Community
Continued from page 33
children are our future, and children are our future members, staff
and managers,” he said. “If you think about it, it’s all about the
kids. At the end of the day, as an adult, it’s about what you can do
to pay it forward, with your team and continually do something
nice for kids.”
Fagan and his son after winning the
New Jersey Suburban Youth Football
League Super Bowl in 2014.
From Player to Coach
34
Unlike Choquette, franchisee Kevin Fagan was
involved in sports from a young age. Fagan notes
that his coaches, whether from grade school or his
time playing football for Harvard University, made a lasting
impact on him, so when his son started playing flag football in the
second grade, he jumped on the opportunity to become a mentor
as well.
“It’s one place where you can really make a difference by being
a role model for kids that perhaps don’t have a role model at home
or could use a better one,” said Fagan. “I remember all my football
coaches. I can remember things they taught me about football
and how that prepared me to approach challenges in my own life.
Hopefully, I’m doing the same for our youth players.”
Once Fagan’s son advanced to the fourth grade, he began to
play tackle football, and Fagan moved through the ranks with him.
He interviewed for the tackle football coaching position and, after
five years on the job, was asked to oversee the Summit, New Jersey,
program. Fagan now organizes the league’s programing on behalf of
the city in addition to coaching.
“The biggest thing I’ve gained has been a lot of perspective,”
said Fagan. “I try not to play favorites and hold everyone to the
same standards. It’s poisonous to our culture to allow the best
employee or player to get away with being late while the kid or
employee with the least perceived potential runs laps for the same
error.”
In addition to treating everyone equally, Fagan notes he has
learned that most people respond better when they hear something
nice before they receive constructive criticism.
“I always try to find a compliment before correcting incorrect
behavior,” he said. “That has worked on the field as well as in
business.”
When asked about a moment in time that stood out to him
during his coaching career, Fagan recalls the time one of his players
wrote an essay that won him a $500 scholarship.
“Our league has an essay contest each year, and this year, one
of my eighth-grade players submitted an essay. He is from Finland,
and English is not his first language. His father sent it to me
and told me that he wrote it in Finnish and then translated it to
English. It took him hours to write it and even more to translate,”
explained Fagan. “The themes of his essay were pride, discipline
and tradition. As I read the essay, it really hit home that, even
though this boy probably only understood half of what we said to
him, we were really getting through. I’m happy to say that he won
the scholarship.”
Fagan notes that, like in life, sports are about learning the
game and learning from the game. “There are a lot of charities out
there that are about improving your social status or promoting
your own or your children’s interests,” he said. “Volunteering your
time to our youth might not get you into the ‘chairman’s circle,’
but it’s a tremendously rewarding investment in the future of our
country.”
Leading Through Learning
Sports aren’t the only way franchisees can
coach youth along their life’s journey. For franchisee
Sam Glassman, the problems facing some of the
inner-city youth of New York is a major motivating
factor. Glassman volunteers with Two Together and the
Teak Fellowship, as well as volunteers and sits on the board of
trustees for SCAN New York. All three organizations are focused
on helping at-risk youth stay out of trouble and reach their full
potential.
“Volunteering has made me more thoughtful about how I
approach life, made me more thankful for how lucky I was in the
way that my life was presented to myself. I was born into a family
that valued education and religion and was relatively normal. A
lot of people don’t get those opportunities, and it’s not their fault.
They’re just not born at the right place at the right time,” said
Glassman. “It made me think about what I was going to do with
the opportunities that I had been given that others haven’t. It’s
something that I’ve been blessed with, and I probably should do
something with that to make my life more meaningful and richer
in color.”