When the millennial generation is called upon to choose its representatives, it’ll have to consider Jeb Brovksy. The Colorado-born Brovksy, currently a defender with the MLS soccer champion Montreal Impact, embodies all the best aspects of the millennial stereotype–not least the heightened sense of social responsibility and interconnectedness that is the birthright of the first post-Internet generation. He earned a degree at Notre Dame with a double major in Business and International Peace Studies. The challenge of stoking the former while ensuring the latter is one of the great preoccupations of the millennial conscience. Brovsky is finding ways.
While at Notre Dame, Brovsky founded Peace Pandemic, an organization with a mission to “end violence (both structural and physical) against women through soccer.” The strategy, importantly, involves not only empowering young women but educating young men. Brovsky and Peace Pandemic want “men all around the world to know that the true test of a man is how they treat the women in their lives.” He’s been in locker rooms and he knows there is no better place to start. Peace Pandemic is a small operation yet it runs camps around the world designed to teach leadership and nonviolence–and promote cross-cultural connections. Soccer is a great connector–often a great symbol of teamwork amid strife. Vegan, optimist, animal lover, and humanitarian, Brovsky’s beliefs align with those William Faulkner expressed in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech when he said, “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.” Or as Brovsky himself puts it: “Objectively, it is easy for men to abuse women, to degrade others, to physically abuse and punish the weaker. We must make it subjectively impossible and inconceivable that these things could happen.” Big goals–just like in soccer. @JebBrovsky
