RELAUNCH VICTORY ENVUE MAGAZINE

world war, and I had a few uncles that were in Korea, so the military was in my bloodline.

Interviewer Wow so you come from a family of service.

I have heard it said that service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time. If this is true then Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. has paid his rent in full several times over. From his military service, to his serving the community as a police officer, to the work he is currently doing in the school system, he has set an example we all should strive to follow. It was a true honor to be able to spend a little time talking with Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. Interviewer It is incredibly rare for someone to dedicate the majority of their life to service. Who was it that influenced you, at an early age, and taught you the importance of service? Who was It that helped guide you toward becoming the man you are today?

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. Well, first and foremost, I give all honor and due respect to God. Second on the list is my mother. My mother is, and always will be, my first teacher. She absolutely did not play when it came to making sure I was doing something productive. Long before I graduated high school, we had an understanding that I was not going to hang on the corner or do anything of that nature. So from the time I was about twelve I always had a job on the weekends. In Columbus, Ohio, we had a produce market at the corner of 5th and Sinclair, Johnsons Farm Market.

I worked there as a twelve-year-old young man.

They were opened on weekends and holidays, that type of thing, and I worked there unloading produce. Whatever they needed I did. I worked from 8am to between 4-6 in the evening. That was how I earned my money. I carried papers, the Columbus Dispatch. Then from there I worked odd jobs and restaurant jobs and then finally I went into the military after I graduated high school. I already had a mission because my mother was not going to let me stand around and not do anything.

In the process of thinking about going into the military, I had a lot of good friends that didn’t make it.

That was another reason for me not to hang on the streets of Columbus. So I went into the military and did a combined total of eight years, with reserve and active-duty time. I learned a lot in the military.

To give you kind of a back story, all my uncles were either in Vietnam, Korea, or some kind of skirmish so to speak, so all my uncles were military.

Army and Navy primarily and all of them saw tours in Vietnam. My grandfather was in the second

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. Yes, service. So I went in, learned a lot, and was honorably discharged. Went overseas, to Europe, I loved it over there. Where I was stationed was very diverse, there were people from all over the world stationed where I was. I didn’t live on post; I had the opportunity to live off post. My first born was born in Heidelberg Germany, and I had a wonderful time over there. The only reason I left was because, you had to be in for a little while, at least ten years, before you could get a government service job over there. Basically you would work on the military base, and you would be considered lucky if you could get a good civilian job working on post, or on base. I did not have enough military time on to be considered. So I ended up coming back to the states, I went to Fort Hood Texas and that was my last duty station. That is where I got out of the army, honorably discharged. I came back to Columbus for a little while and then I ended up in Cincinnati. The city of Cincinnati was hiring law enforcement officers at that time. I applied to be an officer, I ended

up in the academy, and I was there for almost thirty years in terms of police service.

Interviewer When you came to Cincinnati was being a police officer even or your radar or what was it that guided you in that direction?

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. Well I had the military background, so it was kind of a natural evolution. The police department is semi-military. It’s structured similar to the military in terms of the rank system and protocols. It is not as strict as the military in terms of certain things; however it is a semi-military organization. So at that time I was thinking, what better place is there to apply my skills than the police department? So I applied for it and to my surprise, I was hired.

Interviewer Amen.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. I have always considered that job to be a blessing because it allowed me to meet people. From what society deems as the lowest of the low, being the homeless, to the highest of the high, some of the more prominent politicians. One of the things I have always believed is that I have had great teachers along my path. Starting with my mother.

My mother always taught me to treat everyone the same way, regardless of their financial status in

life. I always found that to be key to good policing. It is an honorable and noble profession that is being challenged now in ways that are really telling. You have people who are tired on both sides and at some point, there has to be a get together between citizens and police. I mean there are constant attempts at improvement, I will say that. Policing is a very hard profession, and I learned a lot.

Interviewer It definitely is. Do you feel that being an African America police officer was to your benefit or do you think that it made things harder for you?

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. Well, I had to adjust according to my surroundings and who I was with. What I mean by that is that there was distrust on both sides. You know being an African American police officer meant that there was distrust in the black and the white community. So what is the building bridge between the communities? The building bridge is trust. If there is no trust, we don’t have a relationship, that is true with anybody. I realized that, and I had a good senior officer when I got to one of the districts

I used to work out of. He was a college professor at Xavier University, Dr. Albert Brown. You trained a certain way, you come out of the academy, and they do their best, it’s one of the finest academies in the world with the standards they set that you have to meet. However, you learn the theory of policing in the Police Academy, you

actually learn the application on the street. You have people from all walks of life, but what is the main and central thing to getting along with everybody, be it a drug dealer or someone who is a very dangerous criminal? The answer is trust.

Now don’t get me wrong, you have to do your job with the utmost efficiency but it’s how you do your job. You have to take the personal feelings out of it and do what you are supposed to do. I mean I have had to transport child molesters, rapist, and murderers, and upon arrival I had a discussion with these guys , there was an understanding. I transported them to where they needed to go and that was it. I had several more dangerous criminals that were maybe shot by the police or something like that, and I made sure I got an understanding with them and the understanding was I was not, did not, and will not disrespect you, however I have a job to do and I will do it if you force me to do it. So that was how I got along with pretty much everybody.

There was a time I wanted to ascend and become part of the upper-level management, but I learned a lot. I had great teachers along my path and just interacted with the community. There was a lot of community work, you watch children that were little when you started becoming adults. It’s a pleasure when you run into someone you have not seen in four or five years and they are a successful entrepreneur or they are going to college, or they are introducing you to their children, so I experienced a lot of that. I retired in relative obscurity because I didn’t want any fanfare or parties, I just retired. I had a great career, I enjoyed what I did. I used to ask the more senior officers what made them decide it was time to retire? They would all say that when you wake up one morning and say I have had enough, you will know. That’s what happened.

Interviewer

And you were a police officer for thirty years, correct?

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. Twenty-nine years, almost thirty. In that time I learned a lot. I miss it at times and then there are times when I am happy I am retired.

Interviewer Yes, I can understand that. I had no idea that you started working at twelve years old. I always hear the respect and admiration you have for your mother, and it seems obvious that she is where you developed your ethics of dedication and hard work.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. Yes. My mother was a single parent, she raised three of us. She didn’t play then, and she doesn’t play now. I am the oldest of three, I have two younger sisters. I am just so thankfully that my mother taught me the things that she did. I had uncles that guided my path, and there were father figures that came along and everything that goes with that.

My father, he passed away some years ago. So there was always that, you know as a teenager, if I could only reach out and talk to my father. My mom took up the slack and she did everything she could to raise us. I have always said I want to give back. You know you can never repay your parents for the things that they give you.

Interviewer Amen Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. I feel that way because I am the man I am today because of my mother first and foremost, under God. I will say that, and I don’t have a problem admitting it, I am a mama’s boy, and I always will be. Anybody that has a problem with that they can come see me.

Interviewer I understand, I lost my father at a young age also and mother was amazing, I don’t know how she did it.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. I always say the same thing. I don’t know how my mother did it, but she raised three of us. All that she does, I could never repay her for all that she has done.

My entire police career and everything I have done in the military, I give thanks to her, under God. Interviewer Amen. Along with your impressive police and military career you are also one of the best martial artists I have ever seen. At what age did you begin your martial arts training?

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. Wow, thank you for the compliment. I greatly appreciate it. Well I had an uncle who did two tours in Vietnam. I was somewhat of a timid type of guy. I was

very introverted, a nerdy type of guy. I am still a nerd believe it or not. So when my uncle came back from Vietnam, somewhere between ’71 and ’75, he started teaching me because I was somewhat being bullied. Back then I was a little skinny runt. I have a grandson that reminds me of myself when I was his age.

Slender with no body fat. So when you are going into your teens the hunter gatherer thing kicks in, so he would teach me these different things that he had learned in the military. These were techniques that were designed to neutralize the threat immediately, he taught me all that stuff. I ran with it because I became very curious. Then one day I had a couple of epiphanies when it comes to martial arts. They used to

have this show on in the sixties called the Green Hornet.

Interviewer Oh yes.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. Well, I was one of ones that would slide across the living room floor to cut the TV on to watch the Green Hornet. I saw this little guy firing kicks in every conceivable direction there was. So just like a lot of other children in my generation, I was influenced by the Green Hornet.

Then I had some buddies that I grew up with that went to different schools here in the Columbus, Ohio, area. I was introduced to the system of Bando when I was about fifteen

or sixteen years old. An older senior brother by the name of William Cain, who is probably about three or four years older than I am, used to have these Bando classes. I want to step back a little bit between me seeing what I would see on TV, with Bruce Lee, and meeting Master Cain.

I would collect books by Bruce Tegner, Tayari Casel, Bill Wallace, and inside Kung Fu when it was a magazine, and I would see these articles on Bando. I heard of Dr. Gyi, I lived in Columbus not knowing that Dr. Gyi was a professor in Athens, Ohio. Again at that age I wasn’t aware of my surroundings, so William Cain would train me, he took me under his wing. I got invited to some of the Bando sessions and I would come back home with various shades of blue on my skin from the training, just good hard training. It shaped me and it molded me, and then I got a chance to meet Dr. Gyi. When they thought I was ready they took me over so I could meet him.

You have to understand this guy is in his late forties or early fifties when I met him. So they introduced me and by that time I had read the articles, he had a mustache at that time by the way, he is standing there, and he is in a white T-shirt and some black Gi pants and he is working on his side kick. He would take his knee and touch it to his chin and extend his foot out to his side then pull it back touch his chin and sit it down on the floor. I mean he had prehensile abilities with his legs like you would have with your arms, amazing. So I met him, and I have been hooked ever since. So I worked, I trained under these guys, and I want to give their names in chronological order because no matter how high up on the food chain I become in terms of system rank, and I am not hung up on all that, I want to basically reach out to those who have helped shape, mold, and train me into the person I am today. Master William Cain Jr., Master Andre Sullens, Master Billy T Hawkins, Master Richard Rosetter, Master Duvon Winborne, Master Richard Suskind, Master Dale Minor, all

these guys are under Great Grandmaster Dr, Maung Gyi. They are the generation before me, these guys are senior to me.

They taught me because there was a condition of trust.

There are many facets to the system. I have done a few things publicly but the core, the meat, of the system is something that you have to visit, and you have to train in order to get the real function and essence of what is being taught. Dr. Gyi always says that he is not the message he is the messenger. It took me many years to understand what he was saying but at this point in my life I understand what he means by that, I am in my sixties now. He wants you to go and develop the system to its fullest potential.

Interviewer Oh wow.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. I enjoy what I do. I have been back, since retiring from the police department almost four years ago, in Columbus. I am working on a couple of projects dealing with training. I am a schoolteacher. I teach a really, really homogenized, or light version of martial arts to children from K-8th grade. It is part of the school curriculum. I enjoy it, we have our own tournament events and different things. I took sixteen students for our tournament here last Tuesday. There were sixteen either first or second place winners, I was really proud of them.

Interviewer Congratulations, that is impressive.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. When I first was hired, I had to really downplay a lot of the training. As you know, you and I have known each other for a long time, my specialty is in combative or combatics. Bando is divided into sport, which encompasses all the beautiful and wonderous forms we have, and then there is combatics. You have the tribal and the

military versions of combatics. My thing is, I had an affinity for, and Dr. Gyi helped me develop in the combative and the healing aspects of Bando. Quite naturally, being a solder, the system just fit, it was a natural fit for me. I am not biased against any other system because Dr. Gyi always says that Bando is but a small piece of the martial arts puzzle. Meaning that there are various martial arts out there, but my affinity was for this system. I am a Senior Master Instructor; I also am a Senior Master Student.

That means, as long as I have been studying under those older Bando brothers that I mentioned, if they walk in the room right now, I am junior to them.

I hold rank as a Senior Master, but I am not Senior to them. Just like any other family, when big brother or big sister comes in you have to adhere to protocol. I say that with great love and respect. My thing now is what is going on for the future. I have retired, I have a basic job just like everybody else and I am working on developing the system beyond where I have had it before. When I lived in Cincinnati, before I retired, I had been running a school for about four years there.

Prior to that I taught people in my back yard. So there is an extensive background and history there. I have people I have trained that have been awarded their black belts in the system down in Cincinnati. I have brothers that are here in Columbus with me that I see on occasion.

Interviewer So for someone reading the magazine that isn’t familiar with Bando, give me a brief history on the origins of the art itself.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. First of all there are different interpretations of it but the interpretation that was always taught, Bando means the way of the disciplined warrior or stone-faced warrior.

Bando’s origins go back to a country called Burma then, but it is actually called Myanmar now. Just like a lot of traditional systems it has every conceivable combative method within the construct of the system. Everything from empty hand to gun hand, spear hand, sword hand, stick hand, rope hand, the grappling methods. There are nine active animal systems, each animal system has its own version of grappling, knife work, everything unique to that particular animal system. Then there is the healing side of it. Dealing with, yoga with sticks and two-person yoga. The stick yoga is called Dhanda and the stick symbolizes the spinal cord or the spine. Then you have Letha yoga, which is partner assisted yoga. First when Dhanda yoga, then you have Longyi yoga, which is yoga where you use a rope . If you don’t have a partner to assist you in achieving the necessary postures of yoga, you can use a rope. The rope yoga is one of my favorites.

There was a book recently released by one of the Bando

cially if they have a warrant or have seriously done something to someone.

I guess with all of this the important thing is to have compassion. Once you get a person secured it’s not your job to keep stomping and beating on him. You get them under control, and they submit and that’s it, Dr. Gyi was always adamant about that. I have to be upfront with you, I was always more fearful of two people, my mom and Dr. Gyi. If either of those two showed up I didn’t have a win in anybody’s camp. Even to this day all I need to do is hear one of those two names and I will straighten up. I’m like any other child you know what I mean?

Interviewer Yes Sir.

Masters whose name is Gary Latez, he and a couple of the other Bando Masters have put together a Bando manual for sale. It is an excellent work by these ladies and gentlemen. What he has done is, Dr. Gyi has compartmentalized with the help of these young ladies and gentlemen who helped him, developed this book. It’s a manual now. I have notes on a lot of the stuff that was taught before it became compartmentalized.

When you studied Bando, you studied everything from kick boxing to the healing side of it and everything in between. The term Bando is an umbrella term but also you have what’s called Bando, which is more like the empty hand version, you have Banshay , which means armed combative training.

That means you work with long, medium, and short , swords, knives, sticks, ropes, along with gun hand, riffle hand, spear hand, you know all the tools. Then you have Nabon, which is the grappling side of it. You have the general Nabon system and the influ-

ences of Nabon depending on what style or animal system you study. So its customizable grappling is what it is. If you are a Tiger, a Panther, a python, a cobra, an eagle, a bull, or boar you have customizable grappling methods to assist you. As you know, they say there are three ranges, I say there are four counting the grappling. Long, medium, and short range is for standup and then you have a fourth range which is grappling. If you get knocked to the ground and have to fight multiple opponents, how are you going to deal with that?

Interviewer That makes a great deal of sense.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. My influence, being a police officer, was on combative. You have a guy pull a knife or a gun, or fight you in the middle of a hallway in close courters you have to know how to deal with each situation. I have rolled down steps, had to fight out of elevators and apartment doors, because you just have people that are not willing to go and you have to arrest them, espe-

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. My point to you is that even with the compliment that you have given me, I don’t even come close to Dr. Gyi, or even would I try. His skill is just incredible. I’m not sitting here bragging, I am just so proud.

I know what I have witnessed, I know what I have seen, and I know what I have felt. So I am just trying to do my due diligence to carry the system on to the next generation.

Interviewer Yes Sir. Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. I am waiting for this weather to break so that I can do a lot of things with the system.

Interviewer Let me ask you this, right now mixed martial arts is huge, do you think mixed martial arts is hurting martial arts or do you feel mixed martial arts is helping martial arts?

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. I think it’s both. I think it hurts in a sense because you have some people who, you know character is

a big thing. Moral character, what I mean is you have some poor examples of people getting in there and just really brutalizing each other. I think if you look at the negative aspects of it, you have major serious injuries. I saw an incident where a fighter received an elbow strike to the middle of his forehead, and it was caved in.

That can cause some very serious damage to someone’s brain. One of the tenets to our system is we try to stay away from striking the head or the face. The belief is we honor intelligence in Bando. I have always like finesse, in that

regard, meaning that a quick knockout and get it over with.

The blood and guts aspect of it, where they are both bleeding all over the ring and bleeding all over each other, knocking out teeth, and this other stuff, I think that’s the bad side of it. The good side, to me, is that it has done a lot to advance the martial arts and it has broken a lot of fantasies. You have different styles that would come up against each other, as you know this is nothing new. Many generations ago there would be fighters that would come together to syn-

thesize and create new systems based on these interactions. You had people from China, Japan, Africa, Myanmar, you get the general idea, they would come together and then boom.

Well Dr. Gyi’s father codified a lot of the stuff of Great Great Grand Master Uba Fan Gyi, who was doctor Gyi’s father. He codified a lot of the stuff, he met with a lot of the masters, he was very well respected. He synthesized a lot of that stuff.

Interviewer

I

did not know that.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. That’s to be talked about in another discussion. Getting back to the good aspects of mixed martial arts, I think it has stripped all fantasy away from those who believed they could just go out, you see them firing kicks in the air and breaking boards but that has little to do with combat. You take a guy that has a grappling background, like the Gracie brothers did, and you have someone with an excellent martial arts background in a striking art, both are superior on their own terms. These things are constantly tested and proven every time there is an MMA match, you have some fighters that are very good at striking and some are excellent at grappling. Rarely do you have what’s called a synthesis of the two, which is to me is an apex fighter. Plus you put gentlemanly or lady like qualities upon that, how you carry yourself in and out of the ring says a lot.

Dr. Gyi stressed that. You can have all these abilities but if you are not carrying yourself a certain way then it really does a disservice to the art. So you see a lot of these champions that are really nasty in and out of the ring. They have excellent skills but if they don’t carry themselves in a manner that should be worthy of respect then what’s the point? So that is my humble opinion of MMA. I think it has been refined, I think it is still going through a refinement stage.

I think that there is a blending or total combat where you should be able to go from standing to grappling to weapons to whatever it is.

As an instructor the continuation of combat is ever evolving as you know. So I would do stuff like have my students start off boxing, with regular boxing gloves on, and they would be working on western boxing methods and all of the sudden this wooden dagger would come out of nowhere, just one. Thrown in between them, and you see when that transitions into a knife training event. The look on the faces of the fighters is

priceless. That’s the equivalent to being out in an alley somewhere and you get into a physical confrontation, and you see something laying on the ground that is sharp, or blunt, and you utilize it.

Interviewer Yes, yes, I like that. It is always better to train in practical situations.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. Yes, it’s very practical. I never had to utilize these tools on my utility belt as a policeman, but I could use every piece of equipment that was issued to me in some constructive form to defend myself if I needed to. Everything on the utility belt. So you have to be able to adapt to your surroundings. We are great lovers of nature in Bando, we like to train outside, train in the woods, we like all that.

A lot of the yoga sessions were in camps and different things like that. Doing yoga inside of a house verse out in a park or somewhere else outside is like night and day.

Interviewer We have both been blessed to have mothers in our lives that guided us and kept us on the right track. There are a lot of youth out there now though that may not have that positive role model, what advice would you give a young individual who is reading

this article to help motivate them and keep them on the right path? I know you stress trust, loyalty, things of that nature, is there any advice that you give your kids or grandkids, some kind of life lessons?

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. I look at it as someone in their twenties or someone just going out into the world, you have to be prepared and understand that first of all, life is cruel. It is a very cruel thing in the sense that if you slip up there is little chance for recovery in some aspects. Now I think that if you have a fixed goal in how you want to conduct yourself in your life, I think you should always strive to be your best and bring the best out of others. I would say to this generation, you are the generation that will move everything forward. Be your best self.

When it comes to martial arts and looking for different styles ranging from western boxing to grappling methods, I mean there is just so much out here now. Go out and seek that knowledge, get it firsthand. Yea we live in a tech age where you can punch a name in and get anything you want visually, but you need to get the true essence.

I can recall training at a place up

in Delaware, Ohio. Dr. Gyi came to visit one of the senior masters at his home. We were working on methods of evasion, Dr. Gyi has this bat training us how to move.

I’m in my twenties and I figured I wanted to be the cleaver one out of the group, I was going to fake him.

He let me finish my fake and I am six foot three and a half and by the time he hit me on the top of the head with that bat I was probably around five foot something. It was one of those big plastic gray bats not the yellow ones, it was a wiffleball bat. He used it to illustrate a principle of head movement.

I’m watching everybody and they are getting caught and I’m figuring I’m not going to get caught. Man he nailed me with that thing. Then there were times we used to have these war games and we’re out running around in the woods, and we have these little plastic foam sticks. His accuracy was so uncanny. I didn’t know who it was coming out of the bush, and he hit me on the tip of my nose with a stick before I realized it was him.

I mean just amazing, amazing abilities. Same thing with his feet. I watched him when we were working a particular animal system in Circleville, Ohio, years ago. One of my students was basically his student for the day. So he was illustrating these particular animal principals with the student, and he is taking his feet and firing all these different kicks. It was out of the cobra system, and I mean he is coming less than an inch with each kick, and they were coming fast and accurate.

He was close, the guy had a goatee, and I’m not exaggerating when I tell you he is kicking this guy’s goatee without touching his face.

To see this type of stuff. I mean he will downplay it today if you bring it up. He would say oh that kid, talking about me, he is just making that stuff up. No, trust me, that is why I stayed here. Now I am a lot larger, six foot three and three hundred lbs, and older as I am in my sixties but I’m saying to you I started very young. I have a great appreciation for accuracy, I have a

great appreciation most of all for intelligence.

He always speaks of intelligence, and like I said earlier we try not to hit the head because we honor intelligence. There are so many different areas on the body that can be hit without hitting someone in the head and possible killing them. So we don’t seek that, the idea is to teach the person a lesson.

There are systems out there that are more engineered towards that, I mean we have our side of it too but at my age where I am at now, I would be more inclined to teach you a lesson. If I have a cane in my hand and you ball your fist up to strike me, you are probably going to get hit in the fist or the leg.

Interviewer That is a great philosophy to have.

Sayaji David Osborne, Sr. As a policeman I had a guy in a domestic situation. I pulled up and he was running this lady around the car. He was trying to catch her and they said he had been beating on her. So when I pull up, I’m yelling to this guy to stop chasing her. So he keeps going, chasing her around the car. The second time he ran around the car I opened the door on him and knocked him down. Well back before they had screens that separated the arrested individual from the police officer, we used to put our batons in the railing if we didn’t have someone that we arrested in the car.

So I get out of the car and as I am getting out of the car, I am drawing this baton. This guy got up and called me a series of names that I can’t repeat, and he is balling his fists up and stepping towards me in a boxing stance. What I did was I took the baton and did a head fake at the guy; he raised his hands up to block my stick or grab it and I dropped down and hit him in the ankle. He had on a pair of sandals and down he went and was grabbing his ankle.

You know I put the cuffs on him and took him to the hospital and all that, but the point of it is I could have hit him in the head but

it’s not what we are about. I taught this man a lesson and he was apologizing on the way to the hospital.

He said man I messed up, goodness gracious you hit me with the stick, you could have very well hit me in the head. I said yea, the guy understood.

For many years as I patrolled that beat this guy would sit out on his porch and when he saw me he would ask if there was anything I needed. I mean he became very respectful. I ended up talking to her and talking to him, they worked it out, I don’t know if they are still together today, because it has been many years ago but that shows the influence Dr. Gyi had on me as an individual.

I could have hit this guy with everything there was to hit him with, in terms of using the baton, but that’s not what it should be about.

A policeman is only as good as the community he or she serves in.

There are places you should be able to go that most people can’t go and still get the same result.

That’s where I have been. I still have a lot to learn, and I am still willing to learn.

Trained by his father, Corey Jackson, Nicholas has many obstacles to overcome. There are no facilities close to where they live, so once a week, they make a 10-hour round-trip to the closest practice facility. On the days in between Jackson practices with a tin barrel on a rocker.

His dad pushes the rocker from behind to simulate the bucking of a bull.

Our History is Ongoing!

By CM Sopher As Black history month, 2022, comes to an end I hear a number of individuals stating the fact that Black history should not be crammed into one month, but it should be integrated into school curriculums, just simply as a part of history. While we are waiting for this to happen, though, it is our responsibility to teach our children the impact that we have had, and continue to have, on society. You see our history was not only made by our ancestors, but our history is also still being made today. Let us look at a few of today’s history makers.

After riding the barrel, Nicholas stands on a halfway deflated basketball in order to practice his balance. This is followed by thirty minutes of riding on his horse bareback.

Nicholas is just beginning his bull riding career. After he finishes high school, he hopes to attend a rodeo college to get a degree in equine and bovine studies. Following that he wants to join the Professional Bull Riding and Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association’s competitions.

We cannot be put into a Box! Nicholas Jackson Nichols Jackson made history as the 2020 Junior Bull Riding Champion at the young age of thirteen. Jackson is a Maryland native and a fifth-generation cowboy, he was the first bull rider from the Northeast to win the competition. The cowboy narrative excludes Black people from the folklore that is glamorized in movies and books. The truth is, though, historians estimate that one in four cowboys were Black. Jackson’s success is helping to break down the racial barriers of what a cowboy looks like and where they come from.

Jackson began riding mini bulls at the age of seven. As he got older his skill set, and the size of the bulls, both grew substantially.

Quinton Byfield Byfield, at the age of eighteen, became the highest drafted Black hockey player in NHL history. In the 2020 draft Byfield was picked number two overall by the Los Angeles Kings.

Byfield was having a great rookie season but unfortunately it ended early when he suffered a season ending left ankle fracture.

Byfield is back, heathy, and with great expectations for this year’s season. Although he has made it to the pinnacle of his profession, Byfield is not satisfied with only achieving personal success. He is striving to be involved in the NHL’s diversity initiatives to recruit more people of color into the NHL. We Care About Community!

NAACP. Ballard serves as the political chair for his branch of the NAACP. He is a three-time NAACP Freedom Fund Award

recipient and was named Democrat of the Week by the New Jersey Young Democrats in June 2020. Ballard is a devote activist and community servant. He is a member of the South Jersey Young Democrats Black Caucus, a member of the Black Lives Matter Global Network and a coach for the Willingboro/Burlington chapter of the New Jersey Orators (NJO). Ballard is often invited to be a panelist, organizer, and speaker for social justice events. His goal is to continue to serve others and use the experience from his advocacy, along with the knowledge obtained from getting a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Leadership from The Pennsylvania State University, to transition to a professional role, ideally in the nonprofit or public sector.

Riccardo Dale

Tyrus Ballard

Ballard resides in Willingboro, New Jersey, where he serves as the first vice president of the Southern Burlington County branch of the

Dale was raised in Beverly, New Jersey, where he faced extreme adversity at a young age due to poverty, loss of loved ones, and academic struggles. This adversity left Dale homeless when he was in high school, but it did not stop him from striving for more. Through self-determination, and self-love, he was able to turn his life around.

He attended Rowan University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. While a student at the University, Dale served on the trustees board as a student member. Dale, motivated by the struggles he experienced growing up, started a nonprofit organization, Free All Minds Academy,

which mentors children of color. Students who attend the academy have a 100% acceptance rate to college.

“We have a team of college graduates that have overcome poverty, academic struggles and family trouble to reach success,” Dale said about Free All Minds on a fundraiser page. “This relatability between our mentors and students is a vital part of what makes our program unique.”

In 2021, Dale made history by becoming the youngest person ever elected to the Beverly City Council. In fact at the age of twenty-four, Dale is one of the youngest council members in the country.

Alexander Bland

as a scout leader of Woodbine Troop and Pack No. 77. Bland is a former mentor for the Pathstone’s Youth Program, which earned him the “Giving Back Award” from the Press of Atlantic City in 2019.

Bland is also involved in a great deal in social activism. At 28 years of age he became the youngest NAACP branch president in New Jersey, when he was sworn in as president of the Cape May County Branch in 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he became a board member of Cape Hope, which focuses on helping the homeless. In 2021 he became president of the “Caring For Kids” organization. Bland also serves as the chair of the NAACP State Conference Labor and Industry Committee, which works to improve the economic status of minority groups. In 2021 Bland was honored by Positive Vibes Community Group, with a Community Service Award. Politically in 2019, he was voted in as the youngest member of The Woodbine Board of Education. In 2020 he founded the Young Democrats of Cape May-Cumberland Counties. As you can see there is no limit to what Bland will do for the benefit of the community. There is no limit to where we can go, or what we can achieve!

Victor J. Glover, Jr

Bland from Woodbine, New Jersey, serves on the executive board of his local union AFSME 2210. Bland has spent countless hours volunteering and organizing events for children, including

I can only dream about what it would be like to be on the International Space Station, roughly 250 miles above the earth. For NASA astronaut Victor Glover, 44, that dream became a reality in November of 2021, Glover is a SpaceX Crew Dragon pilot.

As he settled in for a six month stay on the Space Station, he became the first Black astronaut to live and work in the International Space Station for an extended period of time. (NASA has sent more than three hundred astronauts to space, only a total of fourteen have been African Americans.)

“It is bittersweet, because I’ve had some amazing colleagues before me that really could have done it, and there are some amazing folks that will go behind me,” Glover, who is serving as pilot and second-in-command on the crew, told The Christian Chronicle in a November story. “I wish it would have already been done, but I try not to draw too much attention to it.”

Before becoming an astronaut for NASA, Glover was a test pilot and commander in the U.S. Navy. He flew two thousand hours in over forty aircraft and twenty-four combat missions. Glover received his bachelor’s in general engineering from California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, California. He went on to receive multiple related graduate degrees, in-

cluding a masters in flight test engineering from Air University and a master’s in systems engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Glover’s fifth grade science teacher, Mr. Hargrove, inspired him to pursue STEM (an area where Black people in the U.S. are underrepresented, and Black and Latino students drop out of STEM degrees at higher rates than their white peers).

“My interest in math encouraged him to suggest that I consider engineering. At the time...I didn’t know any engineers,” Glover told Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Josh Dobbs during a Jan. 15 interview from aboard the ISS. ”Mr. Hargrove’s belief in me still continues to resonate with me today and is one of the reasons I chose engineering as a profession.”

Jason Wright

Jason Wright, 38, is the first Black president of a National Football League team. In August 2020, Wright became president of the Washington Football Team, making him the NFL’s first ever Black president. Wright is also, at 38, the youngest president of an NFL team.

Write, a former NFL player, came into the position with a great deal of knowledge and understanding of the league.

(Write spent seven years in the NFL as a running back for the Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns, and Arizona Cardinals.) Write has an incredible understanding of business as well. In 2010, he left the NFL to earn his MBA at the University of Chicago. He then spent seven years at McKinsey & Company, where he specialized in turning around failing corporations.

Working for the Washington Football Team, one of the biggest challenges will be to

fix the franchise’s culture, which includes allegations of sexual harassment and leaving behind the legacy of the team’s racist former name. It will not be easy, but Wright is optimistic. He spent his early days with the Washington Football Team meeting with employees, gathering facts, and developing a course of action. Write is committed to making positive changes and says that the team’s owner, Dan Snyder, has given him the power to do what he believes is right. That includes making the psychological and emotional well-being of the employees the main priority. Wright has created a human resource department to make sure his vision becomes a reality.

a Black valedictorian goes to show how much work has been done, but also how much work still needs to be done,” Johnson told CNBC Make It. Johnson gives credit to his role models, such as Princeton professor William Massey, for helping him achieve this academic accomplishment.

Johnson, a Montreal, Canada native, graduated from Princeton in the Spring of 2020. He is now earning a doctorate in operations research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For Wright, the position of team president is “an opportunity to bring together my two worlds in a really unique way,” he said on Good Morning America. “The fact that I happen to be Black and the most qualified person for this is a boost.”

“Operations research is the study of how to make good decisions with limited information, largely using tools from mathematical optimization,” Johnson explains. “After I finish this program, I envision following an entrepreneurial path, one in which I really leverage my skill set to tackle important problems in health care and finance.”

Given the opportunity we can excel in places that, traditionally, we were told we did not belong!

Noah Harris

Nicholas Johnson

Johnson, 23, in May of 2020 was announced as Princeton University’s first Black valedictorian in the school’s 275-year history. Princeton’s first nine presidents were slave owners, and so were many of Princeton’s professors during those early years. “The fact that today we have

In November of 2020, Harris, a junior from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, became the first Black man elected as Harvard’s student body presi-

dent in the school’s 384year history.

“It’s an honor to have that title and to recognize that there are so many amazing people who have come before me,” Harris told CNBC Make It. “And for it to happen within the last year, with the year of racial reckoning that we’ve had and all that’s going on with the pandemic, it just makes it that much more special.”

Harris pointed out that Fentrice Driskell, who was the first Black woman to serve as Harvard’s student body president and currently

serves in the Florida House of Representatives, helped to pave his way. He also gave credit to W.E.B. Du Bois who was the first Black individual to earn a PHD from Harvard.

“Of course, he is one of the most amazing leaders in Black political thought in history. And so to have him literally pave the way for people like me is pretty special,” says Harris.

After graduation, Harris hopes to attend Harvard Law school but for now, he says “I’m really just trying to make my fellow students

proud.”

in that position of scrambling, so I took the timeout. He did not like that when he came through the handshake line."

Howard admitted in his postgame press conference that the late timeout was why he was so upset.

"I didn't like the timeout they called, I'll be totally honest," he said. "I thought it was not necessary at that moment, especially with it being a large lead. ... I thought that wasn't fair to our guys." Then "For someone to touch me, I think that was very uncalled for," he said. "That's what escalated it. ...

At that point, I thought it was time to protect myself."

By Drapa Dyme Sportsmanship is the cornerstone of sports; we are taught this from an early age. This affinity for sportsmanship is one reason that the recent altercation between Michigan’s and Wisconsin’s men’s basketball teams received so much criticism. If you are not familiar with the situation, the altercation occurred after the No. 15 ranked Wisconsin team beat Michigan 77-63 in Madison, Wisconsin. As is tradition, the teams lined up to shake hands after the game. Michigan coach Juwan Howard and Wisconsin coach Greg Gard had an intense interaction which led to an all-out brawl that involved players and coaches. Gard confronted Howard, who was slow to enter the handshake line, close to the scorer’s table. Gard grabbed Howard’s arm and stopped Howard from moving past him. The two coaches exchanged words then tensions rose quickly.

Coach Howard pushed his finger into Gard’s face, which caused the intensity to rise further, before Howard took a swing at Wisconsin assistant coach Joe Krabbenhoft. After that, things escalated quickly, and the players got involved in the altercation.

But what was it that led up to the intenseness of the situation in the first place? Michigan was in a full court press, when the Badgers were up 76-61 late in the game so Gard called a timeout, with only 15 seconds left in the game.

"Apparently, he didn't like that I called a timeout to reset the 10-second call," Gard told CBS Sports. "We only had 4 seconds to get the ball past half court. I didn't want to put my bench guys

It is interesting that this entire scenario is filled with examples of sportsmanship or lack thereof depending on your perspective. Usually you do not press when the score is out of hand, it’s bad sportsmanship. Usually you don’t call a timeout with 15 seconds left when the score is out of hand, it’s bad sportsmanship. You never have a physical altercation, especially in the handshake line, as once again it’s bad sportsmanship.

Now that we have gone over the scenario let’s get into the heart of it, One Man’s Opinion. First of all, a team doing a full court press late in the game when the game is already decided! Why would they do that? They are supposed to quit trying, there is no need to play hard throughout the entire game, only at certain times……. Come on man!!!! So they full court pressed late in the game, is quitting early good sportsmanship? I have never heard anyone say, we were down so I thought I would just lay there for a while. When you are down you fight to get back up, even if there is little chance of you coming back, that is sportsmanship. Michigan was right to compete as hard as they could throughout the entire game, no matter the score.

So just because they were doing a full court press the Wisconsin coach thought it was a good idea to call a timeout to get his players ready, even though there were only 15 seconds left in the game. Don’t worry I won’t go for sarcasm again; the Wisconsin coach was right. Again, you play the entire game like the score is zero to zero, you leave it all on the court. With Michigan doing a full court press the Wisconsin coach wanted to

make sure his players were in the best position to beat the press, so he called a timeout. If Wisconsin had quit, turned the ball over because they were not prepared, and just given Michigan an easy basket would that have been better sportsmanship?

So the full court press by Michigan was the right thing to do. The time out by Wisconsin, was the right thing to do. So what about the handshake line? The handshake line does show good sportsmanship…. when you are in the third grade. By the time you get to college, it is no longer necessary. Imagine you are 19 years old, and you have been playing basketball for, probably 15 of those years. You played for your grade school, you played for your high school, and then you played AAU ball for the rest of the year. So you have spent countless hours, countless days, working to get to the division one college level.

Now that you are there the practices are more intense, the pressure is much higher, and you are on the largest stage you have ever been on, and you lose. Your emotions at that time would be incredibly high. This is not the best time to have to line up and shake the hand of the team that beat you, especially if it was a tough emotionally charged game.

The handshake should not be mandatory, make it like football where you can shake hands if you want to, but it is not required.

the Lincoln Memorial in front of several hundred-thousand.

For obvious reasons, I have always loved Black History Month! I really love celebrating my people, my ancestors, and our collective impact both visible and hidden.

I must admit though, as a nine-year old in “Lil Ms. Williams” class at St. Joseph School down on Ezzard Charles Drive, I cared more about the plays, the singing, and drawing pictures to impress my 4th grade crush! Nevertheless, even in my youthful naivety, I could always feel the pride pouring out of my teachers and parents. I swear, every Jet and Ebony magazine we had must have been put out on February 1st!

It took years of living and learning to realize that legacy-building and the architects of those legacies cannot be contained within the margins of 28…or 29…days on a calendar. True “gifts” to the world are not meant to be hoarded, not meant to be egotistically or fearfully drawn to our proverbial chest and confined.

They are meant to permeate through and transform the environments and people around us in a profound way.

But here is the thing, most of us do not view our gifts and potential influence as big enough, valuable enough, or far-reaching enough to have that type of lasting effect. We envision the likes of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Harriett Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Mary McLeod Bethune, Shirley Chisholm, or the Obamas as exemplars of who one needs to be to leave a legacy, when in fact our realm of influence starts close to us and grows through those we impact. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy started at Ebenezer Baptist Church in front of several hundred not

Through years of living and learning, I have grown to love Black History Month even more today because those sojourners before me still influence how I attempt to successfully navigate this world as a Black man. However, the gifts bestowed upon me by individuals in my life who have long since transitioned to glory and those who are thankfully still here to guide me (all of whom being largely unknown to the masses) are the ones that I hold most dear. Gifts of listening…gifts of protection… gifts of wisdom…gifts of laughter…gifts of prayer…gifts of grace…these are legacies of love that will travel with me across time.

The true changemakers, the true legacybuilders, may not always experience in a tangible way the impact of their gifts. Perhaps this is because our gifts are not really for us… they are meant to be given away freely. Peace comes from the realization that someone, somewhere, during sometime…may prayerfully use your gift to build a legacy of their own… …so that our story continues…

Endless Blessings!

Dr. Wayne J. Hilson, Jr. James 1:12 (NIV)

April 1, 2022 release of his new book, The Doctrine of Last Things

www.barnesandnoble.com/