MOLDING MEN

Every NFL team features a player engagement department. But they don’t all look or act alike.

“The general manager (Chris Grier) doesn’t call our department player engagement, he calls it our secret weapon,” Batoba said.

Batoba brings much of the secret sauce.

His personality, his charisma, his intelligence and his Christian example are all at play in the effort to mold men, some younger and some older.

“The whole goal — I say our mission — is to engage, educate and empower the players to reach their full potential both on and off the field,” Batoba said.

“We have this vision that 30 years from now, a player will be inviting us to their homes and saying, ‘This is what I’m doing now. I’m having more success in this than I was even having playing football.’ They introduce me to their wife and their kids, and we see that they’re a holistic man, more than anything, by the comprehensive development of the player.”

Last year, the Dolphins had 76 players on their roster. Along with the 53-man active roster, there were another 10 on the practice squad and 13 more on injured reserve.

Many of them need guidance. Some are new to the league and to money. Some are struggling to stay in the game. Some are staring down temptations that come with wealth and fame.

All, at some point, will leave the game. So there are difficult transitions to navigate, both entering and exiting the NFL.

Batoba’s job — he calls it his calling — is to be their shepherd, not in football, but beyond it.

“I had a relationship with every single player in our locker room,” he said. “I always say trust is the No. 1 factor in my job. If I don’t have the trust of the player, if I don’t have the relationship, I can come up with the best program in the world, but they’re not going to care if they don’t trust me, if they don’t feel I have their best interest at heart.

“I always go by the quote, I think it was Theodore Roosevelt: ‘People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.’ That’s kind of what I go by on a daily basis.”

Southwell knows how much Batoba cares, having seen it and shared it since they first became pals back at OSU. And he’s not at all surprised that Batoba is impacting the Dolphins.

“He’s the guy for the job,” Southwell said. “He will strike up a conversation with anybody, literally, about anything. He’s just got something that people want to open up and talk to him. He’s a very welcoming person. He’s a very personable guy.

“Yves has that servant heart, and he’ll go out of his way to help you out and leave you better off than you were before.”

The Dolphins’ player engagement team works with players on everything from financial literacy to dealing with injuries or family issues that may be creating stress in their lives. They deal with various personalities and problems.

“There are times I see things I don’t want to see,” Batoba said. “I hear things I don’t want to hear.”

Still, that favorite cell phone folder grows bulkier all the time. And there are special stories, like the one involving Dolphins offensive lineman Isaac Asiata, a native of Spanish Fork, Utah, who was raised in a family with little money and earned more than $1 million through his first two seasons in the NFL.

Batoba worked with Asiata on understanding and managing his finances. Upon seeing his savings and credit score rise, Asiata wanted to share what he’d learned with his family back home.

“When he started to see his savings go up, his credit score go up, he realized that a lot of people in his family had never heard any of this stuff, none of these lessons,” Batoba said. “And they were all reliant on him to be able to provide for them.

“We sat down and came up with a budget for his family and put it on an Excel spreadsheet.”

When he returned home, Asiata presented and explained the budget to his family, hoping they understood. His next time back in Spanish Fork, Asiata found the budget sheet posted on the refrigerator.

“Isaac takes a picture of the budget sheet,” Batoba said, “sends me the picture with a message: ‘Hey, man, look what I just found on my mom’s fridge! If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know if anything like this would be taking place. Thank you so much.’

“I remember, I took the screenshot, and it went in my folder right away. That’s where the real paycheck is. That’s where the value comes from. That’s one of my favorite stories.”

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