01/17/2020
I have known Tony Majors for years, and know him to be an honest, honorable man. Any suggestion to the contrary is grossly misplaced.
Impugning the character of someone whose personal life and professional career have been in the service of the youth of Nashville is out of line.
Tony's focus over the last three years has been to resuscitate a program that reaches out to the most neglected segment of our population that has been ignored in all this "It City" madness. While we're buying land and building new hockey facilities, the at-risk youth population (black and brown kids, as well as lower income white kids) have only seen their opportunities reduced. Tony has been leading the charge, through the RBI program, to try and make a difference for these kids.
This program uses sports as a the conduit, but the foundation is social and academic opportunity, and trying to create better choices for a population that is being "gentrified" out of opportunities. We're fighting that, and stories like this not only challenge the character of good guys like Tony, but also make these fights that much harder.
This initiative has no personal benefit attached. This is a fight for a population that increasingly seems to be intentionally left behind. As our city "leaders" continue to always do more for the "haves" and less for the "have nots," creating controversies where there are no nefarious intentions only hurts our efforts, and unfortunately this story paints that inaccurate picture.
Rather than castigating someone who's in a position to bring together the resources with those who need them, we should congratulate. This is a perfect marriage, not a conflict of interest.
Lastly, $20,000 doesn't go very far these days in youth sports, so suggesting that as some kind of windfall is laughable. One team playing tournaments for a Spring/Summer season can easily spend more than $20,000. Tournament fees, umpire fees, field rental, equipment, uniforms - the list goes on - add up very quickly and require a lot of financial support. For a whole program, with multiple teams, $20,000 is basically seed money.
NewsChannel 5 Nashville has done some excellent investigative reporting over the years, unfortunately this one misses the mark.
A controversial land deal between Metro Nashville Public Schools and Belmont University will reportedly be changed after NewsChannel 5 Investigates raised questions about why one particular youth program run by a high ranking MNPS administrator would benefit from the deal
