Five miles. It is not that far. Even on city streets you could cover the distance in less time than it takes to get to half a bucket of balls.
Five miles is the distance between The First Tee of Twin Cities and the corner where George Floyd was killed by ex Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin. The first Twin Cities Tee is one of more than 1,000 structures established since 1997 to encourage the development of young people’s life skills through golf. It has always been a question of teaching young people that the challenges of golf and its environment are a practical metaphor for navigating through all that reality will put before you.
In 2020, life is putting us a lot ahead, particularly five miles from The First Tee of Twin Cities.
The summer program, based at St. Paul’s Highland National Golf Course, was almost canceled by the restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic, but Franco Zerna, the program director in his 15th year, was thrilled to see courses and clinics filling up so quickly when the was all clear. About 2,000 children are part of The First Tee of Twin Cities in Minneapolis and St. Paul each year and Franco also trains the local highland park high school golf team, where 90 percent of the players are former First Tee participants.
“We are basically the last bastion of hope for parents to provide an outlet for children,” said Zerna. “These are children where golf should be the last thing they think about. Many times they are just trying to find a safe place, and here we are giving them this outlet, and it is amazing how they love it. I think it is because they know that the effort they will make will pay off directly. If they do, they know that’s what will get the ball going.
“It’s rewarding and we need it these days. We need it so much more than ever. “
With the development of The First Tee, Joe Louis Barrow, executive director from 1999-2017, has helped to promote the so-called “Nine Core Values”: honesty, integrity, sportiness, respect, trust, responsibility, perseverance, courtesy and judgment. Now retired, he looks at the challenges of the moment and wonders what the world would be like if there were more First Tee participants making decisions. “We would be in a different place, certainly a better place,” he said. “I think one of the things The First Tee is trying to educate is that the decisions we make aren’t just about me, they’re all about us, they’re not about me.”
If you look closely at The First Tee, you realize very quickly that it’s not about training the next big golfers. But if you watch a first session of Tee with kids and hula hoops and shouts and laughs and games that often seem more adjacent to golf than intense in skills, you also realize very quickly that for a program based on a solitary activity, the experience here is municipal. Of course, it’s also easy enough to suggest that what you see is a false reality. Like your rearview mirror, five miles from The First Tee of Twin Cities it’s closer than it looks. Yet while those critics on the outside might label The First Tee as the well-orchestrated excuse of golf for decades of exclusion, in its nearly quarter century of existence, The First Tee today comes much closer to the projection of golf’s better self.
“We teach The First Tee the importance of diversity and inclusion,” said Barrow. “That you can learn from different people rather than just in your silo and only in your comfort zone.”
Natalie Braga, a senior at Highland Park, has been with The First Tee of Twin Cities since she was 4 years old. A Chinese-American is now working with First Tee children as a coach this summer. A month ago, he participated in the protest marches after George Floyd’s death.
“I think when I went to the protests it was more of an emotional transformation, and I devoted myself more to learning more of the story and thinking about what I can do with my life to prevent days like this from happening in the future,” she said. . He did not speak directly to the children about Floyd’s death and systemic racism and what happens when those Nine core values come face to face with fear and hatred. But he also wonders if he should do it. Sometimes in The First Tee, the teacher becomes the student.
“I think their perspective on this is very interesting because they are in their infancy and growing around it,” he said. “I’m sure they are aware of what’s going on, but when you’re with these kids, you see that racism isn’t natural, it’s not in them. These kids just want to have fun. And it’s really fun to see them not to worry about the breed. “
It is certainly simplistic or perhaps even insensitive to suggest that golf could play some sort of fundamental role in the way the national conversation on systemic racism proceeds. Throughout its history, golf has exuded racist practices, sometimes subtle, sometimes decidedly not. Even in the Twin Cities, while black golfers had been a fixture on the city’s municipal courses since they opened in 1916, they weren’t allowed in those clubhouses well after World War II, not even to drink a glass of water. The St. Paul Open has repeatedly denied entry to major black golfers such as Ted Rhodes and Solomon Hughes until 1952.
The first Tee nationwide worked to change not only that attitude but its practical effects. According to Greg McLaughlin, CEO of The First Tee Foundation and World Golf Foundation, 52 percent of participants in First Tee programs are non-Caucasian. This almost triples the participation rate of minorities among all golfers, as calculated by the National Golf Foundation. He said that George Floyd’s tragedy and the way in which the breed became a central problem for the country have not been lost on how The First Tee thinks about his mission in the future.
“We believe The First Tee is one of the most diverse youth organizations in the United States,” he said. “We believe we have left a huge footprint in under-served and under-respected communities. I think we have a great opportunity, but I also feel that we have a huge foothold right now to expand the work we are doing. No. 1 we know this is a marathon, not a sprint. We have to be very intentional in reaching these communities. And of course this also requires resources. “
Zerna, who is Filipino, knows that perception has been an obstacle to participation as much as to funding The First Tee as a non-profit operation. But he also knows that the ultimate nature of the game, its natural fundamental values, are universal. The golf ball and the golf course do not discriminate.
“For me too, in the midst of the coronavirus and then the protests, golf was an escape for me,” he said. “Just the simple act of staring at a ball sign makes you feel better, more in control of things than you do outside of the golf course. I just wish that what golfers did on the golf course we could bring to the world. It would be a utopia, it would be great. This is why we have smoothed out the bunkers so that the next one doesn’t end up in your footprint. And that’s exactly what we’re teaching children. Take it out to your life. “
On the outside it suddenly seems very far, more than five miles away, especially when no one seems to be polishing the footprints of the bunkers out there. Zerna says she doesn’t want to become a politician, but she knows what’s going on around the children in her camps and clinics, what they have to think and feel. “There are too many people who hurt,” he said. “You can feel the tension in the air.
“We don’t want to polarize, but it’s just human dignity, friend. Respect. That’s what it means to be human. We must make sure we are a refuge for them and that we will leave them with the tools in which they will say that I have what I need to navigate through this. But we can’t be too heavy. “
And then Zerna talks about the lessons of The First Tee to stay calm on the golf course in the middle of a bad time. It’s called Four Rs: Replay, Relax, Ready, Re-do. He knows even if at that moment there had been that kind of balance of men who should have protected him, George Floyd could be alive.
“That’s when it becomes really difficult to talk,” said Zerna. “Sometimes there are things you can’t control. It’s like in golf, you can’t control the wind. Well, you can’t control other people too. You can only control how you approach things and what you do. But, man, it is sometimes excruciating.
“But with golf sometimes the frustrating part is what makes it so rewarding.”
Five miles. Isn’t it that far, or is it? Probably 15 minutes by car from the corner of East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, where what was once just a Cup Foods convenience store is now a powerful claim to what Black Lives Matter is. But if you’re walking, five miles is about how far you went when you hit 18th green after starting the first T.
“Children need these core values now more than ever, trust, honesty and respect,” said Zerna. “These are great things. This is what golf teaches these kids. I don’t want to sound too trivial, but it improves life. Really.
“In these times, in particular, perhaps what these guys are showing us is that there is hope.”
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