It Gets Better
In rural states it can be a bitch growing up gay. Welcome to Mattie's world, a 16 year old kid that has the balls to come out to his friends and
family in face of the religious midwest.
[click for Mattie]
NFL Superstar Supports Gays
Not only was Michael Irvin a Dallas Cowboys
superstar wideout, surprise, he's also a big
supporter of gay causes and supports ANY current gay athlete. I was never a Cowboys fan but I would
take having Michael on my side supporting
my rights any day. [click for
Irvin]
The Future is YOU
You're smart, you're talented, what do you do with that? Start your own company. Digital content makes it easy to be smart and launch your
own digital company. Read about these teens and the apps they've created for Facebook.
[click for
Future]
True Sportsmanship
High school sports is all about competition but sometimes you don't win. What do you do after a big loss? Mope, hate, blame game? Not the Monte
Vista high school basketball team. After their playoff loss, they got money together to help their rivals go the state championship.
[click for
Sportsmanship]
Generation WE
Think the youth of today isn't interested in world events? Think they're apathetic about politics, the economy, and social issues? Think again.
There's a new movement by affluent teen philanthropists changing the world
around them, one step at a time.
[click for
Generation WE]
Man With A Mission
How do you take a fledgling high school football team and turn it into one of the nations most elite powerhouse football programs? Read
the inspirational story of one man's destiny to teach young teen boys the real meaning of what it takes to be a successful teen athlete.
[click for Spartan Football]
My name is Mattie, I’m 16 years old and I’m from a small town in Iowa,
and I’m gay. I was raised in an extremely narrow minded, conservative,
And Christian home. My parents have always been very involved with our
local church, and in my opinion, they take religion to an extreme. So
knowing this, coming out was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to
do. I came out to my parents in the middle of my sophomore year of
high school. I had already come out to all of my close guy friends and
my siblings during my freshman year, and thankfully they were all both
accepting and supportive of my decision. It’s currently the 2nd week
of summer between my sophomore, and junior year.
When I came out, I first told my mother. I had hoped for
some understanding from her, but my efforts were in vain. When I told
her it was in the car on the way home from an appointment I had
earlier that day. The reason why I chose to tell her in the car was
because I knew if I had done it anywhere else, she would walk away and
try and avoid the conversation. Her initial reaction was anger. She
was furious, and immediately starting yelling at me. She then
proceeded to tell me that I’ve become a part of a downward spiraling
lifestyle, that I’m believing lies from the devil, and that I’m going
to hell. I simply stated that my beliefs haven’t changed on
Christianity or on anything because of my sexuality.
After that conversation, she refused to talk to me for three days. The
first thing she said to me after that time period was that she was
disgusted with me. That same night my dad came to me in my room and
calmly said that he wasn’t supportive or accepting of my decision, but
that he would somewhat tolerate my sexuality.
2 months later, my parents sat me down in our kitchen and started
preaching to me about what I had done, and that I was a despicable
person. As you can imagine, I didn’t take to that very well. We
started fighting, and yelling, and for days after that, we didn’t say
a word to each other. Thankfully when this happened, I was able to go
to my friends Ian and Emily’s house. Their mom became my safety net
during that time. She’s a lesbian, and she went through some of the
same things with her parents that I was experiencing with mine. She
was the one person I went to with anything and everything I was
struggling with. She’s also a therapist, which made her even more
helpful to me, and to this day I still love her with all my heart. I
think of her as my adopted mother.
After all of the difficulties with my parents in my
situation, I still some how find a way to always be positive. I live
life on the brighter side, and I always keep optimistic in every
situation. If I can find a way to keep my chin up throughout what I’ve
experienced, anyone can.
Michael Irvin appears on the latest cover of Out Magazine. He tells the publication that he would support any athlete who comes out.
Irvin publicly acknowledges that the impetus for taking a stand comes from his relationship with his gay brother, Vaughn, who died of stomach cancer in 2006. Irvin had not spoken publicly about his brother previously, according to the magazine.
In the article, Irvin describes how his brother's sexual orientation contributed to his own issues.
He says that he found out his brother was gay in the late 1970s, when he found Vaughn wearing women's clothing. Michael Irvin was rattled by the experience and has figured out since that it contributed to his own womanizing behavior. Working with a Dallas area bishop, T.D. Jakes, Irvin looked at the past.
"And through it all we realized maybe some of the issues I've had with so many women, just bringing women around so everybody can see, maybe that's the residual of the fear I had that if my brother is wearing ladies' clothes, am I going to be doing that? Is it genetic?" Irvin said to Out. "I'm certainly not making excuses for my bad decisions. But I had to dive inside of me to find out why am I making these decisions, and that came up."
Irvin says that his father, Walter, helped him learn a tolerant form of Christianity because the elder Irvin accepted his gay son and encouraged him to love his brother unconditionally.
Irvin now believes the African-American community should support marriage equality.
"I don't see how any African-American, with any inkling of history, can say that you don't have the right to live your life how you want to live your life," he said, according to the magazine. "No one should be telling you who you should love, no one should be telling you who you should be spending the rest of your life with. When we start talking about equality, and everybody being treated equally, I don't want to know an African-American who will say everybody doesn't deserve equality."
The Hall of Fame wide receiver believes that this work matters more than his football career.
"The last thing I want is to go to God and have him ask, 'What did you do?' And I talk about winning Super Bowls and national titles," Irvin said, according to Out. "I didn't do anything to make it a better world before I left? All I got is Super Bowls? That would be scary."
Irvin would support any athlete who wants to come out.
"If anyone comes out in those top four major sports, I will absolutely support him. ... When a guy steps up and says, 'This is who I am,' I guarantee you I'll give him 100 percent support," Irvin said.
And if the player produced on the field, he would have supported a gay teammate as well. Winning was paramount.
"I believe, if a teammate had said he's gay, we would have integrated him and kept moving because of the closeness," Irvin said, according to the magazine.
He believes the team that won three Super Bowls could have integrated an openly gay teammate as well as any team.
"We had a bunch of different characters on that team," Irvin said. "Deion [Sanders] and Emmitt [Smith]. I believe that team would have handled it well."
Your parents probably know about the popular Facebook app, High School Memories, that lets people share
recollections of their teenage years. What you might not know is the
app's creator isn't old enough for high school himself.
Cyrus Pishevar, a 13-year-old from northern California, developed High School
Memories after seeing how popular it was for his friends to "tag" photos
of one another on the social network.
Cyrus says the idea is to make memories a social thing to do. Cyrus
learned entrepreneurship from his dad, the founder of five startups. "When
you type in your memories, it speaks more than just pictures can,
especially when your friends help you through."
Cyrus is part of Silicon Valley's second generation of Web innovators -
teenagers who grew up with the Internet and used myspace and then
Facebook and realized they could create an app that people would use.
Growing up in NorCal surrounded by technology workers and
introduced to computers and business early on, many local teens have
chosen to build their own apps or start whole companies instead of
after-school sports or going off to summer camp.
Daniel Brusilovsky, an 18-year-old from northern California grew up surrounded by tech everyday that he gained a natural interest for it, His father was a software-manager and mom was an Oracle Corp. veteran
that both helped him to launch two startups before he was old enough to vote.
Skills Needed
It's easier for teens to become Web gurus these days because
writing software is cheaper and simpler.
The tools require less expert knowledge, building a
Facebook app doesn't require you to have four years of computer science and
mentoring programs also have sprung up to help interested teens build
their companies.
Facebook investor Peter Thiel pledged to
make 20 grants of as much as $100,000 apiece to teenagers with startup
ideas. He says he wants teens to pursue their dreams, rather than college,
because traditional education steers them away from entrepreneurship and
into steady jobs.
Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and now runs investment firm Clarium Capital (a huge
player in the Silicon Valley investment world) says we need to encourage young teens to take more risks
This non-traditional road to success have drawn criticism for encouraging teens to drop out, in
the same way that a dream of playing in the NBA might prevent some kids
from staying in school. Pursuing entrepreneurship shouldn't come before an education, the vast majority
of them will fail miserably. Then they've screwed up their careers, says Vivek
Wadhwa, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's School of Information
Although Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard but not until his company
was already becoming successful, but he was still only 20. That's a model that teens
should heed. If you happen to achieve the success that Zuckerberg did,
then drop out of school, but don't screw up your education
until you've created something successful.
Bored (sic) Meetings
Cyrus attended his dad's company meetings since he was a
toddler, inspiration came well before he had to make decisions about
college. He used to crawl between board members' legs when they had meetings at
home when they found Web development software maker
WebOS Inc., mobile-app startup Social Gaming Network and three other
companies.
Cyrus was 6 when he was learning how to use a computer and giving
feedback to his dad on apps. Last year he was introduced to
Zuckerberg, now 26, at a movie screening in Palo Alto. And he pitched his
idea for a Facebook app.
Cyrus got assistance from a 25-year-old engineer and family friend who works at a nearby startup. His
father, meanwhile, is contributing $5,000 to $10,000 to the project,
mostly to pay for advertising.
Homework
Cyrus works on the app most days after he finishes his homework, in
coffee shops or the garage of Social Gaming Network's headquarters, a
two-story house converted into an office near Stanford University's campus.
An employee of social-shopping site Blippy, has helped Cyrus
write code and solve problems that arise, such as how to get more new
users coming in through ads purchased on Facebook. If the app takes off,
Cyrus plans to expand the service into a separate website with more
features, as well as a version for Apple Inc.'s iPhone.
Startup incubator, Teens in Tech Labs,
supports young innovators. Even the most entrepreneurial teens don't
always make good decisions
Really? Serious?
Even with all the whiz kids and their successful startups, teen entrepreneurs aren't
taken seriously by venture capitalists (the money people). When pitching VCs you often get
'That is really cute,' you don't want to be cute, you want to be serious.
Teens in Tech Labs will select five teams of
entrepreneurs this summer and hook them up with mentors,
including Kevin Hartz, co-founder of Eventbrite, and David Hornik, a
partner at venture capital firm August Capital.
Young entrepreneurs might not have a billion-dollar idea today but
preparation helps. When they're done with high school
or college maybe they will have a billion-dollar idea, and they will
know what to do with it.
High School Boy's Basketball Team Raises Money For The Team They Lost To
Coach Powers was having trouble getting over his team's loss to McClymonds High in Saturday night's California Interscholastic Federation NorCal Division I boys basketball championship game.
Then the Monte Vista coach was approached by the family of one of his players. They had read the story in Tuesday's newspaper about McClymonds not having money to cover food and lodging for its trip to Sacramento for this weekend's state championship game.
The family wanted to rally together to raise money to donate to the Warriors — the same team that ended the Mustangs' season with a crushing 46-43 loss. Right then, Powers' mood perked up.
"I still had the hangover from (the loss) Saturday night," Powers said. "This has really been a nice cure for that."
Within hours, Powers had sent out an e-mail to parents within the boys who had participated in the state playoffs and $1,100 had been gathered from donations by players and parents of both programs.
"I think it speaks to the spirit of competition and what it's really all about," Powers said. "You certainly went in there trying to beat them, and it was a good basketball game. But at the end of the day, somebody needs a little help, and this is the spirit of giving."
Powers spoke with Mack coach Brandon Brooks to inform him of the donation Tuesday. Brooks was shocked to hear the news. "That's amazing, that the team you beat in NorCal, their parents want
to help out with your cause," Brooks said. "That's unheard of."
Coach Brooks, who also fielded calls from 15 to 20 others who were looking to help, said the team will have enough money to cover its expenses.
"We're OK as far as donations for this weekend," he said. "It's too bad that we had to come to this point, but I very much appreciate people helping out."
Coach Mack is also receiving a corporate donation from 24 Hour Fitness on behalf of its Hoops 24 youth basketball program. Company CEO Carl Liebert has a son, Jacob, who plays for Monte Vista, and he serves as the team's scorekeeper.
"Our team members are really passionate about athletics," said Wendy Yellin, public relations director for 24 Hour Fitness. "Some of our staff members from Hoops 24 have worked with junior varsity players from McClymonds, so we thought this was a good cause to support."
The parent who initially spearheaded the money raising effort seeks no credit, declining to comment and requesting his name not be made public.
"They're coming from the standpoint of not really wanting publicity and just wanting to help them," Powers said. "This is just respect for a team that deserves to go up to Sacramento first class. "... (McClymonds seems) like a good group. I thought they were very gracious in victory."
And that is sportsmanship unheard of at any level of sports. If only the Mega Million Dollar NFL and NBA players would spread the wealth down to aspiring athletes this world would be a better place.
A group of Kenyan orphans is tasting milk for the first time. On a train platform in India,
teachers are giving lessons to children whose families force them to beg from passengers.
And in Thailand, health workers are showing Burmese refugees how reduce
their chances of contracting HIV.
What might surprise some is all three projects are largely being funded by teen students.
Meet the new philanthropists - Teens, teens with innate computer
networking skills, affluent family connections and the one-click ability
to bear witness to global poverty.
"Their sense of justice is different than ours was growing up," said Sue
Schwartzman of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund, whose youth foundation
gave away $204,000 in global charity in June. A portion funded the train
station schools in India.
"I think a lot of affluent teens understand that their lives are great and
when they see these pictures from around the world it's not OK. They want
to make other young people's lives OK, too," Schwartzman said.
And the nature of teen activism is becoming increasingly global. It's a direct result of our
increased ability to communicate outside of our regular social circles, our easier
access to global travel, and more contact with international students in
schools and universities.
This generation of teen high scholars became painfully aware of global
politics as middle scholars on 9/11. They are also the first set of
students to be taught by teachers who were required to do community
service in order to get a high school diploma. That lesson of giving back,
or paying it forward, is becoming part of their psyche.
From MySpace's "One" clickable charity campaign to Al Gore's inconvenient
truths or U2 frontman Bono's Product Red push for Africa, this generation
is steeped in a popular culture of giving to create change.
I think 9/11 showed teens that something is wrong with
our culture, that we can't solve the world's problems anymore with
individual competition and self-interest and teens want to get
involved, make a differnce, create change.
Borrowing from the simple church collection plate strategy, some students
started collecting dollars in their own school and neighboring school districts
to raise money for global causes. In 18 months, they raised nearly $26,000 from students,
enough to build a classroom for Kenyan children who were going to school in a horse barn,
put 60 desks in an empty classroom in Malawi, buy two milk cows for a
Kenyan orphanage and ship 452 bicycles to Africa so children wouldn't have
to walk for miles to get to school.
This year, some Northern California students helped prevent young girls from a life of sexual
slavery in Nepal. They raised enough to buy 20 piglets for the Nepal Youth
Opportunity Foundation, which gives parents the animals to try to dissuade
them from selling their girls to brothels. Once the piglets mature, the
parents can sell the pig for $50 - as much or more than sex traffickers
would pay for their daughters. Kind of hard to believe this still goes on but it
does.
In another project in Nepal, teen students finished construction on a three-room school for 84
primary students who were attending class under a tree. It's astonishing to see what happens when
the students realize that their choices are between the regular or video iPod, between Juicy jeans
or True Religion, and then they meet people who have to decide which child to
feed
While building the classroom for Naro Moru Secondary School in Kenya, the
teen students visited the sprawling Kibera slums in Nairobi. A
Kenyan youth led them over a gutter and through a hole to host them in his
10-by-10 foot wooden shack. "I was worried about how the American kids would react," said Macheru
Karuku, director of SEANET, the Kenyan nonprofit that oversaw the school
construction project. "I was encouraged when I talked with them later and they realized how
lucky they were to be living in good houses back in America, adding that
they would never forget what they had seen," he said.
Teen giving is expanding beyond the privilege of the privileged.
This year, the John and Marcia Goldman Foundation of Brentwood, California, gave
$10,000 to Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto, California, to start
Project Give. The middle school students, the majority of whom come from low-income
families, spent the year researching nonprofits before deciding to parse
the money among a handful of Bay Area charities dedicated to cancer, AIDS
and leukemia prevention. The sixth-graders were inspired to host an auction and buffet and recycle
cans to raise an additional $350. Project Give was such a hit that the students are already geared up to
fundraise again when school starts.
Their next big cause? Africa.
Get involved: Sustainable Environment and Agriculture Network (SEANET)
Nonprofit based in Nanyuki, Kenya, responsible for building Naro Moru
Secondary School with funding and labor provided by teens
through the One Dollar for Life program. Contact
Macheru Karuku, karukum1@yahoo.com
When you drive by the campus of De La Salle high school in northern California, you don't see many signs of the
football powerhouse this campus houses. The unassuming school grounds, along with the very modest Spartan
football field, makes it seem like this could be any high school in the nation, but it's not. De La Salle holds the record
for most consecutive games won (151 games in 13 years) and continues to win games playing the nation's top elite
football powerhouses such as Long Beach Poly, California; Kahuku High School, Hawaii; and John Curtis Christian High
School, Louisiana.
De La Salle continues to rank among the top high school football programs in all the polls and what the team
lacks in size they more then make up for in precise execution. What makes this west coast football program most
remarkable is head coach Bob Ladouceur. A calm, unassuming coach that seems at peace with himself, he coaches
his players in manner unlike any other coach in the history of football. Coach 'Lad' focuses on a players strengths
and builds the character of each boy, introducing love for other teammates,
perseverance against huge odds, and
tolerance of homosexuality. This remarkable man is the very reason Spartan football is such a huge success.
De La Salle is a Catholic Jesuit high school with conservative values and
ideology. Students usually go on to
prestigious universities and the alumni consists of some of the best athletes and scholars the nation has to offer.
The doctrine concentrates on building character and encouraging intelligence. Attending De La Salle is an honor. It's
a private school and attracts the best students the Bay Area region has to offer. Students carry the Spartan
tradition with pride knowing they're getting one of the best educations at one of the most elite high schools in the
nation.
*Sexual orientation of
athletes is
not
implied.
Bob Ladouceur came to De La Salle in 1979. At the time the humble football program didn't even rank. Coach Lad
brought his own brand of coaching turning selfish teen boys into selfless teen role models. He has created a culture
based on timeless values where teen boys hold themselves and each other accountable. The players don't fight to
win, they fight for a belief in what being a Spartan stands for. "Kid's respect true humility and that you stand for
something more than winning," Coach Lad notes. "They'll fight for you and your program if you stand for more than
that. It all boils down to what you believe in as a person, and I'm talking about how life should be lived and how
people should be treated. Teen boys understand all that. It's a whole package of things that have nothing to do
with standing in front of a team with a piece of chalk. You can know how to block and what play to call, but it has
no meaning unless the kids know who you are. Our boys fight for what we stand for."
Coach Lad is the only person I know that can hush 800 boys in a all-school assembly just by walking up to the
podium. He's an icon even though he doesn't even clearly understand why. "To this day he doesn't know who he is"
his assistant coach says. "That's the funny part. That's what makes him who he is though."
Coaches across the nation always want to know the secret to winning so many games, but there is no secret.
There's nothing that can be manufactured, packaged, and distributed. It's a thousand different threads wrapped
around a fundamental truth. De La Salle doesn't consistently win because of anything Coach Lad does. They win
because of who he is. He has broken the game down to its DNA and discovered the secret to success. It's simple
but it's not easy.
It's a lot of hard physical work. It's getting up at 5 A.M. to get to school on time to lift weights. But what's even
more difficult is getting a player to understand it's more than just football. Along with the physical demands of
training, Coach Lad trains the mind of the athlete. He makes players step back and examine their relationships. On
and off the field. To Coach Lad this isn't just a job, it's a life mission. "I don't even know if I like football that much,"
he says. But when all eleven of his players are playing as one, not for themselves but for that person next to him,
and they're playing with passion and every ounce of effort they can summon, it can become a symphony of male
adolescence.
The De La Salle Spartan football team is the most publicized team in the country. The practices are open to any
player that feels compelled to practice with the best. What is kept secret, however, is the team meetings that are
held at different player's homes during the week. Parents host a dinner and then the team usually goes to the
garage to hold their weekly team meeting. Not a whole lot is known what goes on behind the closed doors (team
members are sworn to secrecy) but what little is known is teammates prepare for that weeks game, expressing the
desire to play hard and to purposely select another team member and promise that they will accomplish a set of
goals specifically for that player. These meetings can get emotional, with boys usually getting watery eyes and
expressing their love for their fellow teammates. The meetings form a bond so strong it allows the team to meld into
one giant force, ready to take on whatever gets thrown their way, regardless of a teammates race, strength, or
even sexuality (although a conservative Catholic, Coach Lad has repeatedly shown his support and acceptance of
the possibility one of his players could be gay. Every player is an equal, every player matters).
No one really knows exactly what makes the Spartan football program such a success but one thing is certain; boys graduate from this school a much better person. They don't just graduate with a diploma, they transform into young athlete/scholars with an understanding of what it means to be an outstanding role model in today's society. Needless to say the De La Salle program is an inspiration and a desire that all high school athletic programs reexamine what it means to be a real winner since they have the power to shape the youth of future generations to come.
