By Alison Dorsey
Co-Founder, Bull City Forward – http://bullcityforward.org/
In high school, Mr. Everitt, social ethics teacher extraordinaire, asked the class what questions people have when they meet a new person at a cocktail party. Being 15 and 16 years old, our answers contained gems such as “what sport do you play?” and “did you see the school play?” He quickly realized this was a time to tell us the answer instead of drawing it out, and informed a very surprised class that “once we became adults” we would be asked “what do you do?” when we meet someone new. His point was that this convention was steeped in labels and judgment and used to mentally categorize those we meet as a short cut to deciding it we want to invest the time in really knowing them. He encouraged us to avoid the temptation and instead to know people, not titles.
I’m not sure I had remembered that day in Mr. Everitt’s class a single time in the last 8 years, but it came to mind this Friday evening in Duke University’s Bryan Center. At the private rough cut screening of “Starting at the Finish Line, The Coach Buehler Story,” I stood in awe. I walked into the theater, expecting to learn the story of the legendary Duke track coach, a mentor to his athletes, beloved by all who met him, and a veteran Olympic coach to boot. What I saw instead was track as a passion and coaching as a lifestyle, and both as a platform to stand up for what was right, and to fight for the pure successes of the absolute best athletes, without regard to their race or gender. Working closely with Coach Walker of NCCU, Buehler bridged Duke’s white team and NCCU’s black team, traveling, training, and competing together. Years later, when Title Nine was first introduced, Buehler gave up every male track scholarship to give to women athletes as a testament to his commitment to equality and an example to other coaches. Buehler’s story shook me, and as I exited the theater, I knew the same could be said by the rest of the crowd, those filling up the Bryan Center Lobby, sitting it the aisles of Griffith Film Theater, congratulating the amazing director Amy Unell, and without exception, smiling or crying.
What made my experience viewing the Coach Buehler Story particularly moving was the timing. The very same day, Sonal Shah, the director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, was visiting Durham. During her trip, Sonal spent a few hours meeting with local social entrepreneurs to get a better sense of the sector’s rapid development locally and also, hopefully, to identify scalable models to track from her office. We hosted these meetings at Bull City Forward, and listening in, I was impressed by the diversity of their stories and programs. At Bull City Forward, we believe social innovation and entrepreneurship cross cut every sector and every industry. At the meeting convened around Sonal’s visit, that belief was embodied again and again.
After the screening on Friday, as the crowd discussed the brilliance of Amy Unell and the empowering story of Coach Buehler, one friend summed it up beautifully. He said that what made Buehler’s story so powerful was that it showed we all have the opportunity to engage in the fight for the greater good. Coach Buehler’s story is one of a steadfast commitment to what is morally right, regardless of the times or the masses. Buehler is a legendary track coach, a civil rights leader, a women’s rights advocate, a mentor, a husband, a friend, and a father. In the same way, many of the social entrepreneurs who met with Sonal Shah this week transcend title. Be it solar panel installation, software development, book writing, or job training, those speaking on Friday did not convey a commitment to a single product; they expressed an involvement in a movement, a commitment to addressing the biggest challenges of our generation with new, creative, and often scalable solutions. In essence, their passion and innovation are part of who they are, not what they do.
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