And hello,
friends and fellow neighbors and welcome back
to another edition of Live Life friend.
And today I am joined with Mr Tony Mitchell,
who is the president of the A F I Championship mindset where, where he mentors at
risk kids.
And it's something he has been doing for over 20 years, Mr Mitchell,
thank you so much for joining us today and I really appreciate it.
It's my pleasure,
my pleasure
and
I love that sweater, by the way. Thank you. This is an honor of great Rogers. This is
a
right. It's
my,
that's right.
Ok. So, so, so Mr Mitchell,
how did you get start mentoring and,
and what motivated you to uh uh to try to like get these at
risk kids? Right.
Well, you know what, I grew up in the, in the projects in the hill district
in the early seventies and
there was a lot of drugs and violence going on.
A lot of kids never really got a chance to explore different things.
And I was one of those kids.
Um I wanted to be in a position at some point
to give kids the opportunity to experience life.
You know, and not live in a fish bowl. We call it the fish bowl, man fish bowl.
You know,
you swim in the same fish bowl forever and you
never jump in the big lake with the big fish.
So, my program was designed
many years ago to help kids get out of the fish bowl and swim with the big fish
and, and, and I'm sure they,
that they really appreciate it when they finally get out of it.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
We have so many success stories and um
my biggest passion was to give kids the opportunity
to experience life and do the things that they dreamed about.
Everybody has hopes and dreams.
And uh we wanted those kids to explore their hopes and dreams.
And along with Mr Mitchell, we are also joined by Mr Thomas Wallace,
who is the executive director of the Y MC A.
So Mr Wallace,
uh why don't you guys uh tell us a little
bit about your history in high school and college?
Absolutely.
So high school was an interesting time.
Uh We, we, we Tony was at the time our new high school football coach.
Um
and
we were a little reluctant to uh get on board with
the program that Tony was trying to implement uh uh to,
to try to uh
to, to implement
uh because we weren't able to see the bigger picture at the time.
So I it was uh we were a little reluctant at first, but after about a half a year,
we were able, he was able to get across the message
and that message was that
we were much more than what we perceived ourselves to be
at that time and we had great futures ahead of us.
So during that time, Tony came in and implemented some
uh his program. Um now A F I
uh and, and implemented a championship mindset
that helped us build and become a team and more than a team, actually a family.
And through that development, through that program, we are able to have a,
a successful sports career.
But more importantly, we're able to begin to succeed as students.
And from there that led us to the next level of education
where Tony actually uh continued his mentoring even after high school.
And he was the one that dropped us off at college.
And I remember that vividly, we had four guys who wanted to go to Edinburgh
and um we loaded up a van, rented a van
and we talked about what the plan was.
Uh, you go to college, you get your degree
and you don't come home until you get your degree, you
can get your degree.
And uh we loaded up and we went up there and as fate would have it,
Thomas was the only one of the four that graduated from.
Urgh
and me and Thomas have been really close throughout the entire process.
I'm extremely proud of him for what he overcame
and now he's mentoring people,
you know, and
as somebody else who also played high school football, you know,
just like going back to what you said about that championship mindset that you put.
Because that, that's something that my coach is always, that always
messaged us about and, and, and, you know, it's,
it's kind of funny because I can kind of relate to what you guys think.
But that story is absolutely amazing how you guys
were able to carry on your relationship through,
through, through your adult life.
That, that's really amazing.
And as Mr Wallace said, he is,
he is in a way paying it forward just as Mr Mitchell did to him
when he was in high school to the kids here at the Y MC A.
So, so I have a question for both of you.
How can, how can
some one of our viewers be, be able to mentor and pay it forward just as you guys do
you wanna take, you want me to take it?
Well, I think you first have to have a passion for, for helping people find their,
their greatness.
We call it finding your greatness through a championship mindset. And
if you have that passion, you reach out to people
and help them find out what their strengths and their
weaknesses are and just really encourage them to be great.
II, I would say much of this
is, I think there's always opportunities through championship mindset.
Uh There's opportunities to go in a mentor
and the coach, young ones.
Uh Also here at the Y MC A,
there are a vast amount of opportunities to come
in and be involved on different levels of mentoring.
Uh you, whether it's at
the elementary school age or up through teenage and young adult opportunities.
Uh I'm a firm believer in having a strong mentor,
really sets you up and sets the foundation for a successful life.
And then, and then, and then, and then,
and then they can maybe do it later in
their life by mentoring somebody who was in their
Absolutely. That's one of the things that I was encouraged to do by, by Tony
has uh helped set that vision of not only becoming successful for myself,
but once you do get to that level where, where, where you're able to pay it forward,
then that's what you do and that's how we continue to pay it forward
um for generations to come.
OK.
I have another question for both of you.
If you guys would ever want to say something to Mr Rogers,
what would it be? Uh uh Mr Mitchell, why don't we start with you?
Uh The first thing I would say is,
is thank you for having a show that gave us a platform to be fully inclusive.
When I was a kid.
There were a lot of different things, tensions and turbulence going on and
you always felt like you were somebody when you watched that show,
it was just so great to know that you matter.
So I was just saying, thank you for everything that
you.
That's really nice,
Mr
I would, I would echo that same. Thank you as well as the words stated.
And I would also add for uh
thank you for
the emphasis and importance on education.
I was one that grew up watching Mr Rogers and I can remember
learning some things that I didn't learn necessarily in school and saying,
ah having that aha moment
when Mr Fred Rogers put it all together. So
thank you for that.
And I would say thank you as well.
I
will I go both of them.
OK. So uh why don't you guys tell us a little bit about your documentary that you did?
Uh I'd be glad to uh we did a documentary
um sponsored by A F I and it was the subject matter was
the kids that I mentored at Wilkinsburg High School from the years 96 to 99.
And the documentary is called Championship Mindset on the Road to Greatness
and Thomas Wallace and several other former players were in that documentary.
And the documentary's focus was
how can you change someone's mindset from a negative
to a positive.
And we shot so much footage we used Graham Field, the locker room,
we used the school cafeteria just to kind of conjure up memories of
the way things were.
And in their own words, they talked about how championship mindset
changed their lives.
Um, I remember when we did one specific piece and we were talking about,
you guys said you gonna give me one shot.
It was a new coach. We will give him one shot.
We're gonna see if this guy knows what he's talking about
and they were sold, tell him about that. That
absolutely.
So, we, we were again
early on in our high school career, I believe we were going
into our sophomore year if I'm not mistaken.
And we had played one year of football where we had lost every game.
So the guys and I had decided that football was no longer,
um,
we were going to spend our time doing a whole
lot of things that we weren't supposed to be doing.
And during that off season, I remember Tony constantly riding us
and saying, hey, you guys need to come up, I'll be the new
coach. You need to come check out the program.
Uh, you know, we'll be having to practice this date that date. And
as it got closer to the date,
uh, it only became more intense that Tony
was riding us.
So ultimately, I remember pulling all the fellas together and saying, hey,
let's just go give it a shot.
And if it's the same thing that we've experienced last year,
then it'll just be our last day
and we went up there, uh, to this practice and,
um,
probably a quarter of the way through, we knew things were different,
uh, the, the, the energy in the room with the new coaches,
uh, the, the, the things that they were doing and saying
to the players and the respect that they were treating the players with,
but also the gentle touch to go with that.
Um, we knew that things were, were great, things were on the horizon
for our program. So we decided to stay
and that,
that was the best thing that ever happened because
that was like the birth of championship mindset.
Tell viewers where they can find the documentary
or you're gonna be able to find it on our website at um A F I championship mindset
dot com or you can go to our email A F I championship mindset at gmail dot com.
Such a good
feeling to know you're alive.
It's such a happy feeling you're growing inside and when you wake up ready to sing,
I think I'll make a snappy new Day.
It's such a good feeling. A very good feeling, a
feeling, you know, that I'll be back when the day is new.
I
ideas for you.
You are,
you want to talk about
I will too because it's you. I