145: Chase Coffman, former NFL tight end, on CONCENTRATION

Matt Dimmick served as the Director for Russia and Eastern Europe on the National Security Council Staff. He previously served as the Russia Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Through that he consulted a president on Russian affairs. He also held the positions of Senior Defense Official and Defense Attaché in Tbilisi, Georgia, Deputy Foreign Policy Advisor for the Chief of Staff of the Army, and Assistant Army Attaché in Moscow.

A veteran of the US Army, Matt served as an infantry officer and foreign area officer for 29 years with overseas assignments in Saudi Arabia, Germany, Bosnia, Kosovo, Russia, Iraq, and Georgia. Matt is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, holds a Master of Arts degree in National Strategy from the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, and a Master of Arts degree in Russian and Eastern European Studies from the University of Kansas.

He retired from the Army and joined the nonprofit Spirit of America in 2022 as a regional program manager.

 
LINKS:

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

To make a financial gift to give students life-changing one-on-one mentoring and to help families in crisis, visit our secure donation page.

For all episodes of the C-10 podcast and ways you can listen, click here.

If you’d like to make a comment, have a suggestion for a future guest, or your company would like to help underwrite this podcast, please visit our contact page.

On this episode of the C-10 Podcast, we're chatting with Ryana Parks-Shaw, the Mayor Pro Tem in Kansas City, Mo. She began serving her first term as council woman in the 5th District in August 2019. She has lived in the 5th district with her family for more than 22 years.

Mayor Quinton Lucas appointed Ryana Mayor Pro Tem of Kansas City in August 2023. She also serves as the Chair of the Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee, Chair of the Land Bank Commission, Vice Chair of the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Commission, and Co-Chair of the Health Commission. She previously served as the Chair of the Mayor’s Houseless Task Force. She is also a member of the Kansas City Zoo Board of Directors and the Starlight Board of Directors.

Mrs. Parks-Shaw is a long-time healthcare executive. She has a Bachelor of Science degree from Missouri State University and a Master of Science degree from Southwest Baptist University. She is an alum of Ruskin High School in the Hickman Mills School District. She has a deep passion — a COMMITMENT — for community service and improving the quality of life for Kansas City residents.

LINKS:

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

To make a financial gift to give students life-changing one-on-one mentoring and to help families in crisis, visit our secure donation page.

For all episodes of the C-10 podcast and ways you can listen, click here.

If you’d like to make a comment, have a suggestion for a future guest, or your company would like to help underwrite this podcast, please visit our contact page.

Episode 145 of the C-10 Podcast is a fun chat with Chase Coffman, who grew up in the Kansas City area, before becoming an All-American tight end at the University of Missouri, and then a journeyman career in the NFL. 

Chase, whose dad starred at Kansas State before a career in the NFL with Green Bay and Kansas City, chats in this conversation about his football career, how faith played a role in his decisions, what he would've done had football not panned out originally, and MUCH more.

This interview was recorded in front of our students and mentors at Music Theater Heritage inside Crown Center in December 2023.

LINKS:

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

To make a financial gift to give students life-changing one-on-one mentoring and to help families in crisis, visit our secure donation page.

For all episodes of the C-10 podcast and ways you can listen, click here.

If you’d like to make a comment, have a suggestion for a future guest, or your company would like to help underwrite this podcast, please visit our contact page.

Episode 144 of the C-10 Podcast is a fun chat with Karli Ritter, who's been a meteorologist with Fox4 in Kansas City since March 2007. She’s currently on the morning broadcasts.

Karli got her start as a student at Florida State University and worked in Sarasota, Florida, and Montgomery, Alabama before moving to Kansas City.

She enjoys traveling, cooking, yoga, spending time on a boat and playing or watching any sport. And she’s involved with several nonprofit organizations here in Kansas City…including being a celeb at C You In The Major Leagues' C You At Topgolf event for two years.

This interview was recorded in front of our students and mentors at Music Theater Heritage inside Crown Center in November 2023.

LINKS:

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

To make a financial gift to give students life-changing one-on-one mentoring and to help families in crisis, visit our secure donation page.

For all episodes of the C-10 podcast and ways you can listen, click here.

If you’d like to make a comment, have a suggestion for a future guest, or your company would like to help underwrite this podcast, please visit our contact page.

This is Episode 143 of the podcast, and we're chatting with Dayton Moore, C You In The Major Leagues' Founder and Board President. 

Dayton talks about Christmas memories and movies, some "Hot Stove" talk, the Texas Rangers' World Series victory, and so much more.

LINKS:

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

To make a year-end financial gift -- that'll be DOUBLED -- to give students life-changing one-on-one mentoring, visit our secure donation page.

For all episodes of the C-10 podcast and ways you can listen, click here.

If you’d like to make a comment, have a suggestion for a future guest, or your company would like to help underwrite this podcast, please visit our contact page.

This is Episode 142 of the podcast, and we're chatting with a great storyteller and filmmaker, who happened to start a conference to help folks in the nonprofit world get better at their jobs.

In short, Chris Davenport is a storyteller by heart. He’s had a career in Hollywood and doing documentaries, but he’s making his biggest impact working with nonprofits — working with organizations on videos of need and impact, and with a concept about 10 years or so ago for a conference to help nonprofits called the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference.

As you'll hear, Chris' background is in films and Hollywood. He'll share some wonderful stories (and lessons) from a couple of films, how the death of his brother changed his outlook on work, and the importance of storytelling for businesses and leaders with any type of organization. And much more.

LINKS:

To learn about the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference, click here.

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

To make a year-end financial gift -- that'll be DOUBLED -- to give students life-changing one-on-one mentoring, visit our secure donation page.

For all episodes of the C-10 podcast and ways you can listen, click here.

If you’d like to make a comment, have a suggestion for a future guest, or your company would like to help underwrite this podcast, please visit our contact page.

This is episode 141 of the C-10 Podcast and as we do occasionally, we're turning over the hosting to Al Wallace, a longtime sportscaster here in Kansas City — and now one of the mentors in the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program. This week, Al interviews Max Utsler, who taught journalism at both the University of Missouri and the University of Kansas, and was instrumental in helping to develop the C-10 program.

If you’ve listened to many of the previous 140 episodes, you’ve heard Max a time or two. We even did an interview with Max during the early days of this podcast, episode 16 to be exact, in August of 2020. But this week you’ll hear a little different side of Max as he’s interviewed by one of his longtime friends, Al Wallace.

A little about Max, though.

In 2020, Utsler received broadcast journalism education’s highest honor, the Edward L. Bliss Award. Before retiring, he was also recognized at KU as the top mentor among his peers.

Prior to joining the faculty at KU, Utsler served as assistant news director at KOMU-TV (NBC) and Associate Professor for the School of Journalism at Missouri. He joined the KU faculty in 1984 and served in both teaching and administrative positions. After serving as assistant news director at KSDK-TV (NBC) in St. Louis, he was a reporter, producer, and freelance writer with major media outlets like MLB.com, MLB-TV, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, Fox Sports, and ESPN. He spent half a year at KPNX-TV covering sports in Phoenix, Arizona.

Utsler, who's from a farm community in central Illinois, graduated from Knox College before starting his career as a junior high English teacher in Minnesota.

This interview with Max and Al Wallace was recorded in front of the C-10 students and mentors in November.

LINKS:

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

To make a financial gift to give students life-changing one-on-one mentoring, visit our secure donation page.

For all episodes of the C-10 podcast and ways you can listen, click here.

If you’d like to make a comment, have a suggestion for a future guest, or your company would like to help underwrite this podcast, please visit our contact page.

This week we’re chatting with one of the Blue KC Coaches with Character honorees from this season, Klee Nelson.

What is the Blue KC Coaches with Character program? Well, since 2017 we’ve had a program in partnership with Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Kansas City and the Kansas City Royals called Coaches with Character. Each year we recognize six coaches who are making Kansas City a better place.

This year we are featuring the coaches on this podcast because who knows better about leadership, building teams, team chemistry and so on than successful high school coaches?

Klee Nelson, the football coach of the Kansas City East Lions, was this season’s first honoree back in April.

Klee Nelson has been coaching at KC East, a homeschool organization in the Kansas City community, since 2015 and never takes a single day of his job for granted. His passion for coaching makes him a key asset in helping student-athletes engage in fun, happy and healthy competition outside of their homeschooled environments.

Through coaching, Nelson is able to give homeschooled kids an opportunity to play sports that they never thought they could. He says that it is his honor and privilege to be able to serve homeschool and small private-school communities when they feel they do not have any other options. He is providing opportunities that he never had as a child, and he knows how fulfilling it is to the players who he and the rest of the staff coach and mentor.

LINKS:

Here's the article about Klee Nelson as the April Blue KC Coaches with Character honoree.

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

To make a financial gift to give students life-changing one-on-one mentoring, visit our secure donation page.

For all episodes of the C-10 podcast and ways you can listen, click here.

If you’d like to make a comment, have a suggestion for a future guest, or your company would like to help underwrite this podcast, please visit our contact page.

This week we're chatting with Reggie Morris, the boy's basketball coach at Raytown South High School, and one of this year's Blue KC Coaches with Character honorees. 

What is the Blue KC Coaches with Character program? Since 2017, CYITML has partnered with Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Kansas City and the Kansas City Royals for a program called Coaches with Character. Each year we recognize six coaches who are making Kansas City a better place.

This year we are featuring the coaches on this podcast, because, who knows better about leadership, building teams, team chemistry and so on than successful high school coaches?

Reggie Morris, the boys’ basketball coach at Raytown South High School, was our second Coaches with Character recipient this year, back in May.

Morris is starting his third year at Raytown South after a successful stint as the coach at Grandview High School, where his teams won back-to-back titles in 2018 and 2019. Morris’ resume includes being selected as KC Metro Basketball Coach of the Year twice, the Conference Coach of the Year award winner three times, from 2017-2019, and the District Coach of the Year for four consecutive years from 2017-2020.

Ultimately, though, Morris is about what happens away from basketball for the young men he coaches. Culture is huge for Morris. And his goal, like it is with our C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program, is to prepare his players, as well as other students with whom he comes in contact at Raytown South, for their next stage in life.

Morris talks about all of that, defines COMPASSION, takes a swing at Pregame Batting Practice, and much more.

LINKS:

Here's the article about Reggie Morris as the May Blue KC Coaches with Character honoree.

Here's a link to the Blue KC documentary, Not Good Enough, that Reggie and Matt reference. 

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

To make a financial gift to give students life-changing one-on-one mentoring, visit our secure donation page.

For all episodes of the C-10 podcast and ways you can listen, click here.

If you’d like to make a comment, have a suggestion for a future guest, or your company would like to help underwrite this podcast, please visit our contact page.

This week we're chatting with Butch Rigby, a Kansas City developer — or restorer, might be a better term — entrepreneur, lawyer and founder of Thank You, Walt Disney.

Rigby has developed real estate in and around the Kansas City area for more than 30 years, starting when he was a full time student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies, and a Juris Doctor from the UMKC School of Law.

Right after school, he headed to Hollywood to work in movies. A few years later, Butch returned to Kansas City with some great stories.

He founded the Screenland Movie Theatre Circuit, and as a part of that venture, he restored the Historic Granada Movie Theatre Building in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. He then renovated the historic Armour Theatre Building in North Kansas City, Mo. He placed the two buildings on the National Historic Register.

In the 1990s he formed Thank You Walt Disney Inc., and as Chairman of that organization, he and a group of volunteers purchased Walt Disney’s first cartoon studio, the Laugh-O-Gram building near 31st and Troost and took the building off of the city’s condemned building list, restored its structural integrity and have prepared it for re-use as an interactive historic site.

Butch will talk about those things and much more, including taking a swing at some "Pregame Batting Practice."

LINKS:

To learn more about Thank You, Walt Disney, please visit their site.

For more information about the C-10 Mentoring & Leadership program for high school students, visit our website.

To make a financial gift to give students life-changing one-on-one mentoring, visit our secure donation page.

For all episodes of the C-10 podcast and ways you can listen, click here.

If you’d like to make a comment, have a suggestion for a future guest, or your company would like to help underwrite this podcast, please visit our contact page.