Mission: Learning Style'Z

Episode 11- Mission: Learning Style'Z

In this episode of Driven By The Mission, Raymond Harrison and Jean Boyd welcome Yolanda Black, Learning Specialist at the University of Georgia, to spotlight the work happening behind the scenes of academic support for student-athletes. 
The conversation includes conversations about learning styles and skill building, but goes beyond academics — diving into confidence-building, identity development, mental health, and the complex realities student-athletes face in today’s NIL and transfer portal era. 
Yolanda offers a deeply personal and inspiring perspective on her purpose and mental health journey and how her calling to support students through a learning specialist role brought healing to her.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Driven by the Mission, hosted by Raymond Harrison and Gene Boyd. With over 60 years of combined experience as former Division I student athletes and leaders in the collegiate athletic space, we're here to spotlight the passionate professionals who support student athlete growth behind the scenes. As the industry evolves, so does the need for holistic development. Life skills, wellness, and performance support that prepares student athletes for life beyond sport. Each episode, we bring you conversations with the hidden heroes driving this mission forward. This is Driven by the Mission.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Welcome back, everyone, to Driven by the Mission. Raymond, we got the opportunity to do our episode 10, and now we're back to the real business, which is having conversations with hidden heroes, individuals in the industry who are making it go. We have Yolanda Black with us today who does her passion every day in the space of academic and student support in the role of learning specialist at the University of Georgia. Yolanda, we want to welcome you to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited about this conversation and having the opportunity to share my story, and I hope what I say inspires someone. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Welcome, Yolanda and Gene. Tell us a little bit about how you found Yolanda. Tell us, tell us more. I've been chasing Yolanda.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Almost a year now ago is when I met you, or I first was introduced to you via your uh participation in a panel put on by the Drake group. Yes. And the title of the webinar was interesting. It was something like who is responsible for the academic success of football student athletes, or something along those lines. And uh it was a very rich conversation, but there was a wide array of conversation around literally who was responsible for the academic success of football student athletes. And I thought to myself, like, well, number one, they are, they're families. But we know in the context and construct of college athletics, there are a lot of support services to help young men and women as they transition and then go on the journey throughout that experience. And what really caught my attention about Yolanda was she was talking about the fact that we used to have situations where you'd have three, four, five years to really do the work and make an impression on a young person and help them with outcomes. And she was like, now I'm thinking within a three to six month time period, how can I impact someone? And I was like, wow, that's hitting the nail on the head because Raymond and I and Yolanda have thought extensively about these challenges with the transient nature of things and so forth. So that really stuck with me and made me immediately interested as we knew we were building this out. Um, but you are the first guest who represents the segment of the field titled Learning Specialists. And with that stated, I'd like to get us started by you giving us your perspective, what a learning specialist is, and how and why you positioned yourself to do your passion in this role in college athletics.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

I just want to say again, I'm honored to be the first and also um hopefully be the first of many in this field. It's such an important role. Um, for those who do not know what a learning specialist is, we're in academics. And so we're kind of like an extension of the advisor or the counselor. And um we check in with students, they meet with us depending on their skill level and making sure that you know they're being held accountable when it comes to doing work. Um but then also we assist with collegiate foundational skills. Um, so if they didn't master those skills before they went to college, um we assist with that. Also, you know, just helping with time management, organization, taking skills, um kind of skills beyond just that foundational uh reading and writing. In a gist, that's what we do. It looks different at different institutions. I graduated from the illustrious North Carolina Central University, the best HBCU.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Something tells me that every time we have an HBCU guest on here, they're gonna say the same thing. It's all good.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

I got my bachelor's degree in elementary education, and I was inspired by just working with the college students there. I became an RA and then went into teaching. Um, and then I got inspired by Last Chance You, which was a Netflix series. And I was like, that's what I want to do because I felt like my purpose was to work with older students, but then also to work with minority students. I think things that I've seen in my community and also in my own household, like what can I do to kind of help others? I think I motivated by that in um this journey that my mom went through with my brother. Um, so that's like inspired me to help youth and then to help um young black males specifically and then also minorities. I went to North Carolina Century. I had a lot of family members that went there and no one graduated. So it these it was a couple of things driving me when I went there, right? Like I went in with a mission, and it wasn't just for me for my family to break that family curse, but it was also to help other minority and black males specifically. So then went through that journey, got my degree, um, did a few years in Durham Public School Systems, and then ultimately when I watched Last Chance You, which is a football documentary, I didn't really understand like what it meant to be a college athlete. And so looking at that show, and I want to help people, I want to pour into people, I was blessed to you know to be like a teacher. And I felt like it was just a great combination. I'm also from Reidsville, North Carolina, um, which we are the football capital of North Carolina. We have the most high school state championships. Um, so yeah, if anybody wanna argue with me, please do.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Um but something told me that that was somehow gonna make its way on to the episode. I I I I expected the North Carolina Central thing, but also expected this whole Reedsville football capital, all that. Yeah, yeah, so good.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Let me ask you this though, Yolanda. You talked about your time at Central and getting into the education space. You were a fourth grade teacher. Talk to us about your journey um from there to Miami, uh, where you were in a graduate program, and then there was a handoff from a professor to the athletic space, something to that extent. I don't know exactly what happened, but can you talk us about talk to us through how that how that handoff happened?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Sure. So, you know, I decided to get my master's degree in higher education. I wanted to go to school in Florida um just because I visited there and I was like, this would be like kind of a nice space to do a grad program. University of Miami gave me a scholarship. Um, so when you're in higher education, you can work in, you know, any uh program or department on campus. And so my professor really wanted me to go into a different department than athletics. And um, you know, and she was also my advisor, and she was like, I really want you to go into like a different type of department. I think you would um appreciate it more, you'll feel more valued there. And I was like, nobody's wanted to tear me away from my purpose. Let me tell you something. I done came down from Small Rural, North Carolina, down to Miami. I moved there by myself, no family and friends. It took a lot of praying, it took a lot of hope, it took a lot of faith. I had$80 in my bank account. It was so hard. There were so many times where I was like, I can't do this, right? It was so just an unknown territory, and then not really getting the support as far as we don't understand why you're doing this. I just know I felt led. Um, I was determined. My first year I worked in Dina Student's office um and I worked with the honor council, and that was okay because it went with my teaching background, but I really wanted to get in athletics. So my second year, you know, after making some connections on campus, I was able to um become an academic assistant assistant for Miami Athletics, which was basically like intern for an academic advisor. And then I also did my practicum under a learning specialist. So I was able to understand what an advisor was and a learning specialist. Because initially I wanted to be an advisor because that's what I was exposed to after watching Last Chance U. Um, but then when I went to learn what a learning specialist was, I was like, that's what I want to do. That's exactly what I want to do because it was transferable skills from the classroom, specifically teaching elementary education. Um, my four-year degree was was learning how to teach foundational skills. And so I was like, this is what I want to do. I absolutely enjoyed it. I love my caseload, I was pretty much team at first. Um and then eventually they gave me a few football students. So I was so excited, and um, and then COVID happened and there was no jobs opportunity. Everybody on a hiring freeze, nobody was hiring. So I I moved back home that summer and I was like Before you go home, can I interject here?

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Because we do our homework, we we try to find as much information as we can. Yeah. And I made an assumption that your handoff from your grad program to athletics was a positive and helpful one. Um in fact, it was not. It was it was someone that tried to deter you from it. Yeah, but there was this resilience that you had that you knew what you would do. And I think I think that's also a lesson to be learned from from the people that are listening because many times we're always thinking about those people in your life that really help you. There's times where people are in your life, and I'm not saying that that person had any malintent. There were reasons why they thought that you could do better from their perspective, but we are glad that you continue to follow your calling, uh, which is something that we're doing now on this podcast. So I just want to interject that and say we're we're thrilled. I know the University of Miami, Oregon, Georgia, they're all thrilled that you decided I'm going to do this. And thankful for Last Chance You.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, I mean, because awareness, right? Like I'm sure this podcast is going to bring some education awareness to all your viewers. And same thing with Netflix um with uh Last Chance You. They may not have meant that. That might have been for entertainment, but that's how I was exposed and how I got inspired. So thank you for interjecting um and stating that.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

I I just want to say as a guy who was a junior college student athlete, football player, um, in in the late 80s and early 90s, uh flea, last chance you resonate. And you know, everything within a documentary like that is a little bit sensationalized, right? And they had a they had an academic support person who was, you know, shaking the trees and moving mountains and all those kind of things. Sometimes it's that, sometimes it's other things that are, you know, somewhat mundane. And everything in the middle, right? You were you were alluding to the fact that after Miami, you went back home. Go on that journey from there, how you got to Oregon and ultimately to Georgia.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Yeah, I think going back home is kind of like that I do all of this for nothing, you know, just the sacrifice of working a full-time job. No, nobody ever talks about this, right? But you're working a full-time job with full-time bills, and you already got your degree, and you go back to grad school, and not online, but in person. Bills were still there, and I was just sitting there, like, you know, just having faith, praying to God every day, journaling, um, doing some self-care stuff, and just having faith that a job would come up in this like crazy time, right? It was 2020 and everybody was on the freeze, and I just kept trying. I just kept trying. I kept um looking for jobs, I kept interviewing, even if it wasn't for a learning specialist position. And then um Oregon decided to start hiring like toward the end of July. And I was like, I am not moving to Oregon. That is on the other side of the country. There's not a lot of people that look like me.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Coast to coast.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah, Black Lives Um Live Matter movement was going on, and at that time, you had the Oregon wildfires. I'm not moving to Oregon, but what I will do is just interview. So I interviewed, and you know, I really liked like the staff and their purpose and mission. And I was like, you know what? I went to Miami all by myself and did it. Well, I can't go to Oregon. And so that it's kind of almost like that experience helped me, it was preparing me for another experience. So, you know, when I look back, it's like sometimes when you think that the road is an ending or you feel like everything is just done, sometimes you have to go down to go back up. And that's pretty much what happened. I went home for that summer, but then wind up getting a full-time position at a power five B1 school. So I got the um my first learning special job in Oregon, and for a while I was comfortable because we were still doing virtual on Zoom for appointments, and I was still in North Carolina, but then eventually they wanted me to move out there, and I was like, huh, you know, this is going great. Like the students are learning from me. They're doing, you know, they're making connected.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Probably messing up a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

But they were like, well, you gotta move. They was like, when you gonna, I remember my brother was like, So when are you gonna move out here? And so I wound up moving out there like in November, and it was a lot, it was a lot of things going on. I lost my cousin um like the day before, and then some other stuff was happening at home, and I'm on the plane, like crying, like not knowing like what's about to happen, going over to the other side of the country, never been to Oregon before, the plane landing and just kind of being in that foreign land, and it was nighttime, and I'm like, oh my God, I don't know. It was scary, and I wasn't financially stable at the time. So unfortunately, when I got there, I didn't have a blanket. I just had my coat. And I remember laying on that hardwood floor at the apartment just with my coat on. And again, I was having that conversation with God, like, you know, like, look, I'm following you, and you provide me assistance in this season and in this situation. And I just thought about like when I got to Miami, same things, but I just reached out to the staff, I let them know what's going on. Being vulnerable and having community is important, and um, they were so helpful, you know, bring food over and blankets and everything. But I was waiting on my car to be transported from uh North Carolina and it had all my stuff in it. So again, I felt like I just want to go back home. What am I doing? It's cold. I my body was shocked because I was like in Miami, Florida for two years, and now I'm in Oregon and it was cold. But that was the best experience of my life. I love Oregon. I miss Oregon. I mean, the impact, this the impact I made on students, this the the impact the students made on me, you know, as I pour into them, they pour into me as well, and I learned more about myself. But it was just a special group. I think also we all had this one thing in common with COVID and not knowing what's you know going to go on, kind of fear of the unknown, but we all just kind of came together as far as just you know going toward this common goal of them wanting to succeed as student athletes and you know, me helping them along the way. But Oregon will always have a special place in my heart.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Ilana, thank you for taking us on this journey. And you you talked about leaving home, having to go back. Uh often use different analogies when I talk to people. But I think about a slingshot. In order for a rock to be launched far, then there's gotta be there's gotta be a regress, right? There's gotta be some resistance that that propels it forward. And so what I'm hearing of you in terms of your role as a learning specialist, you were introduced into the field in the form of an academic advisor. Yeah, but when you quickly found out about this learning specialist space, you you talked about you know your experience going from North Carolina to Miami back to North Carolina, and now at this point, move to Oregon, which is a place that you didn't see yourself moving and you exposed yourself to it and then you love it. But it's also interesting to me that when you were exposed to this profession, and then you you came to learn and understand that that was a much more detailed operation when it comes to supporting student athletes from an academic standpoint. You learn about this realm of learning specialists. And the thing that I've picked up on your story thus far, and I want you to talk about this, is that you're an educator. And things I've always really respected about impactful educators are they're great teachers because they're great learners. Sounds like at this point you've been able to open your mind and learn and be exposed to some things. And my guess is that that level of learning of impact has rubbed off in your ability to truly serve those student athletes that you get a chance to work with every day. Can you talk a little bit about how you continue to learn and grow and how that impacts your ability to do your job at a high level?

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Um, definitely. I feel like it impacted me from a personal standpoint and a career standpoint. I've always wanted to be a traditional, like, classroom teacher. And so this is very different, right? Like when you're teaching, you have a classroom, and I was also doing elementary students, so it's different as well, but a classroom full of students, um, and now I'm working like one-on-one in small group. Um so you kind of have to adjust your approach. You're not working with smaller kids um anymore, or you're not working with a whole classroom and where you have your lesson plan, right? And people don't talk about this a lot too, but the learning specialist role can be very difficult because you are essentially helping these students with all from all different classes and subjects. Right. And so that was an adjustment there. Like, I don't have that control. I'm not teaching the class, like I'm kind of helping them navigate what does the syllabus say? How can I manage my my workload? How can I break it down into smaller goals? And then also, inspiring learning specialists, the core of our job is preserving the student and helping figure out the best strategy or strategies that are going to help the students succeed. My students come in and they have the self-talk that and they say, you know, I've never been good at this, I'm not good at school, I'm not good at math. I say we talk about learning styles. We talk about the different learning styles and how maybe you have a learning style that you may not have had a strategy that has been exposed for that learning style, right? Like there are strategies for every learning style. So maybe no one has exposed you to that strategy yet for your particular learning style. In the collegiate setting, most of the time those professors are are teaching based on a more of an auditorial type learning, right? But that's not how everyone learns. Sometimes we learn with visuals. Sometimes we learn um through different ways that our brain can categorize information when we talk about visual spatial, right? And so I expose that to students. I have a learning style chart in my classroom because we're trying to make them understand that we all can do whatever we put our minds to. It doesn't matter if you have a learning disability, it doesn't matter if you are missing collegiate foundational skills. They're either missing some foundational skills, maybe they have a learning disability, um, and then eligibility risk, mental health issues. Those are just some of the reasons why they may have our top-tier support because learning specialists in most of them are top-tier support. But again, just taking the teacher traditional teaching approach and making it into a way where it's beneficial for the collegiate athletic space, which is a very unique, multifaceted, complex space. Lots of moving parts.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

I want to stay here for one more round, if you will. About of course, we spent a lot of time together. Gene and I both uh have spent time in the academic space, overseeing academic units. So we're familiar with with what you're talking about, but it doesn't mean we know everything that you're talking about. We're learning as we go. One of the things that I've always seen that's a challenge that we needed to be intentional with in terms of supporting learning specialists is that celebrate wins every day. Because sometimes you're operating foundationally, taking students from a deficit level and building over time. And a lot of that building is in their confidence and overcoming that self, that negative self-talk. Whereas an academic advisor may have a broad range of students who are coming with some strong skills, and so they're seeing you're getting positive gains every day. And so you've always had to be very intentional. How do you how do you process that on your end to keep yourself motivated because it's intensive work?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

It is intensive. I'm glad you know, pointed that out. Um, it's hard, you know. I feel like in general, I could be a perfectionist sometimes. I have these expectations for myself, and you do have to celebrate the small wins because what I'm talking about takes time, right? Your foundational skills, but then you got, you know, that that confidence that they may not have coming in, just the personal life thing, mental health issues. You have them in different environments, whether that's you know, their home life, um, just what they hear on the football field or with their coaches, or you know, other people are in their ears, and then there's you. And so, you know, you have to kind of it's important to celebrate that small win, you know, each day because you it will lead to burnout. And that's one thing I could talk about because I go 100, I go 100 every day and try to celebrate this small win because at the end of the day, when I'm on a journey with these students, it takes time. Sometimes I say my favorite part of teaching is seeing that light bulb moment. It might take a year for them to see that light bulb moment. So you gotta just like again, whether it's they finally showed up on time, that's a small win. Maybe they finally um did their work on their own for the first time and they didn't have to come in the building to do it. Um so just celebrating that because the goal that we're working toward and some of these um expectations we have for our students, you have to realize too, it's a journey. And it can be frustrating sometimes. Um, but then again, I also realize like the system I'm in, right? It's a complex system as well. And so um it is important to stop, slow down, take some small wins so you can keep the retention in the field.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Yeah, Yolanda, to build on that, you talked about it being a complex system, and these young men and women come from all every walk of life, right? Every walk of life is represented. Some are international, some come from lower lower socioeconomic backgrounds, etc. And so in your role, there's a lot of versatility required, which you've talked some about. But to go behind the curtain a little more, you spend a lot of time with young men, young African American men in particular, who probably from an identity development standpoint feel like their forward facing identity most of the time is football, athlete, future pro. So, I mean, you're at the University of Georgia now, which is one of the most productive, high-winning teams in the country. And so a lot of the mindsets that you're working with are that everything is wrapped up into this identity athlete front facing. You have to, and you've talked a little bit about this, but I want you to dive a little bit deeper. How do you challenge them to see themselves as more of a whole person, to see themselves as someone who has multiple identities? You're a son of someone, you're going to be a father one day, because the work of the learning specialist is not simply and solely in empowering individuals to make the grades, right? And the stereotypes would be like keep them eligible or just get him through, right? All that crap. Like, but you're helping to empower, intentionally empower these young people to be better versions of themselves, to be better student athletes, maybe better fathers someday. How do you challenge them to develop their their mindset about who they are, who they, who and what they represent, and how they can expand their mindset to even even higher levels than maybe they came in with?

SPEAKER_00 23:08

We're talking about identity development, and that's definitely the stage they're in at that age, 18, 19 year olds. Um, it's a very vulnerable space, right? And so before we get to that, first is just building that connection with them, um, building that relationship and them gaining trust in you. So letting you know, like, I'm here for you, I'm here for uh what you want to be here for. When I first meet them, I say, What's your goals? Most of them, all of them say, you know, I want to go to NFL. And I say, Oh, okay, great. What else do you want to do? Right. I say, What else? That's the first every time I'm a new student. I just had a few this message. What else do you want to do? And some of them will know, they'll know. And then some of them, like, I I never thought about that. And I'm like, well, it's not that you might not make it to the NFL or and I've worked with other sports as well. Um, sometimes I do I have basketball as well, or NBA, or whatever pro sport it is, but you know, it's also good to just have something else on the side. And so it is speaking their language in a way where I respect your dream and your goal. I respect that from little league up until now that you work toward this. And I'm not taking that away from you. It is important, but what other goals do you have? And so then it's building that relationship, letting them know I care. And then as we continue to go through the collegiate journey, then it's again asking those guided questions or pointing out, you're really good at this. I have one student, like, he is so good at like expressive writing, and he is set on just going, you know, too like pro, but pro-level sports. But I'm like, you are really good at expressive writing. Have you ever thought about getting into journalism? And so sometimes I am pointing out different things I noticed that they're really good at and bridging that transferable skill so that they understand that there are other things you can be good at as well. And like you said, we have uh um many identities, you know, it's just not just this one identity of you being an athlete. And what other goal do you want to do? What other goal do you want to have for yourself? And so we do that a lot, but I will say it is challenging, especially being at such a like a school that, like you said, is a productive football program, and we do send a lot of students to the league, um, and they know that they're gonna get on that path to the NFL. It's not like JUCO, right? Which is what I really wanted to work in at first, where it's kind of like less of a chance to get to that level. So maybe they can hear you a little bit more when you're helping them gain a passion for education, and then also trying to figure out okay, what else do you want to do? But at this level, it is very it's very difficult. It is very difficult. So I address it like, you know, you can keep this identity, but uh, what else do you want to do?

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Right. So Gene is taking us um down a path still talking about your work as a learning specialist, but uh really putting a focus on the whole person and the identity piece. And I don't necessarily want to leave there, but I still have a question or a comment that goes back to something that you said earlier. Um you talked about learning styles, and you and you talked about being very intentional having a chart in your office that helped them understand that there are so many different ways that they have been able to learn. And one of the things we talk about often is absolutely they have the capacity to learn. You know, I'm a football player, I've used this example before. I'm a football player. When you take me to a basketball practice and you watch a coach diagram or play, I mean, they they're given multi-step directions of do this, that I'm already lost. But they go and they execute it. So you can't tell me that they don't have the capacity to learn. We found ways within athletics to try to meet what their needs are to deliver the information to them. And I love that's what you do. And I think I think great educators, great coaches, they go the extra lengths. Mike Thomas said something one time on the pivot podcast, and he talked about I I really laugh at coaches who shrink away from coaching. And I think I'd say the same thing. I really laugh at the educators who shrink away from actually educating and going the extra mile. And so I want to give you kudos because it sounds like that's what you're doing. You're doing that, but also hear you talk about transferable skills. You're building confidence and helping them understand that they can do so much more than what they're doing. And my guess is that it impacts their ability to do what they love really, really well. Can you talk about some examples of students and how they have taken that confidence and grown academically and how you may have seen that impact their ability to do what they love?

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Yeah, I feel like, and that's just in the students over the years. I've been in this field for seven years now, which I'm like, whoo. Um, seven years now, like time has gone by. Um, but definitely I feel like sometimes too, especially if, let's say, the one thing you just wasn't good at was academics and just cover hold your overall confidence back. But now I just think about one student that I worked with over the years, but you now have that confidence in the classroom. So now that confidence is shining just in general in your demeanor, your personal life, like the way you walk into the room, the way you hold hold your head up high, the way that you uh speak to when you're getting interviewed and all of that, just watching him grow as a confident young man um on the field, but then also in his personal life, because the academic confidence is now something that he has. And so it is transferable because as you are working with these students, it is more than academics, and um touched on that before, but I look into the holistic development of the student. It's literally impossible just to pour into them from the academic realm, right? It's like I said, it's mental health, it's it's character, it's so many different things. And even when helping a student um understand an assignment or something like that, we are talking about real-world life applications and examples. Um, because again, I feel like I am on the front line working with this student and I'm a mentor. I feel like I'm almost a mentor first, learning specialist second. Yeah, huge part of um just being in their life and instilling confidence, self-talk, affirmations. But yeah, I think one in particular, just seeing him, like when I see that he's doing the interviews and with the press and everything, he's confident now. And it's because he was so insecure about his academic ability, his family didn't know, no one knew about it. Um, and then until he came to us, and sometimes you don't get exposed until you you get more into the collegiate level. And so, but then, you know, showing him some strategies and and also other support systems that we have has helped him become the confident young man he is today. And um, it has shown, you know, in all areas of his life. So it's just amazing to kind of sit back and just watch him grow and see how far he has come.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Raymond, the crossover that we're talking about now, Yolanda, I want to ask you this. Have you been able to impress upon the young men some of the things that you're teaching, like communication style, learning style, ability to decode things, etc., directly applies to their ability to learn in the game, right? Do you get into that conversation sometimes?

SPEAKER_00 30:09

As I'm talking with them, I say a general thing. Like, if you can do this, what else could you do? What else if you can push through this resiliency, it might be like a 10-page paper or something. And then I have some like, I'm not doing this, right? They're like, I'm not doing this, they shut down, like, I'm not doing this. And I think instead of directly saying this is how you can do it on the field, but I'll say if you once they get through it, right? And we help them break it down, these small, we say micro goals or using academic techniques to master that paper. And then I say, So you can do this, then you can do something else that's challenging. So that's how I try to um be transferable without getting to like um the weeds of like, okay, you can do this on the field or you can do this on the court.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Yelana, I want to go a different route. You said before that you've been in the profession seven years. You've detailed your journey. So you've moved three different places over those seven years, had COVID in the mix. Um, and then you've been in college athletics during a time where there's been nothing but constant change. Uh, with trans transfer portal, ref share, um, NIL. And so you you know nothing but change in college athletics, right? You know that. My starting question for you though is how has that impacted you and your mental health? And how have you been able to navigate those those challenges that you've talked about?

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Oh man, where do I start? I mean, it's a lot, it's a lot, you know, happening. When I started in the field, I started as a full-time learning specialist in 2020. I that's when they decided to go ahead and start piloting the NIL movement. It was either 2020 or summer of 2021. It was right in the It wasn't a good combination at all. I remember I was on some of those calls when they were talking about giving us information about NIL. And yeah, they launched it this summer. I would say, one, you have to keep just being aware that you're in a system that's changing and understand that you're in a complicated system and things are gonna change, and this is gonna affect us in some type of way. And it did, right? Like with NIL and transfer portal, and like I talked about on the panel last year, of course, you don't see your student, you don't may not have that student for two or three or four years. But then also like with the NIL money, uh, sometimes the power dynamics are maybe a little off. That's how I put it. Uh, they used to be held a certain way or accountable for um going to your academic sessions and all of that. But sometimes when you put Nielle in the mix and it just it becomes more of a business-like structure, and so it just kind of makes it more difficult um on our end as advisors and counselors and making sure we're still holding students accountable. When we talk about mental health, one thing I did was I started a candle business at in Oregon in 2020. And part of starting that candle business was again was pouring into the self-care collections, self-care collections, it's self-care collections, it's on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Try to tee up, I try to tee up.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and so part of that too was like it was my own self-care of like having another hobby out there because you think about it, I'm out there with no family or friends, it's still COVID, there's not much to do. The only thing I could really do is like I love getting out into nature and hiking to that company, but uh, I've started that business to kind of expose um our youth, but just everyone to aromatherapy and how that could benefit you. Um, and so, and I've been on that journey. I've had this business for five years now, but I'm just educating them on just mental health in general, and that's kind of like a segue, right? Um, sometimes I feel down in the morning and I will smell my lemongrass candle and I'll feel better. Sometimes I um feel like I'm anxious and I can't relax, and I'll smell my lavender candle in the evenings and feel better. And it just opens up a conversation where you talk about mental health, and you know, then they're kind of more vulnerable talking about how they're feeling, or in a way where it's like, okay, if they are really going through a lot of mental health challenges, which I see a lot of everywhere in this field, Oregon, I would say it rains a lot there. It rains a lot there. I feel like yeah, cloudy skies, it's great. You don't see the sun there in the winter. I had a therapy light on my desk. Like that was a whole normal thing. Like everybody got therapy lights there. Um, and so I did see a lot of challenges there with my students. So just talking with them and um again kind of doing that as a segue when we're talking about mental health issues, um, and telling them like it's okay to go to therapy. I know that you probably heard this and that from when you grew up, and you know, going to therapy, make it seem like you're crazy and all of that. No, it's okay to go to therapy. Um, I went to therapy, I shared that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

I go to therapy.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yes, yes, there we go.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Jesus raising his hands. I think I'm raising both hands on my side. You're not alone.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Yes. I tell I said, You don't have your mind. I said, your mind is the most precious thing. You don't have that, you don't have anything. You can't get on the field if you don't have your mind. You can't do your work if you don't have your mind. You can't do anything in life if you don't have your mind. I tell them all the time, like your mental health is your foundation. You gotta make sure your mental is straight. So they've seen me grow over the years with the business, and again, it just creates a segue into more important conversations. And, you know, I'm blessed to like have made a difference in so many young men's lives where conversations I had with them made them want to go to therapy. And that I mean, that really, I feel like out of everything in the field, again, like I I'm in this field for academics, but so many other things that that the Lord has used me for. Um, and I do not take that for granted, just knowing that that student decided to challenge just generational curses, things that's happening in their family or at home, or challenge that stereotype and that narrative and go to therapy because of conversations I've had with them. Um, and that's been everywhere that I've been. And so I I don't take it lightly when they say I decide to go. And and especially when they keep going. Because it's one thing even to go, but then they keep going. It's just a wonderful opportunity to have to work this closely with them and to be able to make that influence. You definitely make an impact on more than just their academic ability.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

Yeah. Wow. I'm thinking about our time together as we get to the back end of this. And you had something very personal in your home that was a motivator for you that you talked about up front. You started out in a teaching space, learning about the foundational components of education, and you have brought that with you into the academic space, learning specialist role, but you're also a mental health advocate, I would say, right? So I got two questions for you. I'll give you the first one. How have you evolved in your thoughts about how in this era of humanity that we've entered in? We we obviously uh live in or we we all work in or and around college athletics where there's a lot going on. What are you doing differently? How have you evolved in in the way that you speak into the hearts and minds of the young people? Or to your point on that panel, I gotta find within this four-month window how I can give them something. What what are you doing differently?

SPEAKER_00 37:00

I think it's going back to what Raymond said earlier about recognizing those small wins. I have this expectation, but also it's taking it day by day as well because it is a lot going on. We talk about the different systems we're in, right? Like your personal system, you got the micro system, the mesosystem, the macro system, right? There's so much going on. Personal life, just in society in general, and then the world that you have to take things day by day. I had to make sure that I'm pouring into myself, my mental health and self-care. And then checking in with the students as well, because there's a lot going on and you really don't know what they went through when you come when they come in your door, right? And that's in general in an educator where you work in the public system, public school system, higher education system. But then there's another layer to it right now in 2026, kind of like how it was similar in 2020, 2020 with everything going on, and so not taking things personally, right? Like that's so hard as an educator, but just understanding like there's so many things that could be going on with that student, and then and then they're in this world. Maybe it's seeing they they've seen somebody that looked like them on the TV or on social media, um, you know, that or they've been mistreated, or maybe their family is struggling. We get that a lot. With some of our students, their family are struggling back home, and now they have because of NIL, they are the leaders of their families, right? Like they are paying the bills, they are helping keep the household together, and then some assistance has been taken away, right? So it's just all these different things that could be happening. So, you know, I had to remind myself that too. You keep that in mind. Sometimes when a student is upset, you can't take it personally. I remember I had a student um like last year, he kind of just walked out. And I was like, I've been mentoring you for this amount of years, had this relationship, and kind of found out you had definitely family, he had to cover those costs for all of the things that happened. And so you really just never know. Like, I don't know what could be going on with him. He hadn't shared, but it was just something he hadn't shared yet, and he eventually did share it. But it's just, you know, then you add on. I felt like if that would have happened outside of the NIL era, okay, that still would have affected him, right? But then it's like, we're gonna look at you, you can pay for funeral costs, all of that. You can pay for everything. But since you the breadwinner, we're gonna look at you. You got all this money, and so it's putting an extra layer of responsibility on top of, you know, everything else going on. So but just you know, answering your question again is just taking it like day by day, ref reflecting more, like, you know, thinking about like you know, what they it's so much going on in the world right now, you really just like can't take things personally, just kind of give them grace, give yourself grace and give them grace as well.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

I I hear exactly what you're saying. So many layers to what these student athletes are going through these days. Many people think, well, they're getting a bunch of money, how can they have any problems? Well, many of us understand that because you get more money doesn't mean the problems maybe. Exactly. There you go. Hey, Raymond, Raymond, Raymond, let me just interject on that part right there on the money part.

SPEAKER_02 39:54

Um, I was talking to a financial educator and planner and someone who works in the industry with a lot of these college athletes. And we were talking about someone who was making, let's say,$250,000, right? I mean, like, on paper, that that's some money. That that's real money.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

I mean, he was like, yeah, he's like, first you got the taxes, you know, now now that number is like$115,000. So so so even these families, Raymond and Yolanda, like, they, they, they, they see this deal get done and they see a dollar figure, yeah, and they're not even thinking about the tax part of it. They spending whatever's money in their mind and don't even realize that, like, you in a tax bracket where that's getting chopped. It's not even that, it's not even that kind of money. Now, there are people who are really making in the seven seven figures, yeah, yeah. And and and that's a different issue, right? But I'm just saying, like, the complexity of these dynamics. That's just a layer of it that I've come, you know, become aware of more recently.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Yeah, and I think that's a good segue to what I really wanted to say because of the complexity and the heaviness of everything that was just described. Yelana, you have you have a you have a skill set. There's something about your person that allows you to connect, to have patience, to listen, to have empathy, and to truly understand. What you just gave us was great emotional intelligence in that I I don't want to react to what I see. I want to I want to take a moment, I want to pause, I want to be able to respond so that you started with this question Do you need help? That's the fundamental question that I heard you ask. And that's the way I see that you continue to operate in this space. So, Yolanda, as an educator, as a teacher, as a mentor, as a mental health advocate, how do you describe your mission?

SPEAKER_00 41:52

I would say, I mean, my my mission again is to pour into the holistic development student, but just helping them become a better person and to evolve into who they want to be. And through that, you know, it's through academics, but it's also through being a mentor, just being there to talk with them as well as helping them with their academic work, um, and then also, you know, talking with them about mental health and their importance. And so helping them recognize that they have uh multiple identities, right? And so they're more than just an athlete and some in a nutshell that is just pouring is to students um in a holistic way, and so they can be better versions of themselves.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

And in these challenging times, how do you stay driven towards that?

SPEAKER_00 42:32

I guess, you know, self-talk or reminding myself of what I've been through, where I'm going helps a lot. But sometimes you just get so caught up in the day-to-day and like of just trying to help these students and getting and reaching these goals that you have to reflect on like what are the the stuff that you've done before that helps you continue to reflecting on well, I've done this, I've done this. Um again, my students also pour into me as well. And that helps, and uh, and I want to touch on that. I have been through a lot in life. I have been through a lot in life. Okay, I know a lot of people have this year, in particular, not this year, but I lost three family members at one time. I've never I'm 31, but I've just never been through anything like that before in my life. It was so difficult to navigate through. And there's other times where I've just been through some real difficult things, and I go to work and I see them keep and we talking and we laughing. I mean, it's it's healing. It's healing. Even in and I've I don't usually share this either, but even um even in my years of middle school and high school, I was a cheerleader. I cheered for football and basketball, and I loved what I do, and I was I've always been around sports. I never really played them, but I went through, you know, in our culture, we clown and stuff sometimes in African American culture, but I went through a lot of bullying and that bullying was from a lot of young black men.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

And come on. This let me tell you about God because the feeling that I have got from this seven year journey, right? Oh my God. It's just like all of that broken and torn. I mean, they're they're pouring back into me in ways that they have no idea, right? And I sort of say I pouring them, but they're pouring at me. It's like a full circle moment. You could not, if I when I was 18 and I went through all that bullying and I was ready to go out to college and never look back, you could not convince me that I would be going into this type of field. Like absolutely not. No, I don't want to go be around young men because those are the ones who were bullying and would talk so much junk and you know and it was like nobody was really helping me. Nobody could nobody seen me. I felt I didn't have anyone unfortunately during that time that knew what I was going through. I was channeling all that energy and emotion and it and you know again that's part of like part of my mental health disorder that I have today because I have other stuff I went through in my life but a full full circle moment. And but thank God that you know I'm educated when it comes to mental health I took a mental health counseling class at University of Miami in my uh master's degree program. That's what got me really into mental health was taking that class because I didn't really understand it. And I got a therapist right after that class I was 25 years old at the time. But getting educated understanding the importance understanding that just because you're going through something right now it's right don't make a permanent decision for something that you're going through right now. Right. Every time I'm in a having a depression episode I know that it's temporary. My mama always used to say that quote up from the Bible trouble don't last always and so that's what helps me get through those dark moments. I prayed I I did strategies just whatever I needed to do to get through from a spiritual standpoint from a practical standpoint and I came back here sometimes. And that's what's been helping me you know they are my light. They are my light and you know I've been working and this is what God wanted me to do. I've been out of state without family. Yeah they make me smile they make my day and it's it's not perfect. We got challenges sometimes we bump heads sometimes you know I'm tired I come from work and I just need a break from them or just work in general but um majority of the time they are pouring into me as well and I just love the healing journey that I've been on um as these young black men are are pouring into me and I'm also pouring into them. So they just have no idea the impact they have made on me.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

They are very blessed to have you in their lives and thank you so much for taking us on this personal journey and I know that's healing. For you to share that the way that you have I know how powerful that is so thank you for doing that. Thank you for joining us told me some things on the front end about why he was chasing you. He saw you on that panel he knew something and so I'm glad I'm glad that you were in that space so that he could hear you because one of the first people he's been talking about since we've started this journey we've got to get this woman Yolanda Black on here.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

I didn't understand it but now I know thank you thank you for being with us i'm I'm gonna say this and and the audience wouldn't know this but we had a bunch of little drama at the beginning of this just trying to get everything started we knew that that we knew that the creator was going to deliver and some would say the universe some would say other things we say God this is a God moment. Yolanda it was it was so deep on my spirit from the moment I saw you on that panel to have you as a part of this because we knew we were doing this. The crazy thing is you know I said there were two questions that I have for you you answered the other one you said that they pour that that as you pour into them they pour into you I was going to ask you to elaborate and you did so passionately.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

We thank you for taking the chance and being transparent and real because what we found is we just try to create a space where we are that way and others can be and uh we love you lady thank y'all for having me I felt like I was poured into as well from y'all so thank you all it it feels good to stop and reflect and think I've really been on this seven year journey you know reflection and gratitude that's what's gonna keep you going you know as well so I appreciate you all for having me