Mick Unplugged
LaVaughn Kelley | From Naval Officer to Sports Mentor: LaVaughn Talks Leadership and Faith
Mon, 23 Dec 2024
Mick: "Welcome back listeners to another riveting episode of Mick Unplugged! I'm your host, Mick Hunt, and today we have an extraordinary guest who has effortlessly transitioned from the military to the sports industry. LaVaughn Kelley, a former Naval officer and current sports agent, joins us to share his remarkable journey. We'll delve into his roots at the U.S. Naval Academy, the crucial role of mentorship, and how military principles shape his leadership at Divine Sports Entertainment. LaVaughn reveals the evolution of his faith-based organization, which aims to extend community and family beyond the business of sports. We’ll explore how football provided stability during his collegiate years, the vital importance of financial literacy and managing distractions for athletes, and the nuances of brand-building in the NIL era. Get ready to be inspired by LaVaughn’s wisdom on leadership, resilience, and the essence of personal growth. Stay tuned as we cover all this and more in an episode that's packed with valuable insights and compelling stories. Let’s dive in!" Takeaways: · The journey to the Naval Academy was influenced by mentorship. · Success leaves clues; learning from others is essential. · Financial literacy is crucial for modern athletes. Sound Bites: · "I was always that underdog trying to drive up and get that eye." · "We want to be an extension of family." · "Success leaves clues." Connect and Discover LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lavaughn-kelley/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lavaughn_kelley Website: divinesportsent.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is LaVaughn Kelley's purpose in life?
Bro, what's your because? What's that thing? What's your purpose? What would that answer be?
My purpose is to walk this earth to be able to have my daughter as a parent, right? To have my daughter look at me and say, hey, my dad was somebody.
U.S. Naval Academy, played sports there. What was your decision in saying, I want to join the Navy? What was that like?
Oh, that was a hard decision. Leave it to my own guidance, I never went to the Academy. One of my biggest mentors, Wayne Blair, was probably my biggest supporter to drive me in that era.
The mission of Divine Sport now is, is it the same mission as when you first started or when you joined the company?
It's evolved a little bit. I would say initially we still are faith-based, right? That hasn't changed. I think our driving point was that we knew as agents, right? That we're faith-based. So we want like minds and we try to expand it as much as we can.
Welcome to Mick Unplugged, where we ignite potential and fuel purpose. Get ready for raw insights, bold moves, and game-changing conversations. Buckle up. Here's Mick.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And today's guest is a dynamic leader who has made waves in both sports and entertainment. With a background that spans from playing football for the US Naval Academy to founding Divine Sports Entertainment, he has proven himself as a visionary in creating opportunities for athletes and entertainers alike.
From the football field to the boardroom, His journey is one of determination, discipline, and innovation. Please join me in welcoming the passionate, the driven, the visionary, and the comedian, Mr. LaVon Kelly. LaVon, how you doing today, brother? I'm doing well. How you doing? How you doing today? I'm doing great, man.
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Chapter 2: What influenced LaVaughn's decision to join the Navy?
My purpose is to walk this earth to be able to have my daughter as a parent, right? To have my daughter look at me and say, hey, my dad was somebody, right? The overall theme of everything I try to do, I try to make sure that when she looks at me or hears my name or my name is spoken, she has a sense of pride in her as well as I have when I see her.
That's it, man. That's truly amazing. Cause you know, for me, very similar, but the opposite way, like I was at 10 years old, I made a promise to my mom to, to like change lives and to specifically change her life. And so that promise is what drives me to this day. And then as you get older, that promise then goes to your kids, right? And to the people that you love.
And so I see LaVon as a man who just lives a promise and a purpose every day, bro.
Got to, got to.
Yes, sir. So let's talk to us a little bit about your story, your background. So, you know, U.S. Naval Academy, played sports there. What was your decision in saying, I want to join the Navy? What was that like?
Oh, that was a hard decision. Leave it to my own guidance, I would have never went to the academy. My mentors, one of my biggest mentors, Wayne Blair, was probably my biggest supporter to drive me in that era. Coming from South Florida, I mean, I'm a Miami Hurricanes fan, right? So growing up, I mean, I'm Afro, I'm Blurry in the back, everything, you know?
So to see me transform and getting that first haircut, cutting my hair all off to go to that realm. My dad was in the Air Force for a 23 years. So I caught the back end of his service and time. So never really saw like the deployments and away from home kind of trying to drive from him. But I had a little bit of what military was about, right? Not how it interacts, right?
And I never really had that exposure. So taking that ride was never on my radar. Even when they came to school, offer letters, I put them in a shoebox and threw them to the side, right? Never really paid attention to it. But as time went on, like I said, I was definitely a Hurricane fan. They didn't come around, right? I wasn't at that caliber yet, right? I was small, right?
I was always the underdog trying to drive up and get that eye, right? Trying to prove myself, should I say. But my mentor, he went to Tulane, so he knew the kind of regular morals of going to be a collegiate student, play for the CFL for a little while as well. So, you know, Florida big football, so... Yeah, I want to go to the league, too.
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Chapter 3: How has Divine Sports Entertainment evolved?
But they're executing it, and whatever innovative ways they may have added to it, they've actually made it better. So I learned from them, right? When they came back with certain things, I learned from them, and I just was able to take some of that in and apply it to the next phase, right? And it's a continuous cycle, right? It's always learning, always some professional development to happen.
So I appreciated it, and it was a great feeling at that time.
I love it. I love it. So that part of your journey kind of, I don't want to say ends, it evolves into you creating and finding Divine Sports Entertainment. Tell me a little bit about your vision for why you wanted to start Divine Sports Entertainment. and then what that mission initially was.
Gotcha. So with Divine Sports, so I didn't necessarily find it. It was two founders prior to me. They brought me on with them, right? One of them actually mentored while he was at the Naval Academy, actually. He's a 2014 graduate. So from their nucleus, they didn't find a way, because we both played football, right? So it was always a pathway.
The biggest thing for us, first, is Savers Academies, right? Trying to find a way to the league. You still want that. Some still have those dreams and aspirations, even though we know we have to go and,
serve and there's a commitment once we graduate to serving the armed forces there's always that slight chance that that hope that you say i may have an opportunity to go forth and that was always something we wanted to be able to tap into um still is right still a desire of ours as we continue to work through this but we faith-based right um we always understand what it took
for us and we knew how many times we had to fall on our knees to make sure that next day was to come, right? And we were prepared for it. And we believe everyone has a purpose because we have our own purpose. We learned through the Naval Academy coming from boys to men, right? How that changes those sacrifices in life and then getting to the fleet, right?
Or to the military or to the Navy, just the commission you actually received at that point. As you got developed, your purpose began to become a little bit more refined, right? And you learned some tools and you got some assets, right? to actually get us to a place. And that allowed us to be there at that point. So we appreciated it at that point.
That's awesome. So the mission of Divine Sport now, is it the same mission as when you first started or when you joined the company?
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Chapter 4: What are the key principles of leadership discussed?
The enemy has a factor in this decision process, right? So what we do depends on the enemy, right? So we just can't go out and just run A through Z. It's not how that works, right? So the enemy always has a play in that decision. And I think the next piece, when it comes to development, the mentor piece, I'm not the yes man, right? I haven't been that person. I don't know if I ever was that person.
So I can't be with a client and say, being my own person if I don't really give them the pros and cons right pluses and minuses the risks that maybe they have to be able to live with right with any decision that they make as a prior as an intel officer my career so I was always looking at the adversary courses of action as to how do we defeat this?
Whatever the issue was, I try to find a way to defeat it, but I got to understand what the issue is, right? And I got to bring that. And a lot of people consider that to be the devil's advocate piece and think I'm the negative person, but I'm just like, I want you to be able to think every manner in which this may play out. And then whichever one is best for you, that's fine.
And then let's look at the risk that we got to take on. We probably can't buy down the risk all the way to zero, right? So any form of fashion, whatever that may be. If we can just buy it down to somewhat because we thought about some of these processes that actually have to take place, then it may become an acceptable risk. And that's part of the military too, right?
Collateral damage, should I say, right? Things of that nature. But if it gets to a point where you're acceptable and you know what it is and you're able to swallow that, then okay, if that's what you want to do, then we move forward. But we move forward without second guessing, right? We take that, we move it in the right direction, and then we go, right?
And then if something else arises that we weren't prepared for, that we hate, we got a break point, and then we just got to adjust, adapt, and We keep moving on.
I love it. I love it. So you've mentioned several times something I believe in, which is the power of mentorship. I have multiple mentors that are skilled in different facets of life. And so they become resources for me. And I think especially for leaders, but also for everyone, if you don't have a mentor or two or three, you definitely need to make sure you're finding them.
So I love to ask LaVon, right, for you, I'm going to go for you personally, and then I'll have a follow-up. So for you personally, what do you look for in mentors?
I'm very, very keen. I'm a strong proponent advocate that success leaves clues. I don't think I have to go out and reinvent the wheel all the time. Times change. Right. So you innovative ways to come across. But the methodologies don't really steer too far from history. repeats itself.
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Chapter 5: How does LaVaughn integrate faith into his business?
But you took that time to do certain things, right? Players may go to training. I'll give you an example. Training, right? Getting ready for the season or getting ready for their pro day, combine, anything, right? And social media is very heavy, right? They're on their downtime. They're probably on social media following whatever I do.
But when they're posting their training or they're after training and they want to post it in the gym, that's great, right? Acknowledge document. That's all well and good. But then all I do is I ask. I say, let me ask you this question. The time that you took out to go get your phone
to go position yourself, to sit up here, to show that, hey, you worked in the gym and you worked out and you wanna flex, right? Like what else could you have been doing, right? Because I'm actually this, does that little time, right? If you add them all up collectively, it's gonna get a couple of hours in your life. Is that playbook time? Is that another workout? Is that another rep?
Is that another set, right? Is that something that's going to propel you on the field? If you look at your phone, no phones on the field. There are no phones in between the white lines, right? So that aspect of your training is nowhere to be found, and you can't translate it from that little moment in time, and it's going to make you a better football player. So I simply ask the question.
I put it on them. Right. I don't I don't I'm not the parent for them. Right. I just make sure they're aware of what they're doing. Again, I let you know the risk. Right. That's the risk that you run into as much as time as you put into that.
If you miss a beat or you don't hit a mark, I'm always going to be like, was there any other time and space that we could have done in that in that time frame that we could have probably got there? Now, if you tell me you've done everything and the social media wasn't. I don't know, right? We'll see.
But I can tell you that the person who has put the phone down, who's taking the time to sacrifice whatever time that is to focus on their craft, I'm always going to say they're going to be the better player. That would be my bet, hands down.
I do the same thing when I talk to business leaders and salespeople, right? It's like, there's somebody who's not doing that right now. Your competition, there's somebody that's closing a million dollar deal because they're focused on the million dollar deal.
There's some leader that's making the ultimate business decision that's going to move their company forward because they're focused on that business decision. They're not distracted by the phone or trying to see what my buddy's doing or, oh my God, did you see this on TikTok? I can't tell you, I shouldn't say this out loud, but I'm going to say it because I'm talking to LaVon. So
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Chapter 6: What lessons did LaVaughn learn from coaching?
I love that, right? He's it. He see it. He goes for the kill. But I really do think that we have a team that can definitely match up, and I'm looking forward to the game. I'll be there, of course, so I can't wait.
Darren, I think that's a challenge. Von said he's going to be at the game. I don't know if you're going to be watching on the couch with Mel and everybody else. So we'll see. But Darren, that was a challenge right there. All right, next question, man. So what's your favorite holiday?
Fourth of July. Fourth of July. In Florida, yeah, we were big on fireworks. I love fireworks. In Virginia, you really can't do them, so we'd go to the parks when they kind of set them off through the city. But, yeah, we've always been with fireworks, family time. So, yeah, I love that time frame.
Okay. Favorite NFL team?
Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
No, I said your favorite NFL team. Yeah.
Like a couple of years, Super Bowl winners? Yeah. Tampa Bay.
Love it. Love it. College sport. What's your favorite college basketball team? And why is it my alma mater, the University of North Carolina?
I'm a Hurricane all day, so that won't change. I'm still going to be a Hurricane fan.
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Chapter 7: How does LaVaughn view mentorship and its importance?
I'll wear a couple Jordans. I'll do that for you. That's about it. There you go.
There you go. All-time favorite athlete.
There's a lot of them. It's tough to choose one. I mean, growing up, I mean, Deion is always in my position, always been. But I will say, I know when I was growing up, Bo Jackson, I had the cartoon, remember the cartoon All-Stars?
Absolutely.
Yeah, so that was to get up. I used to have a little Raider pajama set, the bed set spread and everything.
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Chapter 8: What military principles are applied in Divine Sports?
Yeah, Bo was on the map for me. That's it. So, Bo, you said my three are probably, if we go football, Bo, Barry, and Deion. Yep. Barry Sanders was my guy. But Bo Jackson was a different breed. He was. Bo was a different breed. Cool, man. So what all do you have going on? What do you want folks to know? Like, what's upcoming for LeVon?
Right now? I mean, it's kind of the grind season for us as we... continue to keep recruiting and getting ready to, to close some deals and bring some clients on the board for this next draft class. Um, so we're still here trying to better ourselves. I'm actually, so like professional development, we always say we're trying to learn, right?
There's actually Harvard business, uh, business school has this executive leadership course at June. So I just applied for that. Hopefully I get in. So pray for me, whoever's out there to pray and to pray and folks, please pray for me. I can get into that course and just to be better at my craft. Um, Now that I'm retired, I'm just all I want to do. I don't want to do anything else.
I don't want to do the corporate job and do an agent on the side. I'm a full-time agent, so I wake up and do this weekends, anything. It don't matter. Like I said, for Thanksgiving, so my high school here in St. Thomas, we practice on Thanksgiving. because he typically went to playoffs. I flew home.
So I flew to Florida to go to practice, go to Thanksgiving, saw my dad, went to the game Friday, flew out Saturday. Now I'm in Texas visiting my mom right now. And then I fly back to Virginia tomorrow. OK. All for the work. But I love it. And she knows that she loves it, too. So that support factor.
And I would say I would say that when you have a good circle to support you, that's one of the best things in the world. You really can't put any value on that piece. And I'm talking about just from parents to those parents are still around that can still push you not just as a student now, but as a professional and let you just kind of grow and cultivate on your own space.
I would trade it in for the world.
That's amazing, man. So where can people follow and find you? And I'll make sure we have links to everything in the show notes in the description.
I make it very simple. Instagram and Twitter. It's just my full name, LaVon Kelly. So it's LaVon, L-A-V-A-U-G-H-N underscore Kelly, K-E-L-L-E-Y.
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