The Real World: The value of mentors

A few years ago, I spent more than an hour speaking with Rudy Ruettiger, whose real-life story about playing for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team was made famous in the 1993 movie, Rudy. I was flattered that before our chat, Ruettiger spent some time reading about my similar story, which chronicles my pitching with the London Majors of the Intercounty Baseball League.

But our chat didn't focus primarily on sports; rather, most of the time we talked about the importance of mentors, and about the different levels of mentorship. I've written briefly about mentors in this column, and have pointed out that the Larry Myny Mentorship Program at Fanshawe College offers a great opportunity for establishing a formal mentor-mentee relationship.

Yet, I bet if you closely examine the lives of any successful individuals, you'll discover that they have benefited from relationships with mentors during their entire lives. The English poet John Donne once wrote, "No man is an island." No truer words have been spoken.

Sure, my professional life continues to see me seek mentors, and I enjoy mentoring students and employees more than anything else I do each workday. But a trip down memory lane will explain how mentors in and out of business still help establish successful, goal-oriented habits.

As a youngster with an insatiable appetite for asking questions and investigating the unknown (I was in trouble more often than not, but thankfully I harnessed those traits during a career as an investigative journalist), I exhausted much of my energy in athletics — baseball, tennis and track and field. I had many coaches along the way who mentored me — ranging from simple encouraging words to deep interest in my developing leadership skills. I do the same thing today with students, employees and nephews who, alas, take after their uncle and often feel the wrath of angry parents.

When I was 16 years old, I learned how to skate - my physical disabilities made it difficult for me to do so, but a high school buddy, Peter, took me out to Fanshawe Lake (when it used to freeze — don't try it anymore) and skated with me for hours upon hours. By the end of that winter, I was playing pickup hockey with the best high school players in the city. Peter was a mentor: he showed a genuine interest in my goal to skate and play hockey. A few years later, while attending Fanshawe College, I was kicked out of a church hockey league for fighting. Maybe those negative traits didn't quite disappear after all.

One of the most rewarding relationships I have ever enjoyed was my eight years as a big brother in the Big Brothers Big Sisters of London organization. That role was mentorship at its highest level. When you spend four hours a week with a young man from the other side of the tracks, you have a responsibility to him and to yourself to be the best role model you can be. Of all of my achievements, being a big brother ranks right near the top.

When I began teaching students in Fanshawe's Corporate Communication and Public Relations (CCPR) post-graduate program four years ago, teachers and administrators took me under their wings and showed me the ropes — a welcoming handshake, a visit to their offices to ask a million questions, and an endless amount of e-mails with even further enquiries. There's no way I would have been able to get up to speed with required lectures if not for teachers in the CCPR program.

Today, I tell my students that they come first: I treat them like clients in that regard. Whether it's meeting with them before or after class, spending time answering questions during coffee breaks or replying to e-mails through FanshaweOnline, it is imperative to keep the line of communication open at all times. And as a part-time professor who offers daily real-world experience, I also find it important to share with them the good, the bad and the ugly from the world of professional communications. They can learn from my successes and my mistakes.

When Ruettiger and I first chatted, he surprised me with tears and a quiver in his voice. "I found your story truly inspirational. I get it. It's about having a dream, working hard and having mentors," he said.

Indeed, no man is an island - unless, of course, you get a threegame suspension for fighting in a church hockey league and spend time watching from the stands. But that's a story for another column.

Award-winning journalist Jeffrey Reed is a Fanshawe College professor with the Corporate Communication and Public Relations post-graduate program and an instructor with Fanshawe's Continuing Education department. E-mail him at jreed@fanshawec.ca.