Matthew Jung
Managing Director

The first time I picked up a plastic baseball bat, that was it. I was going to be a baseball player. The first time I got onto a track, I was going to be a sprinter. The first time I picked up a basketball, it was game over: I was going to be Nique. Casting for bass: I was going to be a tournament–winning bass pro. The first time I got hit in the gut with a football helmet after scoring a touchdown: that was it; no more football!

Sports and the passion for playing have always touched me deeply. My desire to win on the basketball court mirrored my desire to win in the classroom, to be the best altar boy, to attain a sort of perfection, or at least maximum achievement. Sports participation influenced my mindset. It still does today. But moreso, watching the passion of young people who are finding enjoyment in playing gives me a wonderful feeling of hope and satisfaction. Hope in the world, because sport binds. Satisfaction in knowing that one of these young charges may one day feel the fulfilment that participation in sport has given me.

I have played basketball my whole life, and though the President and CEO of this amazing endeavor – OSA – can outshoot me in his sleep, when I play now I still feel the same anxiousness in my stomach that my high school coach once promised me would never fade away. He was right. Human passion: this is life, to me.

OSA exists because we feel that the passion is still out there. There are no such things as ‘former athletes.’ As a businessman remains a businessman, an artist remains an artist, so an athlete remains, and athletes always remember those days when you’d play the game for nothing. You’d play because you had to in order to fulfil your own yearnings. The formula was the right one. There are young people out there today in this changing world that get every message except the right ones: that sport is good, that sport is something to cherish, that the work that sport demands will have a positive impact on your entire life whether you make a million dollars in a stadium or whether you spend your days saving lives or shaping lives. And there are older people out there who have an appreciation for the bare bones of sports. The way a perfect spiral cuts through the air, the way a medium range jumper can be more prolific than a dunk, the way the best outfielders still use two hands to catch a pop fly.

Recent times have called for paying tribute to others – not just athletes and sports, but those driven in other ways, more urgent ways. In particular, in times of great uncertainty, we are blessed to be protected by young men and women who are dedicating their lives to the service of our country. We at OSA are not taking the moral high ground when we say that it is right to remember – every day – how good we have it because there are people willing to lay themselves on the line to preserve this good life. It is just that this must be the case. We must remember them, we must keep them in our thoughts. They deserve this courtesy. As do teachers. As do the police. As do firefighters.

Why do I love working with OSA? We get to work on the right messages.

~Matthew Jung