Building for the Future: From Little League to the Majors
Why investing in the communities of today is necessary to build the unicorns of tomorrow
I had a really fun chat this week with fellow community builder, Chris Catania. I’m not allowed to spill any secrets, so I’ll just say that Chris is working on something that I’m super excited for. He and I are both really passionate about solving this problem that I’ve been talking about for years - it’s actually the stated purpose of this blog: the communication gap between community leaders and business executives - so it was great to catch up.
During our chat, I mentioned something that has been on my mind recently: the communities that emerge outside of our workspaces. The unintentional communities and the communities that emerge not for the sake of “building community” but for some other purpose. The example I shared was Little League Baseball. It’s unlikely that you, reader, know this about me, but I played baseball until sophomore year of high school (when I succumbed to social pressures of being a teenage girl and switched to softball, and subsequently walked onto the high school varsity team in my first year - but that’s another story for another time).
Like many other youth in America, my brother and I joined our local Little League at the ages of 6 and 9, respectively. He played t-ball and I joined “farm” league. I had never done anything remotely athletic before and (unlike my brother, the natural athlete) at tryouts I couldn’t throw the ball from the outfield to the infield. I learned a ton in those first few years and eventually got pretty good. I went on to be recruited into Allstar teams and other such recognitions before ultimately making the jump to softball.
My personal baseball career isn’t the point here though. In fact, remember my brother? He’s the real point of this story. He was always a standout at every athletic pursuit. Baseball, soccer, basketball, even football for one season, I think. But baseball was always his great love. An outstanding pitcher, infielder, and outfielder, he and I were both always the proverbial utility players. He went on to play for his high school and then for his college team at San Jose State University. After college, he played for semi-pro and private league pro teams, but the real success story here isn’t whether or not he “made it big” in the majors. It’s that he’s now in his thirties and thinking really hard about the business behind baseball. I get on the phone with him every week to catch up on life, career, family.
Because neither of us has yet made it to m/billionaire status, we won’t be buying our own team anytime soon. Instead, we’ve been talking a lot about the work he does in his time outside of his “day job” right now, coaching kids in high school and college teams. That got me thinking about the towns and high schools and even colleges that make their entire identities about one particular sports team. I experienced this when I lived in Lawrence, Kansas (hello, KU basketball!). They usually have some larger-than-life coach who is legendary in their local community.
Remember when I was 9 years old and just starting out in Little League? My high school varsity softball coach had no way of knowing that five years later, I would be an all-state nominee, walk-on varsity sophomore. But, chances are that many of the other girls on my varsity team had grown up playing together in the local softball league. Chances are that they knew of the high school coach(es) in the area and had an idea of who they did or did not want to play for. In states like Oregon, where you can choose freely which primary and secondary schools you want to attend, I’m sure that those decisions take into account factors like team and coach performance and personality for those players interested in playing in high school. And, if even public schools are competing for funding based on performance and attendance and population, there is plenty of incentive to ensure that those programs are respected and visible in the community.
So, if there is incentive for that program (and therefore, for the coach) to attract the best student athletes, it would seem obvious that there’s an incentive to participate in Little League and other youth sports programs to cultivate the relationships and talent that would result in those star athletes and their families perceiving and ultimately choosing the more “elite” program when the time comes to make that decision. But, that’s a long-term bet. Five to ten years? How many coaches have that kind of commitment or are even given that kind of time to show results any more?
How many community managers are given five years to show that they’ve attracted the kind of members who become star customers?
None.
And yeah, five years in business, especially in our VC-fueled, startup-frenzied tech world, is literally enough time to die five deaths. My point is: if you’re struggling as an executive to understand why your community isn’t delivering “results” (i.e. MONEY), you need to reevaluate your expectations of the results of community building. You are building super athletes, not lucky walk-ons.
