Reading, STEM and The Immeasurable Impact of Athlete Influence…

The power of influence that athletes, perhaps more than anyone else because they have an almost daily audience, has, can be so vastly valuable. While we think of brands, TikTok videos and athletic exploits in short bursts as maybe the quickest examples of the power of influence, there are others than can perhaps be more fulfilling, more impactful, albeit maybe a little less buzzworthy than what draw the biggest eyeballs, but that doesn’t make them less important.

Whether that is Victor Wembanyama and others taking up chess, or the power of our colleague Calvin Sibert and NBA Math Hoops (listen to his story here and watch the GMA video here), the influence that can be brought, and the engagement…especially to young people who may not be driven by what we can call “traditional” education skills like STEM and strategy…is vastly important.

This week we saw another great example of athletes of influence engaging in what maybe is the most basic of needs, one that has eroded as we chase things on smaller screen and become more time challenged…reading. There was an ESPN.com piece you can check out here on NFL players’ summer reading lists, and the growth of book clubs amongst professional teams as a form of building community. Whether the choice is comic books or fantasy novels or history doesn’t matter. What is impactful is that these athletes of varied backgrounds are using their sphere of influence to promote a vital skill…reading.

Just like STEM or strategy, reading, and the places books of any form can take you, is so vastly needed for our future. Athletes can make it cool again to read, and can use all their platforms to show young people…or people of any age…that what is on paper or on a mobile device…can be a learning tool for growth, not just in seconds, but for decades to come.

Now maybe book clubs or math programs using sports will fade because they take time and dedication. Maybe this is a growing trend we need to pay more attention to, and that brands and media platforms and teams will invest more in going forward as part of the CSR initiatives.

Let’s hope it’s the latter, because all these basic skills made fun and impactful by those in the limelight are desperately needed as education seems to keep ebbing away.

Read, share, play games and have fun. That’s what summer should be all about, right? Life skills mixed in as well led by those who are on the pedestal but take the time to share their experiences.

A little old school, but so, so important. Share the lists and the best practices, they can impact lives well beyond a short form video.