Coming up on Sports Spotlight with Steve Nissen.

The motivation and talent propelling a Gulf Breeze volleyball star to amazing heights.

And how a Pensacola State hoops standout from Crestview is living up to a remarkable family legacy.

Plus, a visit to Alumni Avenue with major leaguer Ben Lively and going deep with Do Work Sports, a dynamic organization focused on empowering local athletes.

And.

Welcome to Sports spotlight.

I'm Steve Nissen.

Do work.

Sports is an organization that goes to great lengths to promote and equip local athletes.

Co-Founder Deontay Sheppard will join us to explain all that they do.

Plus, we stopped by Alumni Avenue with a Gulf Breeze product shining in Major League Baseball and feature a basketball standout from Crestview.

Finding a lot of ways to impress at Pensacola State.

But we start with Bella Satterwhite.

The Gulf Breeze volleyball star has achieved some very lofty status.

And it's thanks to a ridiculous level talent.

The lessons of a lost mentor and making the most of a bold new opportunity.

Bella Satterwhite grew up as an only child in a very athletic home.

Her dad, David, played Division one college basketball at DePaul and her mom, Brenda, was an elite level swimmer.

My parents were always like, we're going to have an athletic kid and all that.

So it was definitely a major part of my life from the beginning.

After trying numerous sports, Bella got hooked on volleyball and really took off as a middle schooler.

When she started working with revered local volleyball trainer Brant Beckstrom, he said, I think you could be something really special.

He really believed in me and so just training with him after just a couple of months, I saw great improvement and growth and that's what I definitely started having confidence with myself and thought I could definitely take it to the next level.

Backstrom put her on the path to success, but tragically, she would not be around to see Bella achieve it.

He passed away from brain cancer in 2021.

I think about him every day like it makes me feel what?

Oh.

Even, like on senior night.

Everything, you know, even from, like, multiple years, every time we have, like, a video that plays, like, every time Brennan shows up, everyone starts crying because he was just such a, an impactful person in the community and really grew the volleyball community as a whole.

Gulf Breeze High School volleyball is perennially one of the top programs in the state, but even among that lofty group, Bella immediately stood out.

Her freshman year, when she came in, there was a lot of chatter, chatter about this outside hitter that was coming in, and then you see her hit the first ball and you don't even have to see it.

You hear it and you're like, oh, okay, this girl's legit.

She always seemed like she was a level above us.

So I mean, even, the freshman year of volleyball when she made varsity, that was unheard of for us.

So.

So that's really where it was like, wow.

She's great.

Bella wood star for the Dolphins.

As a stunningly impactful attacker who would go on to break the school record for kills, but also developing into a dynamic all around player, excelling on defense, serving and receiving.

That was definitely something that took a lot of time because that's not natural for me, but it definitely has helped my whole entire career being able to play all the way around and be a versatile player.

In her sophomore year, Gulf restarted a beach volleyball program, something Bella had dabbled in on the club level.

At first I hated beach volleyball.

I was like, I don't like the sun, I don't like the heat, the sand, all that.

But then after they started the the this beach volleyball team, I was like, I'll just play for fun.

The camaraderie of the new Gulf Breeze program started to change her tune, but a real turning point came when Bella attended a camp run by national beach volleyball guru Nicole Christner.

She was like, I think you could play at top ten D1 schools for beach volleyball.

And I was like, no, that's not happening.

Like, I'm not that good.

But when Bella started going to tournaments in California, she realized she was that good.

Coaches were showing a lot of interest, and I was playing like against some of the best girls in the country, and we were really competing like we were right there.

And I was like, this is, this is this is weird.

Like.

And then I started to have a lot of fun with, like, just how competitive it was and how I could be so competitive within the sport now that I was on the beach for Bella.

Like, who's who's that girl?

A lot of that athletic ability and just IQ of the game translated well for her coming out to the sand.

She's a teammate that you want to have, but she's also a player that you want to have as a coach.

And I think everybody who comes in contact with her realizes that really quickly.

You don't really get to play with that very often.

You don't get to coach that kind of player very often either.

So she's just really impactful for her teammates as well as the program.

With Bella leading the way, the program pulled off a stunning accomplishment in 2020 for winning the state championship in just their second year of existence.

I got to do it with my best friends that I would have never known if it wasn't for this program, and just to do it with that group of people was so special.

A remarkable rise in beach volleyball is taking her to the best college program in the country.

Bella signed with the University of Southern California, winners of the last four national championships.

That's huge, I think not only for Bella, but for kind of the girls that are looking up to her and seeing what's possible.

It's pretty cool to have a player of that caliber in your program.

In the first three years that you started.

It's still kind of hard to comprehend like that.

They're, you know, the number one school in the country that I'm going there.

Because I definitely say in the beginning, I was not as confident as a player at all.

I was I would settle for less, and just kind of finding that within myself really helped grow my game.

It really means so much to me.

Knowing that everything has like, paid off.

Pensacola State College women's basketball star Katiya Casey will grab your attention in a number of ways.

The Crestview High grad brings the skills, attitude, and an impressive family history I like this Cartier case.

He took up basketball as a youngster, but it wasn't until she watched the game at Gulf Coast State College that she realized the amazing hoops legacy in her house.

I see my mom in the Hall of Fame there and I was like, oh, well, that's she always talks about being big.

So now I actually see that she was actually really good.

Keondre Williams was the first All-American for Gulf Coast one, the National Junior College Player of the year award in 1998, and went on to play in the SEC at Alabama.

As young Katiya started to excel.

Advice from mom helped her navigate the path.

In middle school, it was a little difficult because I was definitely the best player on the team.

I knew a lot of people were young, like a lot of girls hadn't played before.

She taught me like, sometimes you got to be a leader and you got to lead well.

You know what everyone else is supposed to do, so, like, help them out.

With mom jumping in as an assistant coach, Katiya shined at Crestview High School, scoring over 1000 career points.

As a sophomore, she attended a camp at Pensacola State and caught the coach's eye in a number of ways.

The first thing that stood out, obviously, was her hair.

You know, it was different.

You know, you just don't see that with a lot of high school students.

But then the next part was just how tough and feisty she was.

I think she may have been the only kid there that took a chance.

When you see someone who who's willing to do that and just puts their body on the line, like, you know that kid has a little bit of toughness and grit.

Katiya ended up signing with PSC, and as a freshman, that toughness paid immediate dividends.

But she also found out just how challenging the junior college level is.

I realized that it's not the same as high school and high school.

You can get away with a lot of things and just being quick, and you can not get away with the same things here.

I had to definitely adjust, get more time in the gym to like, adjust to shooting and driving and passing and just getting to know my teammates and knowing what they can do.

She elevated her game impressively as a sophomore, almost doubling the scoring output with around ten points a game, topping the team in three point shooting and among the leaders in steals and assists.

But her biggest impact goes beyond the stats a willingness to do all the little things and an off the charts basketball IQ.

There's a lot of times where there's certain things I don't have to say, because she will say them before I can relay messages to her teammates.

You know, things that she sees on the court.

I think all of her teammates know they need anything.

They can rely on her.

I think a lot of them know if there's a question that they don't want to ask the coaches, they'll ask her because she'll ask or she'll already know.

Nobody's never like perfect, but I feel like it's always perfect.

She always has it together.

Like, that's why she's like one of the best leaders on this team.

She.

She leads me even though her and saying, great, she always knows what's going on.

She's never confused.

She never is angry at anybody.

She says the right things, like because I is the best.

It should not be a surprise that Katie excels in the classroom as well.

At Crestview, all four years on honor roll, graduating magna cum laude and now Dean's list at PSC.

I'm always trying to do my work early because I know that if I procrastinate or it could be going wrong, you know?

So I make sure I do everything early and I'm just on track, and I'm always taking notes of what I need to do and just jot and everything down.

The same thoroughness that fuels her success on the court.

Impressive to anyone who's watching, especially her All-American mom.

She talks to me a lot about how proud she is.

She says she used to watch my old games and then, like, watching me now, it's so much different how much more confident I am.

She says that I've always had this pushing me, and that she could tell that I'm going to be a great player.

Since making his Major League Baseball debut eight years ago, it's been a winding road for Gulf breeze has been lively, but we find him on Alumni Avenue very much on the incline.

Lively is coming off his best MLB season and earned a spot on Cleveland's starting rotation for 2025. after getting a taste of the major leagues.

With 25 starts in 2017 and 18, Ben Lively spent a lot of time and effort trying to make it back two seasons playing in Korea and two more in the minor leagues.

He finally earned an unlikely to return to the bigs in 2023 with a midseason call up to Cincinnati.

And then it all came together for him last year in Cleveland.

Signed to provide some depth, lively produced so much more.

He became the rock of the rotation and led the playoff bound Guardians with 13 wins, along with career best in ERA, strikeouts, starts and innings.

He is widely credited with saving Cleveland's injury riddled rotation last season, and manager Stephen Voit said, quote, Ben just doesn't stop competing.

He doesn't let anything shake him and it's been really nice to see.

End quote.

lively followed it up with a strong spring training in 2025 and at age 33, earned a spot on an opening season MLB starting rotation for the first time in seven years.

Gulf breeze grad Ben Lively Definitely an area product to admire on Alumni Avenue.

Do Work Sports was founded in 2019.

With a mission to inspire student athletes on the Gulf Coast to maximize their potential.

They've been increasingly impactful in doing just that in a number of ways.

And we're privileged to be going deep with my friend and do work.

Co spot, co-founder and director of operations.

Donte Shepherd, Donte, thanks so much for being in.

And Steve, it's always great to be with you man.

Really excited and and congratulation man I love the new show.

I appreciate that.

So I gave a little bit of an intro about it, but what really what do works.

It's all about.

Well I mean Steve do work.

Sports is a multi-faceted sports company.

Like you said, we're really focused on helping student athletes maximize their potential.

And we do it.

And three different focus areas.

One, exposure in this new age of social media, highlight films and all different ways that they can be recruited by, colleges, etc.. We want to make sure that we share their story, that we captivate that story.

And so we do that by going out to events, sporting events, hosting sporting events and just taking the time out to capture their, special moments.

Those big time moments, for athletes, we also do it and, development.

Steve, we believe that developing the student athlete holistically is really important.

So we want to focus on not only the athleticism, but their academics and their emotional intelligence.

And so we try to host, life and life skills and character development workshops.

And then lastly, we focus on performance because it's about them performing at the best of their ability.

Steve.

And so we host events for that as well, to give them a chance to have some healthy competition.

So how did the idea get started?

You know, how did how did you come to it?

And then how did you get started doing it?

Well, Steve.

Yes.

You know, I was a coach for ten years.

Love, football, my entire life.

And, I had an opportunity to, really get into the development of athletes as a football coach.

Special.

When I was at Escambia High School with, head coach Willie Spears, really gave me a chance to do the academic, the athletic and the social development of athletes.

So when I stopped coaching, I wanted to stay in that area.

I ended up connecting with my friend Jose Stutz, who was really into media, was already covering youth sports in the area and do work.

Sports is the epitome of collaboration and partnership.

We came together, put our hands together and said, why?

Let's not do it alone, let's do it together.

And that's why we came up with do Our Sports.

Yeah, it's actually it's great stuff.

And before we get into the in-depth on all the different facets, you brought a little video and show some examples of exactly the kind of work that do work does.

Check it out.

Do work.

Sports is all about exposure.

We provide exclusive media coverage for sporting events, host media days, and conduct exclusive interviews with top athletes in the area.

We utilize some of the best technology to capture athletes greatest moments to make sure they're exposed to their fans, colleges, scouts, recruiters, and all of the mascots.

We invest in the overall development of the student athlete.

Are you compiling?

Are you committed to what the coaches are saying?

I sure do.

Are you just the wife?

Are you commit?

Kaleigh said, I just do it committed, said coach Tom.

By providing mentorship, leadership in life skills, workshops, athletic training and coaching.

We want to make sure that every athlete excels academically and athletically.

And so today we had a great day.

Our guys really learn what growth mindset is.

And I hope that they go out into the world and they take a growth mindset into the classroom, a growth mindset at home, a growth mindset into the community.

And most of all, a growth mindset in their sport.

Because this a sports mindset.

Performance is important for an athlete to perform at a high level.

They must compete.

We encourage a competitive nature, but with integrity.

We create atmospheres that nurture growth and self-improvement through our competitive sports teams or our sporting events such as tournaments and All-Star games.

We also include training that focuses on athletic and mental development, which will allow an athlete to maximize their potential and somebody to work for.

So obviously, you guys are doing a lot, so.

Yeah.

So how much is the.

Is there a need?

How much of a hunger is there out there for this type of stuff?

I, I think that people are starving for it, Steve.

I mean, you know, back in the day, it was all about just the news or the newspaper that really covered, sports.

But now, it's the more the merrier.

The more people who can do it, the better.

The more exposure, the better.

And so, it's been a high demand.

It's so much of a demand that we normally can't cover it all.

We really focus on football and basketball, mostly because of that.

And we just sprinkled in the track a lot.

Yeah, but you're going to a lot of games.

I mean, you go out to a lot of action, a lot of different events.

How do you do it?

What's your crew like and how do you kind of plan what you do?

You know, what we learned is, you got to bring people in who already is passionate about, you know, videography, photography and love sports.

So we've partner with others and, and we give them an opportunity to go out and do it.

We have our, you know, core team.

But then we have several videographers and photographers throughout, Escambia County, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa who do all of this with us.

So it's a it's a team effort, Steve.

And we got roughly about 12 of us.

And you hit it hard on social media.

I mean, you have a website, you've got YouTube channel, but really Facebook and Instagram, that's kind of your bread and butter.

So what's your plan with all the stuff you put on there and what kind of response have you gotten?

Yeah, I mean, we've gotten an incredible response.

Our plan is Facebook is really for the parents and fans of athletes.

So we try to give as much exposure on there.

And what we've noticed that the athletes really run on Instagram, they love to see their videos, their pictures and things of that nature.

So we just try to make sure that we share what is the focus for each platform.

Sometimes we duplicate it based on whatever that is.

And then, we want to continuously push as much content as possible.

So partnerships gives us that opportunity.

In the past two months, January and February, Steve, we had over 3 million views on our social media.

Incredible, unbelievable.

And you also do in-depth interviews, and those have got a lot of hits and probably the most popular one on one of the most popular ones.

Waymon Jordan Jr.

Yes.

Who, Escambia High grad also played a Catholic football player.

What the JuCo route.

And they ended up signing with the University of Southern California.

You got you brought a little clip of one of your interview kind of set up.

What what this is, man, this this was an opportunity for me to sit down with Wayne and just hear his journey.

A lot of people didn't know that he had to go to junior college out of high school, but he worked.

He worked any work that put himself in the position that he is now, and he shared that with us.

And that process of being recruited fathers took it out.

This first offer line and then from there schools.

Is this rolling and rolling in every week talking to me, coming in and they still calling to this day like and this is honestly a blessing because I remember when nobody was calling my phone, I was just one and I was just one on one call or one text like so.

I don't take none for granted.

I'm thankful for every school that ever talked to me and stuff like that.

So it's been really just a hard journey though, to trying to choose what school.

But I'm going to find one.

And with all that being said.

For the next few years.

I'm going to be going to.

The University of Southern California.

So that last picture right there is a picture of him actually at USC.

He's an incredible story.

Oh, man.

You know Wayman story.

Steve, is what we all hope for.

A young man who worked hard and maximized his potential.

And he's doing really well at USC right now.

I'm really looking forward to seeing this upcoming season.

I plan on flying out.

Oh, yeah.

Take me with you around.

Yeah.

All right.

So you guys also do a lot of events.

So you put on media days, you have tournaments, you have all star games.

So, what are some of the things that you do there and the kind of need and impact with those.

Well, I think Media Day gives parents and players an opportunity to, get exposure.

Players are able to interview.

Interviewing skills are so important.

So they get that shot, especially if you're not a star.

You don't normally get that shot unless you are a star and and parents get a chance to see them.

I love the, event, especially like tournaments, because again, it's all about performance.

You want to see what they've done in the off season.

What are they doing on their own time, and then watch it unfold on the field or on the court.

And so our seven on seven tournament is really big.

Flag football is really big right now as well.

So we host, those tournaments and you really partner with a lot of the high schools and youth, youth programs to kind of get these things done.

Oh, yeah.

You know, these youth programs really want to see the players get reps. And so these tournaments really assist with that.

We host, later on this summer, a high school tournament as well.

And again, that gives them a chance to see their kids in real time and be able to compete against, other teams.

Mentorship is another big part of the organization.

So how is that structured?

How do you set up, you know, opportunities for these young people to get mentored?

Well, you know, one of our biggest mentorship programs is that Pensacola High School, through a program called pride, the pride program, gives us a chance to go in with the athletes, able to set up speakers for them.

I serve as a speaker, but I'm also able to do specialized training with them.

And then we partner with other organizations to bring forth that mentorship, because we need as many people within the community that's connected to these athletes.

And one of those organizations is the 100 black men of Pensacola.

What are some of the lessons, you know, that you try to impart?

Oh, well, I mean, one thing is just overall self-efficacy.

It's important for athletes to have confidence, but not just confidence on the field, because that sometimes could be false, because it's about that only that time or event.

We want them to have confidence on and off the field.

So we focus on self-efficacy, leadership, trust, and even toughness.

You know, toughness is bigger than just being strong physically strong.

But are you mentally tough?

You know, what would it really take for an athlete to be broken.

And sometimes that's just a tough, test in a classroom or a project.

And so we want them to be tough.

So we really work on all of those different topics and we customize it for coaches as well.

Yeah, definitely valuable lessons.

So and I yell something really big right now on the high school level, starting to really take off where athletes can, you know, capitalize, monetize, you know, their name, image, likeness.

And you've been involved in a lot of ways with that.

So what's your opinion, first of all, of an ideal and how have you tried to be involved?

Well, I think it's great for the athlete.

I think is good for them to be able to, make money off of their name, image and likeness.

The thing is, they need to understand is that you may not be able to capitalize till you get to college, but you can't start in college.

You have to start building your brand now.

So your social media is important.

How you communicate with people and who you are networking with is going to open those doors for them.

And you've developed relationships with a lot of these athletes, you know, is that as a mentor or as an advisor, how important has that been for you personally?

I think it's been great, is very impactful for me because I'm not coaching day to day in and day out anymore.

So I get to stay connected to the game.

But most of all, I'm able to share my knowledge and my wisdom and it's all about you passing down what you know.

You know.

Steve, a mentor of mine, told me that a cup that is empty is a wasted cup, but a cup that is full is even worse.

And so you got to have somebody to pour into and someone to pour into you.

You mentioned, your coaching days.

Being honest can be a part of it under Willie Spears, who was very innovative, you know, did a lot of got to generate a lot of excitement.

Also a lot of controversy back then.

Yeah, with some of the promotion stuff that you guys did.

But really that was really ahead of its time a little bit.

No doubt about it, man.

I tell you what they had to apologize to, the running back of USC, Reggie Bush, for the things they did.

We owe Willie Spears an apology because where we're at now with email, with social media, he was the innovation of that.

And and we were scared of what we didn't know in our community.

But I was on board.

I believed in it then and I really believe in it now.

That's why we created do Work sports.

And I will say coaches are on board for it now.

Yeah.

But you know, the world has changed.

It's yeah, they've caught up.

They've caught up to a lot of things you guys are doing.

Okay.

So what's next.

Where do you go next.

Would do work sports.

I mean again we want to continue to expand our exposure, our media.

So we're looking to expand into our youth league.

We're looking to actually cover them on a more regular basis.

Coming up, this football season.

We're looking to also, start our all star series and our camp series this summer.

And then most of all, expand and development.

I'm really looking forward to going over to Pine Forest High School.

They just hired me to come in for development for their athletes.

So shout out to coach McDowell and any school that will want us to come in and talk to their kids about leadership and development, because it's about three fold exposure, development performance.

All right.

It's great stuff, Donte, that you do and good luck with all of it.

And thanks for coming on.

Hey, I'm always excited to be here.

And remember do work.

There you go.

All right, that's a wrap on another edition of Sports Spotlight.

But there are so many more stories to tell.

Until next time, thanks for watching.