By Maiya Tomlin
Bright and early on August 9th, the SDLC (Student Diversity Leadership Council) met in the Scout Hut for our beginning-of-year retreat. When I asked SDLC president, Sidney Wynn (11), what we could possibly be doing for 6 hours, he told me he had recently learned a few leadership games and activities for us to do.
As someone who spent her summer watching the newest season of The Summer I Turned Pretty on Amazon Prime and not exactly practicing leadership, I had to ask Sidney where he learned such skills.
“I’m a part of a golf youth development program called The First Tee,” Sidney told me. “It’s a partnership with the PGA Tour Superstore [which is] in charge of golf equipment, and they hosted 20 kids,” he added. They stayed in cabins in the mountains of Montana, but they came from all over the country.
“I was the only one who was from Georgia,” he noted.
Sidney and I both share a passionate love for New York City, so of course, I asked him, “Any kids from New York?” to which he sighed and responded, “No. I thought there was, but there weren’t any. I was so sad.” He had to make do with kids from “Florida to California, from Ohio to Philly.”
When Sidney first explained the leadership summit to me, I thought the pairing of leadership and golf was slightly random. I asked him how much golf he ended up playing. “We played golf once,” he said, to which I responded, “Really?” One might think that a program called “The First Tee” would involve more golf.
Instead of playing golf, they went whitewater rafting, navigated a challenge course, and did archery. “Well, I didn’t do archery,” he said, “but I rode a horse!”
He seemed enchanted by this creature, which was white, “so it looked just like the Beyoncé Cowboy Carter horse.” He demanded I put that in the article. (If it wasn’t obvious, I obeyed his wishes.)
Leadership activities were woven throughout the experience. One activity he brought to the SDLC retreat was “the stick game.” Essentially, the “stick game” is splitting into two groups, putting a yard stick on top of the tips of everyone’s fingers, and attempting to lower it to the floor without anybody’s fingers leaving the stick. (It’s way harder than it sounds, by the way.)
My group was making our fourth failed attempt when Sidney walked over and said, “Notice how all of you guys are talking over each other.” Needless to say, it was humbling to hear. We listened to his advice, and each other, and our group won!
Looking ahead, I wondered how he was feeling about enduring the tragically difficult workload of junior year. “I feel good,” he said. “I was kind of sad, though, because I was leaving the best place ever to come back here.”
Yes, the Lovett School is not exactly the Rocky Mountains, however, maybe we could get a “Cowboy Carter” horse to roam the halls just for Sidney. Or, at the very least, find him an image of one for his laptop wallpaper.
