This Is My Playbook

The first women of colour to represent Italy in Volleyball, Lulama Musti di Gennaro is Greenhouse's inspirational Head Volleyball Coach.She tells This Is My Playbook that her rise to the pinnacle of her sport in her home country was a bittersweet journey - A mixed race girl born to a white Italian father and a black Mozambiquan mother, she grew up in Rome where she says 'no-one looked like me'. A survivor, like many of the women in high-performance volleyball, of an abusive coach, she excelled in professional volleyball being called up to the national team and enjoyed a happy successful career, marred only by her non-selection for the 2012 Olympics. She had walked away from her sport until a chance invitation to a coaching session for kids rekindled the fire: 'Working with these kids made me realise that I still loved Volleyball'. She speaks candidly of life growing up and her move to London, ''the first city that I lived in that I didn't feel different..' In The Hardest Conversation she speaks of the moment she had to explain to some of the black girls in her coaching group the reality of being judged, unfairly and negatively, and how to rise above it. As she says; 'The meaning of my name, Lulama, means reconciliation, to make peace. I am starting to embrace that this is my mission..'

This summer Birmingham hosted the 22nd Commonwealth Games, the largest multi-sport event to be held in England in 10 years, featuring thousands of world-class athletes and over 1.5 million spectators. It was, by anyone’s account, a roaring success. The city was a brilliant host, the people of Birmingham proudly, creatively, welcomed everyone and displayed the best of the UK’s diverse and energetic second City. The wider UK public who filled the venues to capacity, showcased once more the community spirit that made the London Olympics the best in living memory. At the heart of it all was Ama Agbeze, a Brummie, a Greenhouse Sports ambassador, former Commonwealth Games gold medallist as captain of Team England Netball and a Director of the Games’ organising committee. Ama @amaagbeze is the latest guest on ‘This Is My Playbook’ podcast and openly shares her life experience to host Simon Mundie @simonmundie reflecting on life at high level elite sport, what it really means to win the greatest prize and the value and purpose she takes from sport as she transitions to life off the court."I think what winning gold does is validate it for people externally, there will be athletes in all sports who have gone through their careers and never won a gold of or bronze medal. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't exist, or their journey was invalid. They've still gone through what they've gone through. They've still learned what they have experienced, met people. And so, the journey is probably more important I think, than the medal. The medal just is that little star at the top of the Christmas tree" - Ama Agbeze MBE

"This was such a personal story that I had to convey about the 11 year old (me), the inspiration of two teachers in my city of Sheffield, who won medals in the Mexico Games, the inspiration for me to go and join an athletics club... and I wanted my story. Not because it was my story, but because I genuinely felt that it was the template that the Games would adopt for so many kids like me. And so that's all I really did. I told a story...""I wrote the speech longhand, with a fountain pen at the side of our hotel pool in Singapore at four o'clock in the morning, and the words flowed very easily.."On the 10th anniversary of London 2012, the Olympics and Paralympics that shook Great Britain and the World, Greenhouse Sports ambassador Lord Sebastian Coe speaks openly and candidly to This Is My Playbook about:the deeply personal story and 4am inspiration that delivered the winning bid speech for LondonInvestment in sport - participation and elite - is the best social policy you'll ever needhis frustration at government still failing to grasp this as a bedrock for health and wellbeing, education, especially in challenged communitiesteachers and coaches as natural catalysts to unlock the power of opportunity.