off the new year 2024 and beyond with you already shared something earlier, you can share it again if you want to, but if you got some different, what kind of. Uh, would you share the best?

Nathan Bates: [01:35:11] I don’t even know if it really qualifies as a quote. It’s too short, but my my dad and my grandpa have told me for my whole life that everything is relative. And then just really talking about perspective. I mean, just like the the story I shared about the kid from the Dominican that sent his whole check home. I mean, yeah, I thought it was a really tough situation that I was in. And then relative to his, it’s really not that bad. So just keeping in mind that everything is relative is some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten. It took me a while to kind of realize exactly what that meant, but um, once it kind of clicked for me, that’s that’s the best advice I’ve gotten. Kenny.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:35:43] Uh, yeah, for me, man, I take it, uh, especially from a spiritual standpoint, too. Um, especially what I’ve been hearing, you know, growing up and even now, sometimes when you go through adversity, sometimes God will sit you down and knock you down to to shake you up a little bit and get you back on track. Um, so I can just tell people, man, just embrace adversity. Um, and just and just be better in 2024. So, you know, whatever happened last year, year before that, just learn from it, embrace it, and sometimes understand that, you know, God got something better for you that nobody can see, not even you can see. And sometimes you’re going through these type of things to literally for him to be like, look, I need you to start relying on me more. Um, and once you do so, you know, greater things can happen. And the last thing I can say sometimes when you are trying to go different places, go better. You know what I mean? Sometimes in order to elevate, you got to separate. Um, so, you know, if there’s a group of friends out there that you’re with that’s caused you not to elevate and what you’re trying to do, sometimes you got to separate from there. Sometimes you got to separate from a from a relationship, you know, or even separate from a job or whatever, you know, that’s stopping you from going to where you go. So that’s all right.

Brian Pruett: [01:36:53] Well, the last thing is, uh, the thank you is a lost art these days. So Nathan and Kenny, thank you for what you guys do in the community and being former professional athletes and just being regular human beings.

Nathan Bates: [01:37:05] I was going to say the same thing. Thank you for doing what you do and being who you are, man.

Kenny Graham Jr. : [01:37:08] Absolutely, man.

Brian Pruett: [01:37:09] So everybody out there listening, let’s remember, let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.