Investing in the Next Generation
At McRae Enterprises, we spend our days building projects designed to last. Every project starts with a vision and becomes reality through planning, trust, teamwork, and people working together toward a common goal. The longer you spend around construction and community development, though, the more you realize that some of the most important things being built in a community never show up on a site plan.
Sometimes they’re being built on baseball fields.
Sometimes they’re being built in dugouts.
Sometimes they’re being built during the ride home after practice, while throwing in the backyard with a parent, or during the conversations and lessons young athletes carry with them long after the season ends.
From formation in 2023, McRae had the opportunity to support the Chiville Sharx, a local youth baseball team made up of 12–13-year-old athletes. For us, this one was especially meaningful because our own CFO, Rob Marconi, serves as one of the coaches helping lead the team throughout the season.
Like most people involved in youth sports eventually discover, coaching may start with baseball, but it quickly becomes about much more.
As part of the season, we decided to ask the players a few questions. Some were serious. Some were fun. We wanted to hear directly from them about what mattered, what they remembered, and what they had learned.
We asked:
Who would you want up at bat in a big game?
What has been your favorite memory from the season?
What have you worked hardest to improve?
What mascot would you create?
And maybe the most important question of all:
What’s your walkout song?
That final question may have revealed more than we expected.
The team playlist somehow managed to include Hammer Time, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Can’t Hold Us, Dirt on My Boots, Hozier, Lecrae, and enough variety to convince us that giving this team control of a pregame playlist could become a social experiment of its own.
There was absolutely no consensus.
And honestly, that may have been the perfect representation of the team itself.
Different positions, Different personalities. Different strengths. Different interests. Different senses of humor. Different ways of seeing the world.
One team.
The mascot answers somehow got even better.
One player wanted a dolphin because “dolphins are cool.” Another suggested a shark because “we are the Sharx.” One wanted a bear because bears can come back when they’re down in a fight. Another wanted angels because “we like to talk about flying sometimes.” Someone suggested a bomb because “we hit bombs.”
And then there was perhaps the strongest candidate of all:
Dino nuggets.
Not because they’re fierce or because they represent strength.
Simply because they’re delicious.
That answer may still be under review.
But once we got past the walkout songs and mascot debates, something bigger started to emerge when we asked who they would want up at bat in a big moment, the answers became surprisingly consistent.
Players didn’t talk much about who hit the farthest home runs or who might have been the biggest athlete on the field. Instead, they talked about teammates who were dependable. Teammates who worked hard. Teammates who stayed positive. Teammates who were consistent and came through when it mattered.
That stood out.
For a group of 12–13-year-old athletes, those are pretty remarkable observations because those aren’t flashy qualities.
They’re trust qualities.
They’re teammate qualities.
They’re the kinds of things people value long before there is a scoreboard, a championship game, or a final result.
And whether you’re building a baseball team or building a company, people tend to remember the teammates they can count on.
At McRae, projects work the same way. Success rarely happens because one person carries everything. It comes from estimators, project managers, field teams, office staff, and leaders trusting each other, doing their jobs well, and showing up consistently.
Great outcomes are usually built long before anyone sees the finished product.
The players’ favorite memories revealed something else.
Of course there were first home runs.
Championship games.
Tournament wins.
Big moments.
One player talked about hitting a first ball to the fence.
Another remembered their first over-the-fence home run.
One remembered hitting their first home run and then hitting two more.
But beyond the individual moments, a bigger theme kept showing up.
“We went undefeated.”
“Everybody was a part of it.”
“The whole team worked hard.”
“We were active in the dugout.”
“I got to hang out with my team all weekend.”
That stood out.
Because even at 12 and 13 years old, these athletes already understand something adults sometimes forget:
The moments people remember most usually involve other people.
We also asked what players had worked hardest to improve this season.
Pitching. Hitting. Mental approach. Mindset.
But what stood out wasn’t simply what they wanted to improve.
It was how they were working on it.
One player talked about spending more time hitting with their dad.
Another said they throw with their dad three times every week.
Others talked about lessons, additional practice, arm care, and continuing to put in work outside scheduled activities.
No shortcuts. No magic answers. No overnight success.
Just repetition.
Just effort.
Just continuing to show up.
There is something refreshing about hearing young athletes describe growth that way because those are lessons many adults spend years trying to learn.
That mindset is also one reason we are proud to have Rob Marconi investing his time into coaching.
Inside McRae, Rob helps lead financial strategy and organizational growth. Outside the office, he invests time into something equally important: helping young people grow through teamwork, accountability, discipline, and mentorship.
Because coaching at this age is not really about baseball.
It is about helping young people build confidence.
It is about teaching resilience after failure.
It is about helping kids learn how to support teammates and become dependable.
Those lessons stay with people much longer than a season does.
At McRae Enterprises, community involvement has never meant simply supporting something from a distance.
We believe stronger communities are built when people invest their time, leadership, and energy into the next generation.
We are proud of Rob.
We are proud of this team.
And judging by the walkout songs and mascot ideas, we are fairly confident there are a few future personalities worth keeping an eye on.
This season served as a reminder of something important:
The strongest things we build are not always projects.
Sometimes they are people.
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