“There are a lot of fake people out there and I’m going to keep this real. When I was in high school I probably wouldn’t have been excited about coming to hear a speaker like me. By the time I’m done, I’m going to give you guys the keys to the matrix so you can go out and hack life.”
With those words, Kevin Atlas started a roughly hour and a half long speaking engagement at Rome High School. Along the way, he managed to get what started out as a somewhat inspired crowd to stand up, cheer, yell high five, and more as he recounted his trials and struggles in life while mixing in humor, anecdotes, and more to help spread his message.
Atlas gained national notoriety in high school and then college for playing basketball. While Atlas is a large individual standing an inch shy of seven feet tall he does lack something most basketball players take for granted.
Atlas early in his speech addressed it by waving the remaining portion of his left arm in the air. Due to complications at birth, he lost his left arm a few inches below his elbow. Along with that, he talked about growing up with speech issues, battling ADHD, and more. But along the way Atlas had people step in and help him.
“I’m not here to inspire you for a day or a week or a month and then you guys go back into your second semester. I’m here to make an actual life change. By the time you walk out of this room today, I hope your whole perspective on life has changed. If that happens I’ve done my job,” Atlas said.
Early on, Atlas asked for a volunteer, preferably a football player to come up on stage, and freshman Benji Drummond obliged. Atlas demonstrated to Drummond how he defended other players in basketball using the remaining portion of his left arm to knock into the player.
“I was guarding a good player on my AAU team and my coach told me to use it (my left arm). The player tried to go up and dunk over me and knocked into him. I kind of hit him in a sensitive area and he hit the floor. When he got up, he turned to the coach and said it was unfair,” Atlas recalled.
Atlas let the sentiment sink for a minute before following it up later.
“If you gave me a left hand today, I wouldn't take it,” he said.
Drummond got the experience of getting defended and after the speech was hyped.
“It was awesome getting up on stage. It was amazing,” he said. “He’s an amazing speaker, just phenomenal.”
Along with his stories, Atlas asked questions of students and encouraged audience participation. Imploring and chastising the students when he felt early on that they weren’t giving it their all.
“Come on guys. This is probably the smallest crowd I’ve spoken to in two years. I need your attention. I can’t think of a more judgy place than being on stage in front of a bunch of high schoolers that don’t want to be here,” he said.
While some early applause was scattered by the end of the presentation almost every student in the room was standing, clapping, stomping, yelling and cheering.
At one point, staff members from Varsity Brands and BSN Sports who helped bring Atlas to Rome High got worried about how long his presentation was going. As they tried to get his attention, Rome High Principal Parke Wilkinson waved them off saying, “just let him keep talking.”
After the initial group of students left, Atlas spent another hour plus talking with members of the Student Government Association and the Superintendent's Student Advisory Council. That’s when some real magic started happening.
“I walked in this morning thinking this is another speaker to listen to. Let’s be honest I’ve heard other speakers and sometimes you don’t take that much away from it,” Fred Johnson, a junior, said. “He was totally different from that.”
Atlas polled the room for issues facing Rome High students and quickly put together a list. He also admonished the students again reminding them to cheer and yell and celebrate their classmates for having the courage to speak up.
“I didn't think he was going to be that good. I didn't think I would relate to him that much. But the way he kept it funny and talked to us and related to us really clicked with me,” Gia Garrison, a freshman who offered some advice and even was called up to stage at one point, said. “All our SGA meetings have been a little quiet and awkward. Now when we walk into the SGA meeting tomorrow, I know we are going to be able to talk more and create more ideas for the school.”
Those ideas came fast and furious over the final 20 minutes of Atlas’ presentation as he not only offered suggestions but got volunteers to take charge and organize mini groups to help bring about changes to each and every problem the students discussed. Atlas also encouraged the students to come up with solutions beyond what he gave them and to get busy working on them.
“We know we can be the change. We can go to all of these meetings and talk about problems and solutions. But he stood up there and told us and encouraged us to make the changes ourselves. I thought he was really inspiring. When he talked to us, I could actually see myself doing the things,” Johnson said. “I’m excited because I feel like we have solutions now with ideas and that everybody is going to be ready.”
He also reminded them of the power they all have.
“If you start this year, then I promise you that the juniors will want to top what the seniors did and then the sophomores and freshmen so that these changes get bigger and these problems get smaller. That’s the power you all have if you work together,” Atlas said.
When Atlas ended the presentation the crowd hit their feet cheering and yelling and then spent time onstage with him taking pictures and sharing stories. Afterward, the students were energized and Atlas was beaming.
“I’m in the business of elevating others. I’m a professional learner who gets to regurgitate his findings from some wise humans through humor and storytelling and that is such a cool way to live in the service of others,” he said. “You have a bunch of very different types of people in one room when speaking to high schoolers. A lot of them don’t want to be there. That's a very different art form, so getting a standing ovation let alone two when speaking to a high school audience is like a Picaso painting to me. That’s not a boast. You have to be genuine and real and you have to speak to them as equals. It has to be a conversation, not a presentation.”
Before leaving the auditorium in keeping with Rome City Schools' theme of Educators as Influencers, Atlas was asked how he hopes he is influencing people.
“I hope I’m influencing people from a micro level to find self-love, to find confidence, to find their voice, and then use that voice for good by becoming a leader and keeping people accountable. I’m hoping I’m creating a massive group of true leaders looking to make a change wherever they go,” Atlas said.
Looking around at several large groups of students talking about meeting to tackle problems with the solutions that he helped spur showed Atlas’ influence was already starting to take root just minutes after finishing speaking.