Back to Summer 2010 Newsletter
Richard Rushforth, author of this guest view, is a graduate student in the University of Arizona’s soil water and environmental science program. He thanks the Water Resources Research Center for the opportunity to write this guest view and congratulates the WRRC for hosting a wonderful and stimulating conference on the topic of water and environmental leadership in Arizona.
I have to admit that as a Phoenician transplanted in Tucson I may take the Phoenix Suns a little too seriously. But, for me, Amar’e Stoudemire’s departure from my beloved Suns speaks to Arizona’s overall anemic condition, the plight of Arizona’s youth, and to the problems addressed by the Water Resources Research Center’s 2010 annual conference. Now, this is where I will have to ask you to take a leap of faith and allow me to tie together the extremely disparate worlds of NBA free agency and the future of leadership in Arizona.
Here goes nothing. Prior to the 2002 NBA Draft, Stoudemire was a case of raw basketball talent with questions surrounding his commitment and whether he could adapt to the nuances of the NBA game. However, the Phoenix Suns felt that due to his talent and his commitment to his family his potential upsides far outweighed the potential negatives and drafted him 9th overall. In the eyes of this fan, he has not, except in a few games, disappointed: NBA Rookie of the Year in 2003, All NBA First Team in 2007, and 5 time NBA All Star. (He even won an NBA Community Assist in 2008 for his work in providing safe drinking water and functioning wells to impoverished communities in Sierra Leone.) He played amazingly, even through injuries, coaching changes and an ill fated Shaq experiment. After eight years, given the chance to opt out of his contract, he did, and signed a maximum deal with the New York Knicks.
So how does this apply to the future of leadership in Arizona? Arizona’s youth are highly motivated, talented, and intelligent — we possess the raw talent necessary for strong leadership. Given the chance, however, we will opt out for a better deal in New York, in Los Angeles, in Chicago, in London, in Paris, or in Sydney. We do not like the direction in which the state is heading and we do not feel it is our responsibility to right its course. The feeling is simple: why should we invest in a system that never invested in us? Unlike the Phoenix Suns who took a chance on Stoudemire and invested in his future, we feel that Phoenix (the Legislature, in particular) has never taken a chance on us and has showed little interest in our educations or our future — the future of Arizona.
I am a product of the Arizona public school system (kindergarten though graduate school) and I have experienced firsthand the demotivating impact of what seems to be yearly education budget cuts and teacher layoffs. For the last decade, I have taken part in student sit ins and walkouts to protest teacher layoffs and massive budget cuts to no avail. We care about our education and our collective future, but feel no reciprocity. Why should we stay, if similar or better opportunities exist elsewhere? Mild winters and amazing sunsets only go so far. Let me ask you this: If you were a youth today, would you stay in Arizona given the same circumstances? Would you want to settle down and start a family here? My guess is probably not.
The WRRC 2010 Annual Conference hit surprisingly close to home. Soon I will graduate with a master’s degree in environmental science from the University of Arizona, and, to be completely honest, priority number one after graduation is getting out of Arizona as quickly as possible. I am not writing this to be polemical, but just to be completely honest. I could not agree more with the topic of the WRRC conference: it is imperative that we create new leadership for Arizona’s water and environment in a time of change. However, I am part of generation of young Arizonans spurned by the decisions of our elected officials to defund our educations, to defund our environment, and to defund our futures. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that we vote with our feet by heading abroad or to sunnier states, metaphorically speaking the brain drain is real. In my eyes, the reasons behind it are plainly evident.
However, I do not feel it is necessarily a bad phenomenon if we can re-attract our best and brightest after they have honed their skills elsewhere. Arizona is such a weird place (I mean this in the most academic way possible) that nascent professionals — private, public or academic — should spend the beginning of their careers elsewhere to appreciate and understand what Arizona is. This may not seem obvious, but I have found that if you say are from Arizona you immediately are asked, “What the hell are you guys doing there?” After fielding this question repeatedly, you begin to understand Arizona; the upsides, the downsides, and how great it can be. Not to belabor using the Suns as a metaphor for Arizona, but keep in mind that Steve Nash’s back to back NBA Most Valuable Player awards only came after returning from a 6 year stint in Dallas.
Therefore, the problem facing Arizona is not leadership creation per se, rather leadership retention and re-attraction. How do we create an Arizona that retains the future leaders created within the halls of its schools? How do we attract top students with strong leadership potential? We should ask ourselves these questions just as much as, if not more than, how we can create new leaders.