“I know you’re there to serve them, but they can end up serving you. You can learn a lot from the kids.”

Payton & Rodney, College Football Players, MVPs in Community Service

Photo Credit: (Reference 1, 2) 

Payton Jordahl and Rodney Smith are football players for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers. During the regular season, their time is consumed by practices, games, and schoolwork. However, they are still able to find time to volunteer at the Boys & Girls Club of the Twin Cities, which is the place where they have recognized their passion for working with children. Payton and Rodney are on the path to work in youth studies, the subject in which they have found their calling.

Rodney Smith, 1, Scoring a touchdown for the Gophers (Photo Credit: Reference 3)

Recipe for Reciprocity

Rodney Smith: So it was in September, early September. There’s a little kid named DJ, a little black boy. So, he had a water gun and he was pointing it at people and he was like “bang, bang, bang” and I said “Nah man, we don’t shoot people. That’s not what we do”. Of course he knows about the social issues and police brutality, so he yells back “Nah man, I shoot the police!". And I thought to myself about how I was gonna talk to him, it’s hard to have a real life conversation with a seven year old. So, I pulled him to the side and I was like, “DJ! Would you rather be working and making that money that you said you like, or would you rather be shooting people?” He says, “Nah man, they killed us so I gotta kill them”, I said “Nah man, you gotta think about it, would you rather have money or would you rather have a gun?”. He ended up giving me the gun, and the next week I came back he had five dollars (laughter). He says “Look man, I got some money!” That confirmed for me that I make a difference in their lives and it was great for me to see. I was happy to know that he listened to me, and I hope that moving forward he continues to come to me if he does have questions, or if he’s struggling with anything. I’m always there to help if they need me. That just really made me feel good about myself, and seeing him smile and flash that five dollars was priceless.

[Like DJ], I’m a black, young male and I felt like I could be a role model for kids that struggle with what they want to do in school, and just provide information for them that I wasn’t aware about while growing up. Just lettin’ them know that any educational experience past high school is important, no matter where you go.

“Just anything I can do to help kids with broken families who have had their world flipped upside down.”

Payton Jordahl, 25, Shaking hands with fellow teammate following a field goal (Photo Credit: Reference 4)

Payton Jordahl: My parents got divorced and it was a gnarly affair. My dad was cheating on my mom and it was bad. I was lucky enough to be away at college, but my sister was a sophomore, and that hit her really hard. I was thinking at the time, “Damn, what if she was 10 years old?” There are so many kids that go through that. These kids are growing up in world that, to them, can be seen as not fun to live in. And so that is just something that made me want to do what I’m doing. Just anything I can do to help kids with broken families who have had their world flipped upside down and help them get back to normal.

[Rodney and I] both have a passion for helping kids and it made us pretty good friends throughout the process. It’s definitely brought us together, and not only the similarities we had, but the differences we had. The Club does a survey every year to see if the kids are happy with it and where they’re at. Rodney and I proctored a few of them and I had completely different answers than Rodney did. There were questions like “Do you think you’ll go to college?” and “Do you think you’re going to pass high school?” A lot of the kids answered “no” to those questions [when I interviewed them], but when they were with Rodney, most of them said “yes”. To me it’s cool to see the differences and how different just a person in their background can have different effects on kids that are similar or different to them. I think it’s cool and I’m definitely thankful for it.

RS: For me, starting off I felt like I identify with these kids just because where I come from and how I was raised. I definitely put it on myself to form meaningful relationships with the kids. I learned things from the kids that I didn’t expect to learn. I know you’re there to serve them, but they can end up serving you. You can learn a lot from the kids.

Recognizing Their Passion

The Boys & Girls Club of The Twin Cities, Southside Village (Photo Credit: Leonardo Iaboni)

RS: I would say, I think I’ve found my calling. Coming from high school all the way from Metro-Atlanta, Georgia. I had no clue what I was gonna do in Minnesota. I knew I was gonna play football. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do academically. I thought I wanted to be an athletic trainer, but science is not my thing (laughter).

PJ: I was gonna say, you took that chemistry class and… (laughter)

RS: I quickly found out that kinesiology was not my thing.

The neat thing about youth studies is you can find a job anywhere. You can be a coach, you can be a teacher, you can be a social worker. They make money. You can work in the detention center. There’s a lot of ways you can impact youth and that’s the neat thing about youth studies.

PJ: You gotta learn what a kid’s like and you can’t go into thinking “This is what the kid needs”. Too many people in youth work think that there’s an issue that needs to be solved and they just push this solution onto these kids without even ever asking the kids, “What can I help you with?” The biggest thing I’ve learned is, don’t go into it feeling like it’s a charity case. Don’t go into it feeling like “These kids are in need of help”. Go into feeling like “I can’t wait to interact with these kids to find out where they’re at in life compared to where I’m at in life." You can learn a lot from kids, sometimes more than what they learn from you.

I have been working with kids since I was in middle school and I don’t know, I’ve always had fun. It’s really fun to do and with my background of being a Christian I kind of think through my career and I want to do something that will help people.

In my mind, God didn’t necessarily put me on this world to do this, but He put the events in my life, the tools and the different people around me to lead me to doing what I love to do. I’ve been blessed with little events nudging me and people like Rodney and even like you guys encouraging us. All of these little things are funnelling me and guiding me to not what I was meant to do, but what I can be happy doing.



References:
Photos 1, 2: http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/minn-m-footbl-mtt.html
Photo 3: http://www.mndaily.com/article/2016/09/smith-steps-up-in-relief
Photo 4: http://www.startribune.com/gophers-vs-penn-state/395522021/