Another Way of Reaching the Bigs

The guest speaker, his athletic career ended abruptly and prematurely by injury, shared his successful transition to the real world with the students. But the kids might be more impressed, Anthony Jones-DeBerry figured, if he used a famous athlete to reiterate his point.

“I brought up Bo Jackson,” he said, recalling his visit to a Los Angeles classroom full of squirming youngsters. “They didn’t even know who he was.”

Time passes, faster than Jackson in his prime. Four years have passed since Jackson last limped to the plate for the Angels, eight years since he ran like lightning for the Raiders, when these kids were barely out of diapers.

Jackson, who returned to baseball but not football after hip replacement surgery, completed his degree at Auburn after his retirement. Jones-DeBerry, his NFL aspirations ended by shoulder injuries while playing for UCLA, works as manager of premium seating for the Staples Center.

And his message? Dream all you want about a career as a professional athlete, but prepare for life beyond your playing days.

In a program developed by Junior Achievement, a nonprofit organization teaching children about business and economics since 1919, children learn about the business of sports, about the dozens of careers and thousands of jobs available off the field but within the sports industry.

“We’re not in the business of killing dreams,” said Pete Harder of the Junior Achievement national headquarters in Colorado. “We want kids to dream. We just want to inject some reality.”

Said Kelly Malcomb Davis, the Kings’ director of community development, “We’re giving them dreams they didn’t even know were out there.”

The Kings sponsored one of five pilot programs this year; the New York Yankees sponsored another. After testing and evaluation, Junior Achievement plans to make an eight-week curriculum available in middle schools and high schools nationwide.

Gary Hickman, Southern California president of Junior Achievement, said the impetus for the program came from Stedman Graham, best known as Oprah Winfrey’s significant other but a highly successful entrepreneur in his own right.

“He thought it was really frustrating that all the kids think, if they bounce a basketball instead of doing homework, they’ll be like Michael Jordan,” Hickman said. “The kids don’t have a clue their chances of doing that are like nil.”

The Kings didn’t bring star players Rob Blake or Luc Robitaille to talk to the students, fourth- through ninth-graders growing up in the shadow of the Staples Center. They did bring in Jones-DeBerry, whose educational achievement enabled him to pursue a sports sales career, and Mike Altieri, their public relations director.

“Once I realized I wasn’t good enough to be a professional athlete, I realized I had to get a job,” Altieri said.

By developing writing and speaking skills, Altieri told the children, he could get a job in sports publicity. The Junior Achievement workbook lists 67 career opportunities in the sports industry, from ticket manager and statistician to photographer and physical therapist, and encourages students to identify their skills and interests and match them to potential careers.

In one class, Davis said, a student who had never heard of a graphic artist decided he might want to become one.

The odds do not favor the athlete. The Kings’ roster includes 24 players. But the Kings will operate the Staples Center when it opens next year, and the team will employ 250 to 300 to run the team and arena and an additional 800 to 1,100 on event days, Davis said.

Even without those odds, Pedro Montes, 12, wasn’t sure he would want to be a professional athlete.

“I don’t think I’d be that great,” Pedro said. “I’ll probably be a sports agent like Jerry Maguire.”