Owners of Eastside Golf Discuss Brotherhood and Opportunity

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00:00I'm Olajuan Ajanaku, Morehouse alum, also founder of Eastside Golf.

00:08I'm Earl Cooper, and I'm a proud Morehouse College alum.

00:11I am the CEO and co-founder of Eastside Golf, and we're here with Ebony.

00:16Right now we're in a Shopify space.

00:18It's our first ever pop-up in New York City, 131 Green Street, but we have a big business,

00:23but the majority is online.

00:25So we get an opportunity to shake people's hands.

00:27We get an opportunity for them just to meet us, and tell us how the apparel brand has

00:32impacted them.

00:33We want to meet the people, engage with them, that's why we have the golf option.

00:37We like brunch, so we wanted to have an elevated brunch experience, and now we're actually

00:41taking you to the golf course.

00:42Eastside Golf is a company I created.

00:44I wanted to turn pro in golf, couldn't find any sponsors, so basically I was like, why

00:48not take the entrepreneur route and sponsor myself, so I started a business.

00:52Right now we're 20 employees deep, and 11 sneaker collaborations, along with starting

00:57so many people in the game of golf for non-golfers, for non-traditional people, and for pro golfers

01:04as well.

01:05Honestly, golf raised me.

01:06I mean, from so many different aspects, like it's unfortunate, but my father, he wasn't

01:12there as much, I would say, in my teenage years, but I'm going to the golf course.

01:17You got all of these, I would say, so many positive influences.

01:20You got doctors, lawyers, judges, you got people you can learn from.

01:24They're out there at noon, during the week, they got to be doing something right, so learn

01:30from these people.

01:31Taking a game of golf and using it to further yourself, I mean, it's the best game for it.

01:36I joined a golf team, won a national championship in 2010 for Morehouse, and then after I won,

01:45it's just during that entire tenure, when I was there, I got so many people that just

01:50believed in me.

01:51Them showing the power in who I am, and my skin tone, and I would say non-tradition is,

01:57I mean, it helped me create Eastside Golf.

02:00And we grew up in an environment where neither one of us played golf.

02:02Like our parents didn't play, our friends didn't play, however, we played at a very

02:06high level.

02:07Going to college, you won a national championship at Morehouse College.

02:10From there I became a PGA pro, he turned pro.

02:13Didn't make it, ended up getting a job in finance, and one day he gets home, creates

02:17a logo, and I'm like, man, that's cool, you should put it on a t-shirt, and it is just

02:21absolutely blown up, and I just feel like we sit right in the middle of that.

02:24So we also want people to know that if you don't make it in pro, that you still have

02:28a career.

02:29Because that was my personal journey, you know, I wasn't the best golfer at Morehouse

02:32College.

02:33And so I was around good golfers, and I had relationships with them, but that wasn't me.

02:38But I still loved the game.

02:40And so for me to be able to figure out a way where I can still show up and be my true authentic

02:45self, it's just very important to me, because the percentage of people turning pros is very,

02:50very small.

02:51With our new campaign, Everyone's Game, we really genuinely want people to feel like

02:56you own a piece of this game, you know what I mean?

02:58What is a golfer?

02:59Before it would be like, oh, you have to have a handicap, and we're completely dismissing

03:02that notion.

03:03If you're someone that watches on Instagram, YouTube, whatever, TikTok, mini golf, Topgolf,

03:08whatever it may be, we don't want you to define a golfer in one way.

03:13Morehouse more put into my mind that we belong in all spaces.

03:18That's what Morehouse has taught me.

03:19That's what Eastside Golf has taught me.

03:21The more we're authentic, and we show people that this game is for them, the more it grows.

03:26It's incredible just to see black men just infiltrating a space that we weren't in before,

03:32and really taking it to new levels, doing things with Morehouse, and making sure that

03:36other young black men understand that golf is a tool to advance themselves, to get further

03:41in life.

03:42When people see us wearing the Eastside, they know that we're serious golfers, and we love

03:46golfing, and that's thanks to Earl and Elijah Juan.

03:49It's kind of taken over culturally, and I feel like that's kind of where golf is.

03:55So many different people are playing golf in the black and brown community, and we have

04:00our logo to represent us.

04:01Y'all see the swag at Eastside Golf, the logo?

04:04I mean, I think the logo's so strong and so powerful, having a black character, a black

04:09figure as the logo, swinging the golf club, with the culture of a black man, swinging

04:14the chain, the outfit, the baggy denim.

04:17This logo, it can be as global as they want it to be.

04:20I was just talking to the young man outside of our pop-up, just like, I know you guys

04:27see what I'm doing, but hopefully you have the same intention, and you're doing this

04:33when you graduate, you know?

04:34Definitely work on yourself as much as you can, but when you get to the point where you

04:38can help somebody, always give back.

04:40I wish I had somebody like me when I was in college, you know?

04:44So that's my whole goal, to be that somebody for them, to be that somebody for Earl, you

04:50know, and to be that somebody for the golf world that needs it.

04:54Golf has been missing something for a very long time.

04:57I mean, I've been wanting to see certain things change for so long, why not just be that?

05:02Lajuan and I, we go in a lot of corporate rooms, and they're always like, man, we love

05:06you guys, we need more of you, and we're like, well, there's this place in Georgia called

05:10Morehouse College that has so many young men, and we not only talk about it, but we lead

05:14by action, and I'm proud to say that we've given back over a quarter of a million dollars

05:19back to our alma mater, and especially as companies are looking to diversify, they look

05:23at HBCUs, and I'm like, look, this is another tool in your toolkit, you know, especially

05:28working on Wall Street, working at these big corporations, it's a big opportunity when

05:32golf comes up.

05:33You can't go to your CEO and say, hey, or your boss, hey, I want to spend four hours

05:37with you, but you can go to them and say, hey, I want to go play golf, and it'll unlock

05:40so many other things.

05:42For those kids to see us, and we build relationships with them, so it's not always about what scores

05:47they're shooting on the golf course, they intern in our office, they get an opportunity

05:50to meet all of our, you know, celebrity friends, and just network with so many different people.

05:56It's just been incredible, and I feel like we're just showing what's possible, and I'm

05:59sure on campus, people are referencing to what we do, and it's just giving them the

06:04inspiration and saying, you know what, I made the right decision by attending an HBCU.

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