The Believer

Rick Metzger challenges himself and others to be the best

Rick Metzger is a believer-in the FFA, in oung people and himself. From' professional sports to the business world, this 28-year-old has proven that helping people and having a positive mental attitude are some of the most powerful tools a young person can use.

Rick is currently president of the 29,000-member National FFA Alumni Association. He travels the country giving leadership workshops, speaking at state alumni conventions and FFA banquets and raising funds for the FFA Foundation. In addition to his leadership position with the Alumni, he also serves on the National FFA Foundation Sponsoring Committee, the Ohio FFA Alumni Council and is chairman of the Ohio FFA Foundation Sponsoring Committee.

Woody Cox, executive director of the National FFA Alumni Association. says even though Rick is one of the youngest presidents the organization has had. he is one of the best. "To be a leader, you have to be self-motivated and very organized. a good manager. Rick has both traits. He is very enthusiastic and is a great speaker," Cox remarks.

Rick supports his leadership activities with a full-time job as director of sales and marketing for Seedex Distributors, Inc., a lawn and garden wholesale company. He also serves as strength coach for the Anthony Wayne High School varsity football team and is assistant manager of a skating rink during the winter.

"People ask,' What do you do for fun'?' Well, this is my idea of fun - going to speaking engagement or an FFA banquet, going out and raising money for young people and the FFA - that's my idea of enjoyment.

Dr. Earl Kantner, executive secretary of the Ohio FFA Foundation, has worked with Rick since his state officer days in Ohio in 1978-79.

"He's certainly one of the young people I've worked with who is still so dedicated to the FFA program and vocational agriculture, and is willing to do everything he can to help that," Dr. Kantner says.

Of all of Rick's accomplishments, he is proudest of his success in the context of something he didn't do - go to college. "I had teachers and employers who told me I wouldn't succeed in business and in life. I have set out to prove them wrong and in my eyes I have done it."

However, Rick is not against students attending college. He says many young people need those years to explore their options and find out what they want to do. He chose to jump into his future headfirst, though.

"The only person who really believed that I could make it on my own without a college degree was my vo-ag teacher, Bernard Scott," Rick says. "He gave me the optimistic outlook on life. No matter how bad things get, there's always something good about it. I learned to live by that and I still do."

The optimistic attitude has also been applied to Rick's love of sports. He has been involved with professional softball, track and football, the latter with the USFL Michigan Panthers. "It was a dream come true to be involved with professional athletics," he says. "But I realized I could not make a full-time career out of it and make a living."

However, his football playing put a short-term hold on his present career and activities last year. Two vertebra in Rick's neck were cracked, a result from the years of pounding taken in football. He suffered a mild stroke and was hospitalized for almost a month. Doctors said he should have been hospitalized for two to three months. Rick attributes his quick recovery to his strong mental attitude.

Competition still draws him to sports as a hobby, though. "My idea of having a good time is giving 110 percent and giving the best performance possible,' he says. "If I go out and only give 80 percent I feel miserable because I wasn't the competitive person that I should have been."

Rick's strategy is to mentally see himself accomplishing his goals before he sets out to reach them.

"I'm capable of hitting a softball over a 325-foot fence. Every time before I go to the plate. I picture every move I'm going to make-how my feet are going to move, how my arms are going to move — everything."

His weight-lifting provides another example. Last summer at the state presidents' conference in Washington D.C., Rick bench pressed a personal goal of 400 pounds. "I thought I would stop after 400," he said. But those who know him thought otherwise. Rick didn't stop. This spring he lifted 505 pounds, and now hopes to continue increasing.

His power of concentration and vision of what he is about to do are more important than his 230 pounds of strength, he believes. "All I see when I'm lifting is the bar coming off the rack, coming down and hitting my chest and pushing it back up."

His life is patterned after these principles. "I picture myself doing what I want to accomplish and how I want to do it," he says. Never one to look back, he always has his future in sight. "I look forward to the things I'm going to accomplish tomorrow, next week, next month, next year and 10 years from now.

"Someday I would eventually like to own my own retail outlet in the lawn and garden business. I would also like to get into public relations more so than I am now and work with motivational-type seminars, " he says. "I really don't believe there is anything in this world I can't accomplish if I set my mind to it."

Alumni Director Cox says,"Rick, through his athletic leadership in addition to his FFA background and his agricultural leadership has a lot of very positive things to offer young people."

Rick wasn't always so optimistic, though. "There was a time I had it in my mind that there wasn't much in the FFA for me to do because I wasn't good enough at any one thing to win," he says. His discouragement came from trying everything from the FFA Creed contest to proficiency awards and judging contests with little success in the Otsego, Ohio FFA Chapter.

However, that attitude turned around when, as a young FFA member, he heard the state president of Ohio give his retiring address . "That sparked me to set myself on the proper path and for what I wanted." That night, he set goals to be the state public speaking winner, a state officer, a national officer and earn his American Farmer Degree.

He reached every goal except becoming a national FFA officer. Though he fell short, Rick sees it as a positive experience. "People always ask me what it felt like to be beaten for national office. To me I was never beaten - I made six people be better than I was." At that point, he didn't dream that his goal would later be reached as a national officer of the alumni.

Rick sees the Alumni organization as a support group for the FFA and vocational agriculture program, much like a band or athletic boosters club. A large function of the Alumni involves helping agriculture teachers with specialized areas of instruction. "There are people who are experts in their fields who can go back and help the ag teacher," he says. This could provide students with benefits such as computer instruction and better judging team preparation.

Rick will continue to work with the Alumni and FFA members after his president's term, always looking for more opportunities to help. He wants to change the public's attitude toward youth, and tries to project a positive image of agriculture and young people to everyone.

A reporter recently cornered Rick and asked him just what was so good about young people these days. Rick replied with an invitation to the 1988 National FFA Convention. "You have to experience 23,000 young people in an auditorium, screaming with enthusiasm," Rick says. "I got the strangest feeling that the reporter might be in Kansas City this November."