Editor’s Note: This story is the first of our new series, “Helping Hands”, which aims to spotlight Johnson Countians doing some good in the background of their community.
As a former student athlete and a current parent to three children, Terry Loudermill is familiar with the pressure that students and student athletes in Olathe face.
Many student athletes have hopes of going to college and taking their love for sports with them, continuing at the collegiate level. But that goal comes with academic and professional barriers, Loudermill said, and it can be difficult for many students of color to access the resources they need to meet that criteria.
“When universities or different coaches come to watch these kids, a lot of times they ask, ‘What’s their GPA? What’s their classroom attendance like?’” he said. “A lot of us have been in this area long enough that we’ve seen the disparity with kids of color, particularly with males of color. Growing up in the community, we’ve seen it throughout the years.”
So Loudermill set out to help bridge that gap. That effort became a group called TEAM Mentor Olathe — the first part of which stands for “Teach, Educate, Achieve, and Mentor”.
TEAM got its start six years ago
Loudermill worked with Olathe teachers, coaches and business leaders to get the group off the ground in 2019.
Today, TEAM meets twice a month with middle school and high school students. Loudermill and his co-mentors work to give them insight into their futures and connect them to academic and professional resources.
Sometimes that means things like conducting mock interviews for students who might be getting their first jobs or going through college interviews soon. Other times, Loudermill said, it’s about educating students about other options — such as joining the military or trade fields.
“We have put together a kind of roadmap from freshman year through high school, for what classes they should be taking, and how they can be an advocate for themselves,” he said. “The majority of the kids are very receptive, because they don’t know what they don’t know. They might be the first generation that has had an opportunity to go to that next level.”
Right now, Loudermill mainly works with high school students — though he said the group aims to expand their reach to middle school students as well.
It’s easy for Loudermill to put himself in the shoes of student athletes, he said, because once upon a time, he was one.
As a former football and baseball player in high school, he said he came to appreciate the guideline it gave him — and the coaches who influenced him to look out for his future the same way he’s trying to do for other students now.
Particularly with students who don’t have the support of both parents, he said, it helps to have an outside voice to listen to.
“Most of us have had that coach, that parent, or that teacher that has helped us overcome a lot of challenges,” Loudermill said. “(My experience) helped me to help these young men, because they are going through the same thing.”
Looking to the future
Eventually, Loudermill said, he hopes older students can mentor their younger counterparts in the same way.
On a wider scale, some coaches and teachers in neighboring school districts have expressed interest in creating their own programs similar to TEAM — something Loudermill said he and his co-mentors might be able to help with.
Since TEAM got its start in 2019, Loudermill said, he and fellow TEAM mentors who work within Olathe schools have had the chance to watch many of the students they’ve mentored find their footing. In the end, he said, that’s a hugely rewarding part of the work he does.
“It’s like a parent watching your kid grow up,” he said. “We’ve seen them through the good and the difficult, and some of the challenges, and now they are successful.”
Know someone who deserves a spotlight for lending a hand? Reach out to us at stories@johnsoncountypost.com.
