Weekly Newsletter, Sept. 9, 2026: Emily tips off at Worlds
GOOD MORNING.
Huge week to be an Oberst fan — our own Emily Oberst tips off with Team USA at the Wheelchair Basketball World Championships in Ottawa TODAY. Grace Norman also brought home a bronze medal from Huntsville, and we're coming off a great few days at LEAD Houston. Oh, and somewhere in there Jack Wallace also squeezed in a stint as a VIP guest at Ralph Lauren's Athlete Night at the US Open — turns out a gold medal doubles as a very nice blazer-and-strawberries invite. Lots to cover, so let's get into it.
In today's newsletter, we'll look at:
Emily Oberst's trip to the Wheelchair Basketball World Championships — and Grace Norman's bronze in Huntsville
A personal note from Cejih: what two LEAD Summits in one year taught us
Cejih's Corner: building content buckets that actually stick
Emily Tips Off in Ottawa, and Grace Medals in Huntsville
Emily Oberst and the U.S. Women's Wheelchair Basketball National Team head into the 2026 IWBF World Championships in Ottawa this week, with the women's group stage and opening ceremony kicking off today through the 19th. Emily made the official roster after a training camp that, based on the clips hitting her feed this week, looked like an absolute grind in the best way. We'll be cheering loud from home — full team schedule and how-to-watch details to come as we get them.
And down in Huntsville, Alabama
Grace Norman took bronze in the Women's C4 Time Trial at the 2026 UCI Paracycling Road World Championships on September 5, battling brutal heat and humidity to get on the podium behind gold medalist Samantha Bosco and silver medalist Tara Neyland. Another great result to add to Grace's season — congrats, Grace!
A Personal Note: Two LEAD Summits, One Wild Year
This past weekend we wrapped LEAD Houston, and I'm still riding the high a few days later. Normally after three and a half straight days of confidence seminars, teenage athletes, their parents, their coaches, and roughly a thousand small logistical fires that only I am apparently licensed to put out, I am a human puddle for a week. This time? I feel like I could run a fifth summit tomorrow. (I will not be doing that. Kristen would quit.)
Here's why this one hit different: Houston marked the first time in LEAD's history that we ran two summits in one calendar year — Minneapolis in August, then Houston, each one three and a half days of swim clinics, sport psychology, and confidence work. Between the two, we had 100 girls come through the program. It's been years since we hit that number, and next year LEAD officially turns 10 — we lost a year to the pandemic along the way, so it feels good to finally make up the gap.
For anyone newer to the newsletter, a little of LEAD's origin story: the idea came from our founder, Kara Lynn Joyce, who'd come across an Ernst & Young study that found 95% of women in executive and C-suite roles had played sports growing up, many of them through college. The question that came out of that: what if we took everything an athlete gets once she makes a national or Olympic team — sports psychologists, confidence training, nutritionists, real professional support — and gave it to girls at 13 to 18, years before any of them are anywhere near that level? Pair that with mentors like Lilly King, Phoebe Bacon, and Anna Peplowski, and you get something that genuinely doesn't exist anywhere else in youth sports. We came up with the idea in late 2016, launched the first summit in Austin in 2017, and ten years later I'm apparently telling the story in a company newsletter instead of just cornering people with it at parties (I still also do that).
Doing two summits in one year was a big swing, and it was hard — but hard, worthwhile things tend to show you what you're capable of. It showed our team at CG Sports, and the team at LEAD Sports Co, what we can actually pull off, and it's got all of us thinking bigger for 2027 and 2028 — I'd already had a first call with a potential 2027 partner before I'd fully unpacked from Houston.
It's also got me thinking about goal-setting in general. One thing I've noticed at this company: when we set a goal, we usually hit it. Where I think we can actually get better isn't the goal itself — it's the timeline. More often than not, I think we give ourselves more time than we really need to get there. I don't think the fix is "think bigger" — I think it's "give yourself less time," which is a much less inspiring poster but probably the more honest one. I'll be spending the rest of September chewing on that, and not just for LEAD — for our clients, for the business, and for a few things of my own.
Ten years ago, I didn't think LEAD would grow into what it's become. We've now given over 1,000 girls a genuinely one-of-a-kind experience — I'd put it up against any camp in any youth or Olympic sport, not just swimming. And it's not only the girls who leave different: the Olympians and national teamers who come coach at LEAD almost always go on to have one of their best seasons afterward. Turns out pouring into the next generation is good for everybody.
Cejih's Corner: Build Your Content Buckets
If your social media feels scattered — one week it's training, the next it's a random hobby, the next it's a sponsor post nobody asked for — you probably don't have content buckets yet. Here's the fix:
Brainstorm wide. List every topic that excites you about your brand, your sport, your lifestyle, your interests. Don't edit yet — just get 10-15 ideas down.
Narrow to 4-6. Cut the list down to the topics that actually line up with your brand direction and what your audience is there for.
Commit to 2-4. From that shortlist, pick the 2-4 buckets you could talk about all day long without getting bored. Those are your buckets.
The test that matters most: pick topics you're genuinely excited about, not ones you think you're supposed to post about. If you dread making the content, you won't post it consistently — and consistency is the whole game. Nail your buckets and your audience always knows what to expect from you, which is exactly what turns casual followers into people who trust you enough to buy what you're selling.
Full breakdown here: Social Media Strategy: Content Buckets
CG Sports Client Events
September 9–19, 2026 (Ottawa, Canada): IWBF World Championships, Emily Oberst.
September 13, 2026 (Normal Community West High School, Normal, IL): Swim clinic, Lilly King.
September 19, 2026 (Rocky River High School, Rocky River, OH): Swim clinic, Lamar Taylor.
September 19, 2026 (Neptune Aquatic Center, Neptune City, NJ): Swim clinic, Lilly King.
September 26–27, 2026 (Framingham Lifetime, Framingham, MA): Swim clinic, Kieran Smith.
October 2–3, 2026 (Summit Area YMCA, Summit, NJ): Swim clinic, Phoebe Bacon.
October 3, 2026 (Arvada Aquatic Center, Arvada, CO): Swim clinic, Rebecca Soni.
October 27, 2026 (Walter T Bergen Middle School, Bloomingdale, NJ): Keynote speech, Jack Wallace.
October 27, 2026 (West Ridge Elementary School): Speaking engagement, Jack Wallace.
November 3–4, 2026 (USADA Athlete Panel): Speaking engagement, Jack Wallace.
November 14–15, 2026 (John Glenn High School, Bay City, MI): Swim clinic, McKenzie Siroky.
November 17, 2026 (Bryn Mawr School, Baltimore, MD): Speaking engagement, Emily Oberst.
December 3, 2026 (Wilton High School, Wilton, CT): Leadership keynote & Captain's Workshop, Elizabeth Beisel.
April 10, 2027 (Border Swimming LSC): Swim clinic, Phoebe Bacon.
That's the week. See you next Wednesday.
Cejih and The CG Sports Company
