In 2013, Nate LeJeune moved his family to New Orleans in pursuit of a sacred calling: to work with young people in a youth development setting, most likely a church program. He had no idea that this calling would lead him to Up2Us Sports, first as a coach, then as a member of the New Orleans programs team, and now as the National Director of Training. Eight years after Nate attended his first training and “fell head-over-heels in love with the organization, the mission of the organization, and the training,” he continues to find inspiration in sharing Up2Us Sports’ innovative coaching curriculum. Bringing together lessons learned both as a Trainer and as a pastor in a grassroots spiritual community, Nate is passionate about empowering others with the tools to become leaders within their own communities.
Long before moving to New Orleans and finding his way to Up2Us Sports, Nate had entered the world of sports-based youth development—although this term had not yet entered the public lexicon. As a deeply spiritual person, he and his family were members of a church, but Nate felt it was not enough to merely attend services faithfully. “I needed to do something to get into action… I did the one thing I know how to do, and that’s sports. [The church] didn’t have anyone doing sports so we started offering softball, basketball…we’d put things together and see who showed up.” As it turned out, those who showed up were young people. Nate soon found he was not only offering opportunities to play sports; he was listening to the stories of the young people who attended and getting to know them. Nate became the church’s youth leader and over the next eight years grew its program from 12 to over 100 youth participants.
“I needed to do something to get into action… I did the one thing I know how to do, and that’s sports. [The church] didn’t have anyone doing sports so we started offering softball, basketball…we’d put things together and see who showed up.”
The prospect of being part of a budding church community brought Nate and his family to New Orleans, where he hoped to get involved and continue creating opportunities for youth. Before long, he came across a job listing with Up2Us Sports, but didn’t realize the listing was for an AmeriCorps-supported VISTA role—an office-based service position—rather than a full-time salaried job. But Nate continued to explore, visiting Up2Us Sports’ website and stumbling upon its list of community partners. He eventually discovered Excite All Stars, an organization created in the wake of Hurricane Katrina for kids from the east side of the city, which was hit hardest by Katrina. Excite All Stars was doing youth work, and was looking for someone to help build their website. Nate met, and soon became close with, the original organizers. There was no money to hire him, so Nate worked pro-bono, building their website and then running programing. Eventually, the organization said they could pay Nate to run their 8-week summer program through the support of Up2Us Sports’ coach program.
In July 2014, Nate finally had the opportunity to attend his first Up2Us Sports training. The experience was transformative. Nate was excited by how experiential the training was, with games, group conversations, and trainers pushing coaches to get out of their comfort zone and get to know each other. It felt familiar to Nate, who had worked in a similar way as a church youth leader. “I told the training manager at that time, ‘I want to be a part of this organization.’” Two weeks later, he was on the program staff—roughly two years after that, he moved into a training role.
“I experienced a lot of what the young people we work with experience—it’s a real reason that I’ve always done the work that I’ve done.”
Up2Us Sports’ curriculum has resonated deeply with Nate throughout the years, in part because of his own circumstances and struggles as a young person. “I come from a single-mother home, grew up in women’s shelters and homeless shelters, government housing, Section Eight housing. I attended somewhere between 16-18 different schools all in the same geographical area. We moved 20, 22 different times, all in south Louisiana, moving around within the city. I experienced a lot of what the young people we work with experience—it’s a real reason that I’ve always done the work that I’ve done.” That sports and coaching are the vehicles for Up2Us Sports’ youth development work also speaks to Nate’s heart. “Sports was my escape…At school, I was the poor white kid with hand-me-down clothes. I was skinny and small. But on the basketball court, on the football field, on the baseball diamond, I was in control of my own story. And it didn’t matter—my economic status, my home status, whether my Dad was in my life. None of that mattered in those arenas, only your work ethic, your skill, and what you’re willing to put in.”
The coaching curriculum has been powerful for Nate, first as a recipient of it and now as one who offers it to others. He emphasizes the importance of the Trauma and the Brain sessions—how powerful it is for young people to recognize and understand their own defensive survival strategies and responses to emotional triggers. For Nate, “[The training] helped me realize some of the things that helped me navigate my childhood. When you know that, and when we equip coaches with that, they can be more intentional about the spaces they create for young people.” Nate is adamant that the training is useful for anyone in any context, not just people coaching sports. “It makes you a better human, in a lot of ways. And it makes you more aware about yourself… When you understand that behavior tells a story, you can be a little more understanding, a bit more patient.”
“Our coaches are creating environments where kids can heal from some of the stress that they’ve experienced. The kids have intentional coaches building real relationships with them, so that hopefully one day [they’ll] go off and make healthy choices.”
In both his work with Up2Us Sports and with his spiritual community, Nate is a firm believer in honoring the specific ways and needs of a given community and empowering its members to make positive change from within, rather than imposing an outsider’s idea of what the community needs. His goal is to introduce people to tools and ideas that they can connect with, make their own, and apply authentically in their work. “I don’t want [coaches] to need me to hold their hand for the rest of their lives. I want them to take the concepts and ideas and apply them into their own thinking, and know that they’re the experts now.”
Perhaps because he has been in the youth development space for some time, Nate seems to have his eye on the bigger picture. He is humble and grateful about his work at Up2Us Sports that allows him “to connect people with real, authentic, life-changing concepts, ideas, strategies.” And he understands that the seeds he plants with coaches now will, with any luck, continue to bear fruit in the future. “Our coaches are creating environments where kids can heal from some of the stress that they’ve experienced. The kids have intentional coaches building real relationships with them, so that hopefully one day [they’ll] go off and make healthy choices. They can look back at all the lessons their coach helped them learn, and pay it forward—help other people in their lives learn how to do it.
Nate served as Up2Us Sports coach from July 2014 through September 2014 at Excite All Stars in New Orleans thanks to support from AmeriCorps and Volunteer Louisiana. He was hired full-time by Up2Us Sports in September 2014 and has held multiple positions across the Programs and Training teams before his elevation to National Director of Training in 2019.
