Who is Anthony Washington Sr.?

Anthony Washington Sr. is a U.S. Army and Maryland Army National Guard veteran, a coach and official of more than twenty years, and the founder of After Today, LLC. He builds leadership training, athletic recruiting education, and people-first AI systems for student-athletes, families, schools, and organizations. He is based in Pennsylvania and works primarily across Pennsylvania and Maryland.

What does Anthony Washington Sr. do?

He works in three connected areas: athletic recruiting education that gives student-athletes and families a repeatable daily process, leadership training for first-time supervisors and public-sector leaders, and people-first AI and workflow implementation for organizations. He also speaks and runs workshops for schools, teams, and districts.

What is athletic recruiting infrastructure?

Athletic recruiting infrastructure is the repeatable system a family or program uses to manage recruiting — film, academics, communication with coaches, eligibility tracking, and follow-up — instead of relying on exposure events and luck. Anthony teaches recruiting as infrastructure so progress comes from a daily practice rather than a seasonal scramble.

What does people-first AI implementation mean?

People-first AI implementation means adopting AI to improve the work without displacing or sidelining the people who do it. In practice that means starting from the actual workflow, keeping a human accountable for decisions, training staff on the tools they will use, and setting guardrails before scale — not buying software and hoping the team adapts.

Who are Anthony's programs designed for?

Student-athletes and their parents, high school and grassroots coaches, athletic programs, schools and districts, first-time supervisors, public-sector leaders, and organizations that want leadership training or help implementing AI without leaving employees behind.

Does Anthony Washington Sr. provide leadership training?

Yes. He trains first-time supervisors and team leads on the first ninety days, difficult conversations, accountability, and building trust, drawing on his military service, public-sector supervision, and coaching experience. Training is delivered as courses, workshops, and organizational consulting.

How can a school, district, or organization work with Anthony?

Schools, districts, and organizations can book speaking engagements and workshops, bring in leadership training for supervisors and staff, or engage him on recruiting support and AI and workflow implementation. Start on the contact page and say which of those you need.

How can I book Anthony Washington Sr. to speak?

Send an inquiry through the contact page with your event date, audience, format, and location. The speaking page lists topics, session formats, and the audiences he speaks to most often.

Where is Anthony Washington Sr. based?

He is based in Pennsylvania and works primarily across Pennsylvania and Maryland, with virtual sessions available beyond that area.

Home › Blog › Grassroots Is Not Overrated. Undisciplined Grassroots Is.

Grassroots Is Not Overrated. Undisciplined Grassroots Is.

labor · September 20, 2026

Grassroots is not overrated.

Grassroots is not overrated.

Undisciplined grassroots is.

We have confused visibility with organization.

A viral post is not a movement.

A packed meeting is not infrastructure.

A protest is not automatically power.

A petition is not implementation.

Grassroots still matters because trust, relationships, and local credibility are hard to manufacture from the top down.

But today, getting people to show up is only the first step.

Harvard Kennedy School research published in 2026 found that protest groups that invested in membership structures were more likely to convert mobilization into durable political influence. Digital tools made it easier to assemble people, but activity without organization often failed to create lasting results.

That is the distinction.

Mobilization gets attention. Organization builds power.

Brookings made a similar point in 2026: civic mobilization is more likely to produce policy change when it is sustained, rooted in organizations, and connected to continued advocacy rather than treated as a one-time event.

And Pew Research Center found that only 9% of U.S. adults fell into its most highly engaged “Mobilizer” group, while far more people were classified as spectators or outsiders.

That tells me something.

We do not have a shortage of people watching.

We have a shortage of people staying.

Modern grassroots has to be more disciplined.

Build relationships.

Identify the decision-maker.

Know exactly what you want.

Document the problem.

Create leadership.

Use data.

Follow up.

Stay organized after the rally ends.

Measure whether anything changed.

The old model was:

Get enough people together and somebody will have to listen.

The modern model has to be:

Get people together, build structure around them, know the outcome you want, and stay organized long enough to make the outcome happen.

That is not abandoning grassroots.

That is making grassroots effective again.

Sources

[1] Harvard Kennedy School, “From Mobilization to Organization: The Afterlives of Protest in the Digital Age,” August 2026.

[2] Brookings Institution, “Protest Changes Policy When Communities Stay Organized,” June 29, 2026.

[3] Pew Research Center, “How Americans Engage With News, Politics, Religion and Civic Life,” July 16, 2026.

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