In the latest episode of the Pitch & Pros Podcast, Stefan welcomes Oakland native Cody Pillon (0:00), a former collegiate and semi-professional soccer player turned community builder who's dedicated his life to making soccer accessible to every kid in his hometown. Cody breaks down the origin story of Oakland Genesis, the cost-free youth soccer club he co-founded in 2019, and dives deep into the broken pay-to-play system it was built to fix (2:00). He shares how the partnership with Steph Curry's Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation has strengthened OG's mission (16:08), then walks through what it took to establish the organization's official Board of Directors (20:00). Cody talks about OG's growing connection with Oakland Roots (22:59) before getting into one of the biggest wins of his career — helping bring one of only two FIFA World Cup pitches in the country to an Oakland middle school (26:03). He shares some of OG's proudest academic success stories (28:20), gives his World Cup predictions and thoughts heading into the tournament (32:05), and introduces Oakland United, his citywide coalition working to guarantee every kid in Oakland access to soccer regardless of zip code (35:10). They then head into the "Fast Five" segment (42:20) before closing out the show with Cody's pitch on how to become a pro at establishing sports nonprofits (47:08).

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