Up2Us Sports has a deep history with poetry and we look forward to featuring it annually in April during National Poetry Month. Our Founder & CEO, Paul Caccamo, helped found the America SCORES National Office in 1999 before starting Up2Us Sports a decade later. He saw the deep impact that sports and poetry together could have on a child. Over the years, we’ve proudly partnered with many of the SCORES affiliate offices nationwide to help provide well-trained coach-mentors through SCORES programming.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, we spoke with some of our AmeriCorps Up2Us Sports coaches about how they use poetry and sport to inspire the next generation of poet-athletes and what some of their favorite aspects to coach in both poetry and sport are. Coach Saddane is at Boston SCORES, Coach Ronald and Coach Jose are brothers serving at DC Scores and Coach Ryan is at LADF. See below for some of their responses.

*Coach Saddane with his team of Poet-Athletes from Boston SCORES*

Coach SaddanE, Boston SCORES

The first thing that I really enjoy about coaching is creating an environment where every youth can feel safe. It's a beautiful thing to see our community not divided and all come together. Coaching soccer is my love and passion but I was able to get involved with the poetry aspect as well, and fair to say, I can’t say how awesome that was. It’s amazing to see how our youth have such creative minds on and off the pitch. Over this winter period, I was able to work with our Junior Scores program grades 1-3.

Whenever we get to the classroom we always start with a spotlight showcase where I have them raise their hands if they have been working on stuff at home that they would like to share with their peers. Each session there’s always something new from them - some might write a poem line they like to say to stay positive and have fun while others love showcasing their soccer techniques. We also watch a lot of great videos together after lunch which also leads to great team building. They really seem to love doing everything together, it could be playing soccer, reading poems together and asking questions while creating our own. I am very proud to be representing Boston SCORES through Up2Us Sports.

Coach ronalD,
dc scores

One of my favorite aspects of coaching in both poetry and sport is allowing the Poet-Athlete to express their ideas and imagination, be creative on how to dribble a ball or when writing a poem. The majority of my Poet-Athletes enjoy soccer and always want to play but with poetry they are thinking deeper, figuring out how to communicate and share their thoughts. They feel nervous in the beginning but as they practice and work on their poem(s) they learn to express themselves. Seeing them grow is my favorite thing as a coach and seeing them grow and being confident both in Soccer and Poetry is amazing.

*Some of Coach Ronald and Coach Jose's Poet-Athletes from DC Scores.*

COACH JOSE, DC SCORES

This past fall season as we prepared for our DC Scores Poetry Slam we needed to find someone to write and perform a solo poem. Angel came up to me and said, “Coach, I want to write a poem.” I sat with him and asked him what he would like to write about. He came up with a poem about his home, The Dominican Republic. I told him to write about his favorite things from there. He came up with this poem which was nominated for one of the best solo poems of the night.

Here is Angel’s poem:

Solo Poem: Angel
Yo Soy Dominicano
Yo soy dominicano,
Uno de los paises mas lindo
Si tu vas a la República Dominicana te enamoras!
Unas cosa más importante de mi cultura es la comida, y la música
En toda las calles puedes escuchar MERENGUE, CUMBIA, SALSA, O BACHATA
Siempre hay alguien cocinando o comiendo plátanos
La mejor comida es los TRES GOLPE: PLÁTANOS CON HUEVO QUESO Y SALAMI FRITO
Las playas en la República Dominicana son los más hermosos: PUNTA CANA Y PLAYA DORADA
La gente Dominicana son muy amoroso y amables
Siempre se ven muy joven
Siempre celebran con los vecinos
La última cosa que quiero decir es….
YO SOY DOMINICANO!!!!!!

Coach Ryan, Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation

Poetry is a great source of motivation and inspiration. I use music as my poetry with the kids and throughout my life. With the kids, it can set the mood that you want. We also recently did a poetry project that reflects what they love or who they are. It is great to use meaningful words to understand who you are and what you want. One of my favorite aspects of coaching in both poetry and sport is seeing the individual growth of the players. It's always super rewarding to be a part of a child's growth through sports. Unfortunately, I do not have the poem to share, but one that we created was about a fish finding his way out of the murky water and into the light. I was able to have the child identify why he chose this theme and understand what the theme meant to him.