Highlands Middle School students hear inspirational speech by GOAT USA co-founder

Students at Highlands Middle School were treated to a high-energy visit from Thomas “TJ” Cristina, CEO and co-founder of the popular athletic and casual apparel brand GOAT USA – who urged them to not wait for opportunities to come knocking.

In a booming voice, Mr. Cristina told the seventh- and eighth-graders who packed the assembly about his meteoric rise after his father urged him to knock on doors in search of jobs as a youngster.

“I’m nothing more than an ordinary person,” Mr. Cristina told the students. “The only difference is the work I was willing to put in, the sacrifices I was willing to make and how determined I was to keep going.”

Mr. Cristina co-founded GOAT USA in 2016 with his high school pals Dylan McLaughlin and Rich Alfaro, with whom he attended SUNY Cortland. The company’s mission, he said, is to inspire people to become the “greatest version of themselves,” reflected in the acronym for Greatest Of All Time.
He drove home the point in GOAT’s slogan, “Ordinary people do extraordinary things.”

When asked by a student how much money it took to launch the brand, Mr. Cristina said they had a budget of just $5,000, which they used to buy 500 T-shirts – a modest beginning that has since grown into a nationally recognized brand employing 200 people and partnering with major retailers.
Teachers said his energetic address was exactly what students needed to hear.

 

“Having him give this speech gives the students the opportunity to see what’s possible and to get ready for the outside world,” said eighth-grade teacher Catherine Barrera. “It shows them all the possibilities that exist.”

Caridad Guerrero, a seventh-grade math teacher, echoed that sentiment, saying his story helps students push past the limits they sometimes set for themselves.

“It gives them the permission to dream,” she said. “I find that sometimes students have preset limits and this speech shows them what they are able to do. When they see him saying, ‘This is what I did at your age,’ it gives them permission to dream and work hard.”

For seventh-grader John Moreno, Mr. Cristina’s message connected directly with his own goals.

“He shows me how to never give up on our dreams,” John said. “I would like to be an engineer for airplanes, so I think what he is saying helps us to get motivated.”

Mr. Cristina told the students that many of his life lessons started at home, where his father gave him three rules he still lives by today.

1. Treat others how you want to be treated

“Be nice to everyone,” he said. “You never know how someone you meet today could affect your life years from now.”

2. Wake up early and stay active

Mr. Cristina told students that while it might be tempting to sleep late, building good habits at a young age will lead to success. “I’ve been waking up at 6 a.m. since I was in first grade,” he said. “By the time you’ve done that for 20 years, it’s just normal.”

3. Get a job – and learn from it

He described his first job in first grade: stuffing return envelopes into outgoing envelopes for his dad. He earned $5 a box, which worked out to about $2.50 an hour.

“I was definitely underpaid,” he joked. “But I was the richest kid in elementary school with $25 in my pocket every week.”

His father told him to “knock on every business’s door and ask if they’re hiring,” Mr. Cristina recalled.

Nervous but determined, he started knocking. First, a pizzeria told him he was too young. Then, two other businesses turned him down. Finally, he walked into a doctor’s office and, to his surprise, he was hired to file charts and move folders.

“So many days I woke up and thought, ‘I don’t want to go,’” he said. “But I went anyway. I put a smile on my face and did my job. That’s what learning how to work really looks like.”

By middle school, he thought he would become a professional football player. His parents suggested that might not be realistic and encouraged him to consider coaching. So in eighth grade, he helped coaches in an unpaid role that provided valuable experience.

At SUNY Cortland, he marched right into the athletic department, knocked on the head coach’s door and asked for a job. His confidence paid off and he quickly became a volunteer football assistant.

“Did I always want to do it? No,” he admitted. “But I understood the goal, and I knew what it was going to take to get there.”

Later, when he decided he wanted to try screenwriting and acting, he taught himself how to write screenplays in just a couple of months, then sought to join a screenwriting class that normally required 10 prerequisites.

He knocked on the professor’s door, showed him his work and asked to be admitted despite not having the prerequisites. The professor relented.
“That’s the power of doing the work beforehand and asking the question. A lot of people never even ask,” he said.

“My goal is that you will not forget the story of T.J. Cristina and what it took to start GOAT USA. If you take even a few lessons and apply them to your life today, you’ll thank yourself later,” Mr. Cristina said.

When a student asked how much money he has earned at GOAT USA, Cristina smiled.

“There’s a lot more money to be made,” he said. “We’re just getting started.”