All-4-One’s “I Swear” was the #1 song in the land. The Cowboy Way starring Keifer Sutherland and Woody Harrelson ruled at the box office. O.J. Simpson was still a good guy (for another whole week). Bill Clinton was the President of the United States, and Kevin Ward was just some guy in the school’s band. I was in the summer before my senior year and had one thing on my mind, training for football to get a scholarship.
To start things off, however, I was off to what I figured was “just another” leadership camp. My father was against it, worried that I’d be off my training and, Heaven forbid, lose weight (oh, those were the days). He was outvoted, however, by essentially the entire faculty of my school, who insisted this Camp RYLA was a great experience, and more importantly by Lori Strieff, one of the hottest girls in the school and a cheerleader to boot. She said I had to go, so naturally I had to go.
So, for once in my life, thank the Lord for teenage hormones. My week at Camp RYLA changed my life, and I do not say that lightly. The lessons I learned that summer in ’94 and have continued to learn almost every summer since have carried me through the toughest leadership challenges in my life. I have since graduated from West Point, taken a platoon of soldiers to fight forest fires in Montana, reorganized the entire 1st Cavalry Division Artillery for a deployment to Iraq, spent a year in Korea within artillery range of the North, run multi-service/multi-national military simulations, and most importantly fathered three kids.
In my toughest moments, whether at the top of a cliff trying to meet transportation at the bottom of the cliff without any rope, mentoring young soldiers to become sergeants, counseling a young soldier who was contemplating suicide, or helping my children through all the travails of growing up, I have consistently leaned on the things I learned at Camp RYLA to see me through. And in the toughest moments of my life, I have always known that I had a huge family in RYLA to fall back on that believed in me and what I could accomplish.
I keep returning every year to give back to the program, and every year I end up getting more out of it. At this pace, I will probably never pay off y debt, so you are stuck with me. And if I have any advice to give to you, this year’s group of campers, it would be to dive in whole heartedly to Camp. If you want to get from it, what I and so many others have, leave your “Breakfast Club” classifications behind and bring your true self. In short, when we pass the Kool-Aid, drink deep. You won’t regret it.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | RYLA 2009, Steve
