- Coming up, we'll run the bases at the Howard School, we'll learn how two small businesses are impacted by the pandemic.

And, we'll meet a blues musician living out his family heritage.

That's all coming up on Greater Chattanooga.

Funding for this broadcast of Greater Chattanooga is provided by EPB Fiber Optics.

(upbeat country music) Hi, I'm Briana Garza, your guide to stories that make us stronger, happier, and more aware as a community.

Welcome to Greater Chattanooga.

Here at the Howard School, a group of student athletes dreamed of a baseball field they could be proud of.

It's time to root for the home team.

(fast music) (crowd cheering) (fast music continues) (bat hitting ball) - When I was in ninth grade, I would say I played for Howard baseball, they was like, "Oh, they got a program?"

It shocked them.

- Send it the back to the pitcher big dawg.

- Practice, it was light on organized.

We just, we'd come to the field.

We didn't have enough people to practice.

It was just all over the place.

- Every day you got a chance of getting smacked because it's so many big rocks in the ground, when you hitting the ground ball it might just pop up at anytime.

Other coaches bring in their players, and saying how the field was.

It was slick, embarrassing, you know, can't even play our own home game because your field looks amiss.

When I came to Howard, it was just a sport they played just to do.

So it wasn't, they didn't take it as serious.

So we felt like we're good enough.

We just need other players who's willing to commit, and a coach who's willing to invest in us.

And we came up on Coach Johnson, luckily.

- Have fun and what?

- Encouraged.

- Be encouraged, encourage each other, encourage yourself.

The most important person you're going to talk to is yourself today.

- When I was 16 years old, I remember having a conversation with my friend on the front porch and he asked me, "what do you want to do after high school?"

I didn't know, but I knew I wanted to make a difference in the lives of people, and I wanted to just make a difference in the lives of youth, and people had, a lot of coaches invested in me.

That made a significant difference, and I wanted to do the same for others.

And, you know, saw Howard High School as a place also that needed a baseball program to be revived and start a field, so perfect match.

Typically when people think of Howard athletics, Reggie White is probably the first name that comes up.

We have a great history of, of our football program and basketball as well.

You know, great, great athletes in basketball.

And I thought, why not baseball?

(upbeat music) Starting a baseball field from scratch was the most difficult thing I've ever done, but the most exhilarating.

Think about this, if you don't have a field, you can't practice.

You can throw, you might be able to do some type of hitting, but you don't, you don't really have a way to do practice.

It's like trying to play basketball without a hoop.

You got to first understand the dimensions to then have the practice.

So yeah, it was, we, we we'd practice for a little bit, then we'd work.

- (whistles) Man.

It was, it was crazy.

- The first year was a shovel in one hand and then a bat in the other.

Okay.

So we go take BP and then we'd go get a shovel or a rake.

- We used all type of tools.

I got introduced to like three different tools when we first started on the field.

- [Coach Johnson] Show up around eight o'clock in the morning on Saturday and we'd go most days till it was dark.

And then on Sunday, I'd go to church in the morning and then meet the boys down here and we'd eat and we'd get to work.

- Going to go get gravel and stuff like that, or just bringing mulch and stuff like that.

(indistinct) grass to lay down, everything we did by hand our first year, like no machinery or nothing like that.

It just, the want to do it.

- Hit me on up.

- [Camera Operator] I got you, close your eyes.

(laughs) (cling, cling, cling) - No one that's going to help you today, know you want to be helped.

You know, and us being out here every day, even on the weekends, giving up our weekend as teenagers, you know, that really just showed oh yeah, they really want it.

So let's, let's help these kids as much as we can.

- The Chattanooga community is incredibly generous and it was an incredible experience for me to see that we are not alone in this.

There are literally hundreds of people supporting us with their time, their investment of money and their energy.

- Probably 90% everything, 80% of everything you see is done, was done by volunteers.

- [Coach Johnson] - And they want us to be successful to, to be able to have a field and a place for these, these boys to play and have something to do after school.

- And once we got that, that's when, like when we had our first practice on the field, that was, that was safe practice.

You was able to slide without having to worry about getting cut or something like that.

That's when I felt like, yeah, we done it.

We really did.

- It was fun to see those guys just jump in and say, well, let's give it a try.

Let's, let's try something different.

- And you're just not going to win overnight.

It's going to practice.

It's going to take long nights.

- The more people see going on, the more they come, and then the more they get involved.

- Getting used to the program changing, everyone's starting to catch on to the winner's mentality and stuff like that.

- (clapping) Let's go!

Let's go!

- I feel like we did pretty good.

Like I seen the progression over time that I wanted so long ago, I just had to wait for it.

We had to work for it.

- Athletics is not just about throwing, catching, hitting and shooting the basketball, running in for a touchdown.

It's what happens inside.

The character that's developed, the discipline that's instilled, the comradery.

I mean, there's, this is going to scale at a level to where our entire community gets better as we learn these skills at a younger age, to now, I can be successful long-term.

When you wear Howard baseball, you know the expectations are high and there's going to be care, there's going to be love.

And if you go one for four on the day or two for four, you know, that's not bad in baseball.

And it's really a sport where you have to understand how to overcome failure, which translates into so many areas in life.

The perseverance, the grit and the stick to it-ness of not giving up before something is fully realized.

There's also a pride in, you know anything worthwhile is going to require a ton of work.

- [Team] Let's go, let's go, let's go!

Baby let's go!

Howard on three.

One two three.

Tigers!

Have a day, have a day, let's go!

- We have 19 players currently.

I think that what happens when you are in a program and there's expectations and standards is people start to meet those standards and start to understand that here's the line, and if you're going to be here this is what you've got to do.

(cheering) (clapping) - You win boys, get down right there, good work!

(clapping) - [Team Member] Yeah!

- First time we've ever won a district game at our place, and first time we have ever hosted.

It's just phenomenal to be able to see that the hard work eventually will pay off.

And that's what I keep telling them, that guys keep working and eventually it's going to cap the culmination of a win or two, and we won six games this year, so far.

And my first year we won one, second year, we won two.

Third year we won six.

- [Coach] Tigers on three, tigers on three.

One, two, three, - [Team] Tigers!

- Howard is a part of me, my family went here.

I went here.

And then just having the, just knowing that I helped contribute to this, I wanna, I'm gonna, I will always be here.

For that first, the first inning No matter how old you get, those players from that year is, is like we're brothers.

We still talk to this day, even though it's been four years, you know, but I, every day I drive past it, like with a smile on my face, like, yeah, I helped create that.

Not nothing selfish just, something that I know that can help the ones after me.

You know.

- The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on small businesses in the Tennessee Valley.

Some have been forced to close.

Others are barely hanging on and some have found new opportunities.

Let's take a look at how the pandemic has affected two local, small businesses in very different ways.

(soothing music) - I became a housekeeper when I became a single mom, I couldn't pay my rent even with government assistance.

So I, a few my friends called me up, said, "Hey, do you need some extra money?".

Two weeks later, I quit my job and I haven't looked back since, it's been six years.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I had a company called EcoChoice, and our main focus was livable wages and eco-friendly practices.

2020 started great, I, we were hitting record customers.

Not long after the new year, I hired a new employee.

So there were three of us.

Everything was great, we were riding high.

- Mayor Andy Berke also declared a state of emergency today for the city of Chattanooga.

- He says, this is to figure out an appropriate response as Hamilton county now deals with its first case.

- You had shut down pretty much everybody except the essentials, and the essentials were very narrow.

So how do you balance between a pandemic and how do you do this safely?

And also, how do you feed your family?

- I made a lot of phone calls.

I called all my clients that I could get ahold of or texted with them, asked them for their opinion on what to do when the lockdown started.

I called the health department.

They could not tell me where I fell in.

I talked to nurses, I talked to doctors, I even talked to a microbiologist, and made the decision to suspend all services.

- Having to close, re-open, maybe close again.

It has such an impact on the employees, not to, you know, not just the business owner, but the employees of that business.

Almost 70% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

So now they're shut down with very little warning for two weeks or three weeks.

That can be make or break.

(soothing music) There have been businesses who have grown during this time.

And, and then your growth is not easy.

Growth is expensive.

You've got to grow right, or you'll grow yourself out of business.

But we're, we're seeing a number of our clients grow through this pandemic and they're growing because they are pivoting, or they are looking at additional ways to do business.

- We had to figure out how, how can we sort of stagger this startup?

So instead of doing a grand opening with live shows and record sales in the tattoo shop, and a full service coffee bar, and all these things that we wanted to do.

We just said well, let's eat the elephant one bite at a time.

You know, we can sell records right now.

That's something we can do.

So let's focus all our efforts there in spite of the pandemic.

If we can stay on track, then I think we have a chance.

- Having hard conversations with some businesses that, they, they're not going to be able to continue.

And how do you have that hard conversation around, it may, now may be the time that you just shut it down.

- I can't remember any one given moment where, you know, I knew that I wasn't going to go back to having employees and doing that, that I needed to focus my life.

It's really been more of a gradual realization because I haven't known what to do.

Just this an almost this entire year, I've just felt so incredibly lost.

And that was my idea with gaining employees, is I wanted them to have that financial independence.

I wanted them to experience the sense of community that it gave me.

And then realizing when lockdown hit that I couldn't do anything for them.

I was powerless.

- Because a business fails does not mean the person is a failure.

It may be the right idea, it may be the wrong time.

It may be the wrong circumstance.

- I had investors who were like, hey, there's no shame in calling it quits.

Like there's, it's okay, don't worry about the money.

But I just couldn't, I didn't feel like I could get up every morning and like look in the mirror and have, you know, just like lost, lost everything and lost it all, and just gone back to work in an office job five days a week.

Anything that could damage you was an opportunity to just become better and become stronger.

That being said, we're still in an incredibly precarious position and it, it has not been easy.

In fact, I'd say this has been one of the hardest years of my life.

I just got home from the rapid testing facility in Lookout Valley and I do have COVID.

I am going to be in quarantine for the next 10 days, which means that we are closed until further notice.

- It has been difficult for especially those, who may have not been in the best of shape to begin with.

But even for businesses that have been vibrant, having to shut down has, has been very difficult.

- Only about 10% of our business is online.

And so, you know, that was the, the worst week of sales that we've had to date.

Now the following week, when we finally got to reopen our doors is one of the best weeks we've ever had because people were so glad just to be able to walk through the door again.

And, you know, if it hadn't happened just after the holidays, when we were still kind of riding the, the season, the holiday season wave, I don't know if we would have had the financial stability to survive that break because it was so touch and go.

I feel a strong sense of optimism every week.

It feels like, you know, business is doing a little better, or at least month to month, it's not like flipping a switch.

So I guess I'm cautiously optimistic.

- For six years I knew, I had a plan.

I knew exactly what I was doing, I knew the process, I had goals.

And I think with everything that happened, I completely lost all sight of that.

I'm comfortable in how things have turned out.

But I think that's something that I've still questioned.

You know, I think that's a lot of what leads to the indecision that I have been really struggling with, is I don't know if that was the right choice.

I do know that I protected people and that has to be enough.

After everything last year, I have found the gardening, which I've always loved, but in this time it has been the most healing process, you know, seeing gardens getting created, people coming together again and, and starting to move forward.

I think it gives us hope, you know, after a really dark year of not a whole lot of hope.

Yeah.

I think it's, it's, it's finding that that hope again.

(flowing water) - Born into a musical family, blues musician, Rick Rushing has forged his own path to the music profession.

He's sharing his passion through musical education and he's become a staple of the Chattanooga music scene.

(Blues music) - With Rick, what I really enjoy playing with him, is kind of getting back to the roots of, of how I learned to appreciate music, like with classic rock, with blues, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin.

We play all that stuff, and it, it just really kind of makes me feel like a kid again.

(blues music) - It's kind of one of those nice balances that Rick has, all his music, you can hear that it's him.

You can hear where he's doing his own thing.

You can definitely hear some very modern touches some places but there's not a single tune of his where you can't also hear the roots of the blues.

(blues music) (slow music) - Growing up was, it was interesting.

I grew up in Cincinnati, so pretty much we were the only African-American family in a, in a white neighborhood.

We always had a house full of soul, and good music.

Rushing is my last name, Jimmy Rushing is an uncle, a great uncle of mine, who sang with Count Basie and Jelly Roll Morton and Dave Brubeck.

The schools I went to always were heavily arts driven.

So I got exposure to the arts at a very early age.

I played basketball, so I was able to travel.

I figured I had an advantage being uh taller.

I ended up moving to California, Los Angeles.

White Men Can't Jump was one of the movies I saw when I was a kid.

That imagery always just stuck with me.

And so I, you know, really, I said I have to just go out there and try to recreate that.

I was in Los Angeles on Venice beach.

We'd just got done playing five on five full court, and there's this acoustic guitar, just no one around it on the bleachers.

You know, it just had this glow to it.

So I picked it up, and I, you know, janked some chords, and everyone laughed at me.

Thankfully that guitar left a lasting impression on me.

And when I moved to Tennessee, I developed that with my teachers.

You know, the first thing I learned was one, four or five blues.

And then if you could play that in G you can play it in F sharp, you can play it everywhere.

But then it did also have the feeling of it, you know, the basketball blues, the California blues, the Cincinnati blues and the Zuri blues, or you just, I guess, got lost in it in a good creative way where we would just keep jamming.

We would just keep playing and get it out.

(slow blues music) - Rick Rushing and the Blues Strangers started probably around 2008.

Over at the Mudpie in North Chattanooga, it was just three piece.

Thankfully, I've got a keyboard player now who's phenomenal, Jake Evit, and got a phenomenal bass player, Alex Harper, and a phenomenal drummer, Josh Carlisle.

- Rick was one of the first ones to, to give me that encouragement that I needed to, to think in my own mind that maybe this is something I can actually do that I am decent at.

And, and he, he sees that potential in people.

(band playing) - Rick's a very strong band leader.

I think he's really underrated in that respect and also really good stage stagecraft.

He's very good about connecting with an audience.

- One thing I'll say about Rick though, one of the coolest things about him, he's, he's full of surprises.

Like he could walk into a restaurant and there's a little dog, and he says hello to the dog.

And he pulls a treat out of his backpack.

He's got dog treats on him all the time.

It's crazy.

- (laughing) - He's kind of always got something up his sleeve and that's what you want in a band leader.

That's what you want in a person, to just be prepared and have something for you when you're least expecting it.

(jazz music) - Embracing your heritage means using what your ancestors left you to make your life better.

And so that inheritance to me was blues, my voice to guitar.

Overall, the blues is the base of Western culture and music.

Everything musically really comes from the blues.

Any song you're hearing, will more than likely have a one, four and a five in it.

And that's, and that's the blues.

(blues music) - It's just universal.

It's a base that you can lay any emotion, any expression, and any inspiration on top of.

- It's a very unpretentious form, you know, there's standards, but you can play with it and have it do your own thing.

And honestly, that, that Rick's music is blue space, it's one of the things that's always made playing with him just fun and easy.

You know, picking up the songs, they always have one foot in the past, but he's doing his own thing with them.

You can't really separate it from the past.

You kind of always have to have one foot in the roots of that music.

- Of every song, basically every blues song, has essentially the exact same structure.

They all have so much difference and so much feeling that you can pour into it.

And it's because of how it came up like real oppression and real emotion, where that music means something.

(blues music) - It's African-American you know, it's African-American heritage.

I feel like it was an honor to know how to play that, that style of music and embrace my inheritance.

(guitar notes) The best thing about the blues is that it's, it's foundational, but then it's also educational.

[Female Guitar Player] - I really like the blues.

I just like how it sounds and the rhythm and stuff.

It's fun to play.

And I really like how um, how um, it expresses how, how you feel and how you think.

(guitar notes) - Better.

Kids involved in musical programs graduate at a higher rate than kids who are not.

It gives them a sense of belonging as well, social interaction.

And so anytime that musical element is brought into a child's life, then it's going to give them the ability to play and create.

- If you have a question, he'll give you like a whole history lesson about how it, how it works.

And I really like that.

(guitar playing) Like he asked me, do I know certain blues artists?

And I'm like, oh no, I don't.

I don't, I've never heard of them.

And he whips out a CD.

- It's not completely lost because there are a lot of blues artists out there who are giving back and they're doing, they're just putting blues in school and giving kids instruments and helping, helping kids, you know, accept that inheritance or play that music, that specific style.

So by teaching the music, is really why I'm passing it on.

- (guitar playing) - [Female Guitar Player] Whoops!

- What I'm doing is, I'm going to say, yo, I'm going to keep pushing on this.

And hopefully I'll be able to leave something.

So people will say, that's my inheritance, you know.

That's, that's the music that my ancestors created.

(guitar strum) - We hope you enjoyed this episode of Greater Chattanooga.

Please visit our website to connect with us and the series.

You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

I'm Briana Garza.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) Funding for this broadcast of Greater Chattanooga is provided by EPB Fiber Optics.

- Get on demand access to even more of the shows you love, with WTCI Passport.