Road to Hall of Fame – How Two Team Members Changed the Game and Retired in Glory
This brief article highlights intellectual contributions to the Club – something we’re always championing at Little Lions!
Pictured – Research Intern Ema Stankova (left) and Coach Clara Pond (right)
In the Fall of 2024, we at the Little Lions Club had a novel idea. What if we took our theory – that the Little Lions Club benefits children outside of just sports – and put it to the test? Our Co-Founders knew that they needed a team behind them to make this dream possible, and immediately enlisted former professional educator and then-professional Little Lions Coach, Clara.
Clara rose to the task instantly, coming up with a full-fledged internship program for the upcoming Research Study (which is documented in detail in a previous posting). She had training schedules, reporting schedules, and task timelines color-coded and ready for our future intern, all prepared within days of our initial discussion. We definitely picked a game-changer for the job of leading our future intern, and directing our Research Study!
Our next task was to find the best possible intern from William and Mary, which commissioned our project and helped us to hire the right person (shoutout to Dr. Heavilin from the W&M internship office!). We scoured the candidate pool for someone who not only understood what we were trying to accomplish, but also found passion in working with children and growing young minds. We lucked out a second time when we found Ema, an undergraduate student at William and Mary from the Czech Republic, who is herself a former competitive athlete. Ema now had her sights turned on psychology, and even volunteered previously at the school where she would get her field hours! Perfect fit, yet again!
Now that our team was built, it was only a matter of executing our plan. As small business owners, we know that execution is everything – and rarely, if ever, happens without a hitch. Boy, were we surprised! From day one, Clara and Ema worked as a unit to accomplish each task without ever needing support or help from the rest of our team. Clara set up the plans, Ema pulled them off perfectly. She obtained the number of needed study participants, spending less than the proposed budget in the process, and got the necessary information to write the final paper. When it finally came out, we were blown away by the results and the quality of her work!
To say these two are game changers would be an understatement. Clara and Ema helped propel the Little Lions Club into a new age of research-based work with children, and for that, ended up in our illustrious Coaching Hall of Fame. Congratulations to them both!