The most important part of my job is to listen and learn from heroes. All over this country, men and women are sacrificing their time and energy to coach at-risk kids in sports. These coaches have no money, no equipment, and no uniforms. But they have a commitment to kids; in many cases, to kids who have been given up on. Here's a few stories I heard in just the past few weeks:

In Miami, I met a coach who goes into the public schools and asks the principals to give him the most dangerous kids roaming those hallways. “The kids who have been incarcerated, who everyone has given up on.” He then plucks those kids out of the school, one by one, and takes them fishing. That's right, he takes them fishing. For many of these teenage males, they have never spent any quality time with an older male. In poorer African-American communities, these kids see gangs and violence as the only way to prove their manhood. But fishing alongside of an older male who looks just like them but chose a different path in life is all they need to see their lives differently. "They don't even have to talk to one another," the coach told me. "Just being in each other's presence is sometimes all it takes." The coach told me that after a dozen years, he recently received his first donation of tackle boxes. He's still trying to get enough fishing rods to give one to every child in the program.

In New Orleans, I met a football coach who told me how he spent a year preparing his kids to have the confidence to play in a football tournament. "They practiced every day," the coach said, "and they committed to staying in school and staying out of trouble." But when the tournament came, even the coach couldn't change the outcome. "When the kids got to the field, they were in awe. The other teams had uniforms and pads. Our kids only had t-shirts and tennis shoes. If you could see the defeat on their faces before the game even began. They felt that they just weren’t good enough. They immediately turned around and got back on the bus.” The coach is still looking for donations of uniforms.

In New York, I sat with a retired man as we watched a group of boys playing basketball. All of the boys were from a nearby housing organization where he still sits on the board of directors. Thanks to Coach Across America, his son was now their basketball coach. I asked the dad what else these kids needed besides a coach. "Trophies," he answered, "every one of them.". He then explained: "I can point to each of the boys on this court and tell you a story you wouldn’t believe. Who's in an abusive home, whose brother was just sent to prison, who doesn’t get fed a decent meal, whose parent is an addict, who was sent away to live with an aunt. Against all these odds, these boys get together every afternoon with my son and instead of joining a gang or doing drugs, they play basketball and commit to their future. Yet, no one has ever pressed pause and given them a trophy.” “Why?” I asked. “Because we don’t have the money to buy them one.”

Volunteer…

Donate uniforms or equipment…

Like many of you, I still have my trophies on the wall from when I was kid.

Paul Caccamo Executive Director

This past week, Mercedes-Benz USA, in partnership with the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, announced a $1.15 million gift to the Up2Us Coach Across America program. The announcement was made in Chicago with celebrity athletes and Laureus World Sport Academy Members, Edwin Moses and Marcus Allen, in attendance. The funding will sponsor 250 coaches in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New Orleans. There's something very special about this donation: it came from an automobile company. That's right, an automobile company whose business is not obviously tied to fighting childhood obesity or promoting health outcomes. But Mercedes Benz USA demonstrates that maybe it's business is, in fact, tied to the wellbeing of the next generation of Americans. Maybe all our business is tied to this one single outcome.

You don't need an Italian mother like mine to remind you that "if you have your health, you have everything". Yet, we continue to ignore the worsening situation in which an estimated 25 million children will watch their health erode because of poor diets and a lack of opportunities to engage in regular physical activity. Without their health, this generation will face countless other challenges, that include low worker productivity, low quality of life, low civic engagement and even increased depression. Is this really the future of America?

The 250 Coach Across America coaches will be equipped with the tools to use sports to teach nutrition and wellness and to inspire physical activity for more than 40,000 at-risk youth. This is just the start for this program, which challenges every person to use their love of sports to spend a year in service to kids who need them.

If our nation has its health, it has everything.

At a time in which we face numerous challenges, let's keep this in the forefront of our minds.

Paul Caccamo Executive Director