Meet Reggie Lynch

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Reggie Lynch a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Reggie, so excited to talk about all sorts of important topics with you today. The first one we want to jump into is about being the only one in the room – for some that’s being the only person of color or the only non-native English speaker or the only non-MBA, etc Can you talk to us about how you have managed to be successful even when you were the only one in the room that looked like you?

Being a six foot ten inch tall mixed race guy with funky hair, I have always been unique and interesting person. Not only my appearance and stature is unique, so it my background. I am half white and half black, but I am one of the rare ones-I have a black mom and a white dad . I admittedly have only seen one other person in my life who has a black mom and a white dad, usually when I see someone who is mixed, they have black dads and white moms. Diving into my mother’s side of the family, my mother was born and raised in Harlem, New York City, which is an extremely unique place to have a parent from. My mother’s New York City roots and personality shines through and made me into a much more cultured person than a lot of other people from Minnesota. On top of that, My father’s side of the family and their basketball oriented roots greatly shaped me as well. Put my six foot two inch tall black New York City mother, and my six foot five inch tall basketball loving father together and you get me. Now who am I?. I can spend hours and hours, diving into how I grew up in Edina, Minnesota which meant that I was one of only five black students in my 900 person graduating class. I can spend hours about being the only student who was only half black out of those five black students- which also makes you different. And I can spend many more hours about growing up being the tallest person in every room I was in my entire life. But what I will tell you in better detail is that I was kid who grew into a man, and along the way I faced a the challenge of living up to a dream that I had my entire life, and that dream was to become a professional basketball player. With that dream being on my mind ever since I was five years old, it was very daunting that I was not particularly good at basketball until I got my much older. You probably have heard of many NBA players whose biographies include them being a Phenom ever since they were little, but that was not the case for me. I was cut from my 5th grade basketball team, not exactly a strong start to my journey. That was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. But by no means was I going to give up. Each year that followed would become a slight improvement over the previous year. when I hit 6th grade I finally made the team, but it was the C team. I was happy to finally be on a team, but I was not ready to think I had reached my ceiling. However it was this year when I realized I had a very special skill that no one else really had, and that was my shot blocking. 7th grade arrives, and I make the B team. At this point I am starting to get a grasp on understanding I am getting better at the game, but I really badly wanted to be in the best possible company I could be in. I was determined to make the A team which was the highest level you could reach before High School starts to really weave out the competition. I had one more year left, and I would not fail. 8th grade was here, and during try outs I was feeling confident, but at the same time a little nervous. This was my last chance to make the A team, and I made it!. Once I made the A team I knew I could be on a possible trajectory to actually reach my dream. The next year I made the freshman team, the next year I was half sophomore and half JV, and finally for my final 2 years of Highschool I was a full time Varsity starter at Edina Highschool who was a part of one of the best basketball teams in our schools history. being from Minnesota, most of our schools are known for being hockey schools-especially Edina. However my senior year was finally the year where we put the Edina Basketball on the map, and we made it to the state tournament for the first time in 30 years. As offers from colleges at the Division I level came in, I realized that I was getting much closer to fulfilling my dream. I chose to play basketball at Illinois State University where I continued to excel and progress as a player. After 2 years at Illinois state I had received an offer from my hometown college. The University of Minnesota offered me, and I accepted. I transferred to the biggest college in the state and just 10 minutes from my family which was an amazing accomplishment for me, the tall kid who got cut from his 5th grade team. At UMN I excelled even more and was named BIG TEN conference Defensive Player of the year. My amazing ability to block shots helped me earn the award, as well as helped me set the all time record for most block in a season at the school. Following my senior year at UMN, I received my first offer from a professional team!. I fulfilled my dream!. The amount of adversity that was faced to reach the goal I set for myself since I was 5 years old is something I am extremely proud of myself to have overcome. And now, I have played 7 years professionally in countries that include, Estonia, Italy, Russia, Greece, Germany, Lithuania, Israel Mexico, and Poland. I have learned and explore so much in the world that my New York City rooted mother gave me the skills to do. So when you ask me the question, how have I learned to be effective and successful when I am the only one in the room, I have always felt like I have been the only one in the room. I have been unique my whole life and have overcome and seen so much. I am ready to take on any challenge, ready to experience new things, I don’t get fazed, I don’t get anxious, or overwhelmed. I just charge forward, with a smile and a good attitude. And If I am going to give anybody a special shout out, it goes to my mother, and in recent years- my wife.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I consider myself to have always been different from anyone. Of course every individual person is unique in their own way, but when it comes to me, we are talking real differences here. Being mixed half white and half black and when you grow up playing basketball at Edina Public Schools- you are blacker than everyone else. When you play basketball for the summer AAU programs, you are whiter than everyone else. Also I have always been the tallest person on every basketball team I have ever played for which is always great for the court, but it might get you stand at when you have an afro in the classroom and walking around a public mall. That being said, I have always embraced my uniqueness and that fact that I am so different from the rest. I haven’t always loved it, but I embraced it. Now that I am an adult, I absolutely love that there is no one like me!. Very similarly to my level of uniqueness from my appearance- comes one special skill that I developed naturally on the basketball court that is equally unique, my shot blocking ability. when I was young I wasn’t always good at basketball, but I was always good at blocking shots. When I got older and better at basketball, I was even better at blocking shots. When I became I varsity basketball player, I set the Edina High School record for blocking shots. When I played In college I won Awards for blocking shots. And now as a professional basketball player, I am ranked as one of, if not the best shot blocker in the world!. It was just 3 years ago when I had the idea to start a clothing brand based around this idea of blocking shots. In the world of basketball there is so much love given to those who are flashy on offense. Stephen Curry and his three point shooting, LeBron James and his dunks, Kyrie Irving and his lay ups, James Harden and his step backs. I started to think, “where is the love for defense?”. Everyone who plays basketball loves to get a dunk in a game, and that is great and all. But one of things I love to do on the basketball court during a game is block a dunk!. Nothing gives me more joy than stopping one of the things that the opposing teams want to do. I have always been a defensive minded player, and teams all of the world have signed me for that very skill. I decided to create a clothing brand based off of this idea. And 2 and a half years ago I created a logo, found a manufacturer, and started a website and created my idea- BLOCK NATION. BLOCK NATION is the Athleisure brand design and created for the art and love of shot blocking. I started off by designing T-Shirts and Performance socks as the first products. Being a professional basketball player mainly in Europe I figured to give the shirts and socks to my teammates for free, and sell to the fans who would come to the games and support my respective teams. So far they have been sold to basketball fans in Israel, and in Poland, and I have partnered with the Mens Luxury Clothing Store “Rojo’s” located in Excelsior, Minnesota to sell BLOCKNATION in my home state. I plan to expand BLOCKNATION into something more than just a basketball shot blocking brand, this includes volleyball shirts, new messages and fun logos that reach a broader audience, and to expand the brand into either a camp of basketball program. In my opinion we are just getting started and the sky is the limit. One major new T-Shirt design I made was the addition of the “BLOCK THE HATE” Version of my T-Shirts that was inspired by all the the hate I witnessed during my time in Israel during October 7th, as well as when I was witness to everything that happen surrounding the murder of George Floyd 10 minutes from my home in Minnesota. This T-Shirt was created to help spread the word of peace and love, and the-shirt has been a very popular item we have sold. I plan to make more like this.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

One of the skill I definitely had was my uniqueness and ability to embrace being defferant. by being different you can easily navigate your journey without worry of wether you think you are perceive only for doing so, and just charge forward.

An interesting area of knowledge I had was having an amazing mother from an amazing background, being that she was essentially a single mother for a long period of my life, she thought me a lot about being independent and having a great attitude about the world, her love of literature, movies, politics, zodiac signs, and being confrontational as opposed to being timid and passive aggressive like some stereotypical Minnesotans- made me into the person I am today. I love to travel and experience new cultures, and I love to immerse myself and invest in all things that I do. All these things helped me start and are helping me continue my journey with BLOCKNATION. I think my mother’s knowledge helped form this mindset for me.

Lastly one quality that I have is based off of my zodiac Sign. I am a Sagittarius, and one of the qualities we have is that we have energy, and most importantly, we are persistent. My persistence and insistence that I continue down whatever path I choose to focus on makes me was to complete so many tasks and one time, and although I may bite off more than I can chew, I will eventually chew it all, and maybe even take more bites of new things while I do so. Im never sitting still and I always not he move and wanting to make the next thing happen. I think these qualities have taken me on many interesting journeys and with lead me down many paths towards success.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

One challenge that I am currently facing is one that every living persons parents have faced in history. My wife and I are due to have a baby in exactly one month from the day I am typing this. I am nervous but I am excited. I am terrified but I am overjoyed. The feeling that I have for this wonderful development cannot be overstated. With my wife being a nurse manager back in Minnesota and me being a professional basketball player who spends 9 months out of every year abroad and away from family, this baby development is going to shake things up quite a bit. At the same time I am working to expand and build up BLOCKNATION and grow the business. How will this baby affect this? I have no idea. But just like I stated before, I will not be backing down from any challenge, I live for taking on a new challenge, and as far as I am concerned, becoming a dad may become the most rewarding challenge you can ask for. I have been thinking to myself “Am I ready for this?” and the answer I give is “is ANYONE really ready for this?”. I cannot wait for the little one to arrive.

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