On January 12, 2019, Up2Us Sports will celebrate it’s ninth anniversary! We asked our Founder & CEO Paul Caccamo to reflect back on what nine years means and think about some of the moments that have sparked our momentum since 2010.

It means several things, and I’ll start with the most important:

First, because we have been around for almost a decade, we are now seeing our kids become Up2Us Sports coaches. And we are seeing our Up2Us Sports coaches become members of our staff as well as managers at local schools, parks and nonprofits. For us, this speaks to our model for positive social change. We have always viewed national service and coaching as a pathway for young people to see their potential and to learn essential skills that contribute to their upward mobility as well as their sense of personal achievement.

We have always viewed national service and coaching as a pathway for young people to see their potential and to learn essential skills that contribute to their upward mobility as well as their sense of personal achievement.

Our second great accomplishment is the completion of a lengthy strategic planning process. Our 3-Year Strategic Plan outlines where we want to grow, the kind of services we want to provide, and the impact we want to have. It also reinforces our values: Up2Us Sports is about ensuring every coach has the skills to succeed, and every kid has a trained coach who helps them make better decisions on the field, in their classrooms and in their communities.

Our third great accomplishment is the building of a highly qualified, talented and committed team of professionals in ten cities across the country. The Up2Us Sports staff truly embodies a commitment to the field of sports-based youth development (SBYD). They are also proving the potential of SBYD to improve educational, health, and economic outcomes in every community where we operate.

The Up2Us Sports staff truly embodies a commitment to the field of sports-based youth development (SBYD).

And lastly, we have developed some pretty incredible partnerships that demonstrate there’s no stopping our potential to support more coaches, serve more kids, and develop more programs. The Baltimore Ravens helped us launch Up2Us Sports across Baltimore. World Sport Chicago is helping us expand our coach workforce and coach training in Chicago. The Miami HEAT are supporting our growth in Miami and are providing us resources to serve and recruit veterans nationwide. A partnership with Girls on the Run will help us to ensure that girls have equal access to sports. We piloted a unique program with the NFL Player Care Foundation to hire former players to coach flag football in their hometown communities. Johns Hopkins University’s School of Public Health is helping us conduct stronger evaluations of our impact. Good Sports will allow us to provide community-based organizations with equipment as well as trained coaches starting in 2019. These are just a few examples of the many types of partnerships that have helped us leverage the scope and impact of our AmeriCorps partnership with federal and state governments across the country. 

Perhaps it was all of these successes that has inspired us to revisit our mission to ensure that it says exactly what we do and who we do it for. Thus, we are embarking on our 10th year with this mission and donor mandate: to engage, train and support sports coaches to transform youth, programs and communities.

Thus, we are embarking on our 10th year with this mission and donor mandate: to engage, train and support sports coaches to transform youth, programs and communities.

Happy Anniversary Up2Us Sports!

Paul