Be B.O.L.D.: Tamika Catchings encourages FFA members

INDIANAPOLIS — In a stadium packed with thousands of FFA members, these words echoed: “Today is the best day of the rest of my life. I choose to believe, to be open to change, to lead with love, and I dare to be remarkable — I choose to be bold.”

Tamika Catchings, a former WNBA player and four-time Olympian, encouraged students to be B.O.L.D.

That is a four-letter acronym with a powerful meaning:

B: Believe in your dreams.

O: Be Open to change.

L: Lead with love.

D: Dare to be remarkable.

Catchings shared an inspirational story — how she became an all-star athlete, who didn’t let her hearing loss slow her down.

“Two out of three of us were born with a hearing disability,” she recalled. “Like my brother, my mom and dad took me to have my hearing tested. I had to sit in this box. At 3 years old, I had no idea what that meant.

“I only knew, at the age of 5, I was fitted for these really big, bulky brown hearing aids.”

Her family traveled and changed schools often. She didn’t realize she was any different than other children until second grade.

“Every single day, when I went to school I would walk the halls and be made fun of for the way I talk, how I look, for the big, bulky brown hearing aids I had to wear,” she said. “I got made fun of when I was pulled out of class to go to speech therapy.”

One day Catchings woke up and repeated “Today is going to be a good day” over and over on her walk to school.

As soon as she entered the halls, she was made fun of.

“Immediately I found myself trying to be as invisible as the tallest second-grader in the class could be,” she said. “Have you ever felt like that? Invisible?”

After school, with tears streaming down her face, Catchings walked passed a field of grass. She stopped, removed her hearing aids and threw them as far away as she could manage.

Her mother noticed they were missing. They couldn’t afford new ones, so she had to learn to live without them.

“I said, ‘this is going to be a good day,’” she said. “This is who I am!”

Catchings encouraged FFA members to make goals and be bold.

“When you get out of here, find a piece of paper, not your phone — write it down,” she said. “When you get home, put it somewhere where you’ll see it every single day.

“In seventh grade, every single day I brushed my teeth and saw my goal, ‘to one day be in the NBA.’

“When I went to school, I would not let one person deter me from reaching that goal. Believe in yourself. Believe in your dreams. I thank God my parents believed in me, too.”