PAULSBORO – Reflecting on his time as a child watching his father’s performances as a singer, Dr. Robert “Bobby” Hammond noted, “The most successful entertainers are always the most engaging.”
Engagement is not only a topic that Dr. Hammond incorporates into his teaching as an adjunct business professor at Camden County College, but a skill he honed during his career as a NFL running back and assistant coach for the Philadelphia Eagles.
The former New York Giants and Washington Redskins player visited students in grades four through eight at Guardian Angels Regional School on Dec. 12 to discuss the pillars of success. He opened the conversation by asking, “How can you be successful?” More specifically, he added, “What are the ingredients of a successful person?”
Introducing the concept of attributes, or characteristics, of successful people, he volunteered “discipline” as one possible answer.
“What does discipline mean to you?” he asked, beckoning to a shy fifth-grader amongst the crowd.
“Following directions,” the boy responded softly.
“Absolutely!” Dr. Hammond said, adding, “But it is more than that. You must put yourself on a program and commit yourself to it. Do your homework. Get plenty of sleep.”
As he continued to ask for more qualities, more and more hands shot up; he continued to expand on the students’ answers with his own life experiences. In-between responses, he laughed, saying, “Wow! You guys are better than my college students.”
Another characteristic Dr. Hammond discussed was faith. “Stand for something, or you will fall for anything.”
Successful people “have faith. They have spirit,” he said, adding, “Someday, you will be alone. People will try to tell you [that] you will never find success. You might even be afraid to seek it. If you believe in a higher order, that faith will be your light.”
Adding another ingredient to success, Dr. Hammond shared about the importance of role models, adding that his most prominent role models were his parents.
“They embodied what it meant to work hard,” he said, explaining that they taught him this lesson at a young age. “They always had me doing chores!”
He continued, “Success starts in the home. Do not take your parents for granted.”
He rounded out his talk by introducing the final ingredient to success: personal development.
“Compile a list of goals you want to achieve, and figure out how to get there,” Dr. Hammond said. “When you boil it down, passion drives your success. … Find something you are passionate about and pursue it.”
Dr. Hammond urged the students to take the day’s lessons and think about them going forward. “Put those ingredients to work in your everyday lives, even if in the smallest ways possible,” he said.
Brooke McCafferty, an eighth-grade student, was already starting to contemplate Dr. Hammond’s talk. She said she enjoyed what he had to say about attitude.
“The part that stuck out to me the most was having a growth mindset,” she said, “That we have the ability to grow our minds.”
In a conversation with Sister Jerilyn Einstein, FMIJ, the school’s principal and a close friend of Dr. Hammond’s family, Dr. Hammond mentioned that the topic of his presentation truly stemmed from his own life experience.
“Passion for education drove me to pursue a doctorate,” he told her. That same passion is the key to his students’ success in his classroom. By investing in himself, he has been better able to facilitate learning to his students and enrich their lives, he said.
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