Catching up with… C.J. Stewart

With his wife and L.E.A.D. co-founder Kelli, Stewart uses sports to educate and empower young men and women by providing programs in athletics, academics, civic engagement and commerce.

Photo credit: Daemon Baizan

You’ve worked with students for almost two decades now, as a coach and a mentor. How have students changed?

Kids today want to be entertained before they are educated. Everything is about entertainment and stimulation for them, and we refuse. This is about education. This is about learning what needs to be learned, to do what needs to be done. We’re gonna convict you so you can understand what you need to be doing with your life. And then we’re gonna have these experiences and information [to create] knowledge. Thinking is tough, which is why a lot of people don’t do it. It takes a lot to be able to think. In 2007, you could ask a question, and [students] would give you a response without it needing to be right or wrong. Now, kids will look at you like you’re crazy because they don’t want to be wrong. I’m just asking your opinion!

L.E.A.D. started out assisting young men, but in 2023, you started a tennis program for young women. How are their needs different?

Our oldest daughter, Mackenzie, graduated from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, No. 2 in her class, with honors, with a degree in political science. She came back to Atlanta and did a fifth year at Georgia State University’s Continuing Education in Nonprofit Studies. She also played another year of tennis. Then she told us she wanted to start L.E.A.D. with girls using tennis. At that point, Mackenzie was instrumental in helping us get bipartisan financial support, $400,000, from [U.S.] Sen. [Jon] Ossoff to start the Lady Ambassador program and, in short order, got significant funding from the USTA Foundation. Black women have to deal with so many issues with regard to racism and gender. Tennis is a sport that has allowed Black women to develop the grit and resilience to be assertive and to know how to compete, rather than being the ones to keep the peace.

One of your pillars is civic engagement, something you and Kelli model for your students, called “Ambassadors.” You have been a member of Leadership Atlanta (2015) and Leadership Georgia (2023). How did the Leadership Georgia experience alter your perspective?

I’ll start by saying that knowledge is information plus experience, and the application of knowledge is power. I was very proud to receive an award that they essentially created for me called the “Networking Ninja.” When I received the award, they asked the audience to “raise your hand if C.J. has already visited your community.” There were about eight hands raised. That’s because I don’t know what I don’t know, and as a leader, I can’t afford to be ignorant. I visited Chattooga County with the then-sole commissioner, Blake Elsberry. He’s a white man and a Republican, and I vote Democrat. I went up there, toured around, and don’t recall seeing any African American people. But we went to the Menlo Restaurant, had an amazing bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, and sat there among the people. A couple of weeks later, I came back with three of our Ambassadors, three Black teenage boys. We went to their church, worshipped with them and then had dinner. So, now I have experienced it, and that, plus the information, is knowledge, and that is power. So, I feel like I have achieved a lot of success, but if you don’t scale your success to a level of significance, what good is it? Going to these different places allows me to be even more successful and to share it.

L.E.A.D. helps develop young Black baseball players. You coached MLB players Jason Heyward and Dexter Fowler. How optimistic are you that we will see greater representation of Black baseball talent in MLB?

Major League Baseball is doing programmatic things to improve [Black representation] and has been doing it for the past five years, and they have 0.2% increase [year over year in the number of Blacks on Opening Day rosters in 2025]. As long as the leadership of MLB is not representative of African American men, we’re not optimistic that there will be more African American men on the field.