Sport System Redesign

Maren RojasEdgework Consulting -

Every sport has certain truths we all accept. You can’t touch the ball with your hands in soccer. A touchdown is worth six points. You can’t walk (or run) with the ball in basketball. But what if these rules weren't fixed? When you were a kid, did you ever reinvent part of a game due to obstacles or necessity? Maybe the power lines on your street kept knocking down passes so you re-did the down. Maybe your mom told you that you had to let your little brother play with your friends, so you made him play offense the entire game (even if you were not going to pass to him).

That enterprising little you was participating in Sports System Redesign (SSrD), taking what we know to be true about sports (baseball is played with nine players on each team) and questioning those assumptions (What if the teams had twelve players each? What if there were three teams?).

Your mother’s insisting your brother play forced you to change your game. While you had to be creative with a new, unexpected player, your brother got a chance to get outside, play, and hopefully learn from some older kids. Your mom, with you as her unwitting collaborator, introduced an element to your game to achieve a desired outcome. And it worked — your brother got to play and you had to be creative.

For the past several years, the team at Edgework Consulting has collaborated with Boston University’s Institute for Athletic Coach Education and Up2Us Sports to study the concept of SSrD and youth sports on a broader scale. How can we take these sports we know and love and tweak them for certain outcomes? Is there a way to make baseball more active? Basketball more inclusive? Soccer more rewarding of fair play? If you stripped these sports down to their core and rebuilt them with one of these outcomes in mind, how would you do it?

Change the Game

In April 2012, the trifecta joined forces to present the first annual "Change the Game" conference in Boston which introduced Sports System Redesign as a new model for youth sports coaches and administrators to address issues they’ve been finding — and affect change. Subsequent events were held in Los Angeles and New York City in the years following.

Historically, practitioners in the field have looked to coach education and/or curriculum to change the dynamics of youth sports. While there is a lot of value in these practices, we believe Sport System Redesign is just as important a factor and can be a catalyst for real change. Change the Game is an opportunity to discuss this approach and proffer ideas on how to make that change happen. When considering SSrD there are five different domains of the sport system we look at:

1. Playing space — the field, court, pitch
2. Equipment — helmets, gloves, the ball
3. Rules of the game — offsides, handballs, strikes zones
4. Roles of the referee/coach/supporters — what are each of their roles? What are their responsibilities?
5. Structure of the game or league — what does “winning” really mean?

By reimagining any of these elements, practitioners can create a formula to achieve a specific outcome. If you want to get scoring up in ice hockey, for example, you might consider making the net bigger — or even go as far as getting rid of the goalie.

As we dive more into SSrD we’ll share some of our findings from the Change the Game events and some of the changes that leaders in in the field are instituting — from small sided basketball games to good sportsmanship helping soccer teams to victory.

Have you had any experience with SSrD? What sports, or parts of sports do you feel could be redesigned and for which outcomes?

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Up2Us Sports partners with Edgework Consulting to develop training and content to advance sports-based youth development.  This is part of Edgework Consulting’s Sports Based Youth Development series. Each Sports Based Youth Development post is designed to enlighten and inspire new thoughts in the youth sports world. For more entries in the series click here.

Why I Love Being an Assistant Coach

Claire PerrySenior Program Manager, Philadelphia Up2Us Sports

I love being an assistant coach.  And not even first assistant coach - second assistant coach.  You’re not constantly thinking about macro, strategic offensive play calls or defensive switches.  You’re not worried about the next subbing rotation or, potentially, which parent is sending daggers because their daughter is not yet in the game.  No, second assistant coach is all about connecting with the players; developing a relationship with an individual to help elevate their specific game which, in turn, will better their overall team play.  Teaching basketball skills coincides with another goal, to teach lessons on the court that can be translated and applied to life.  As a past collegiate player, employee of Up2Us Sports and current second assistant coach of Central Bucks High School West girl’s basketball team, this coaching position allows me to impart - rather, unleash - all my experiences and knowledge to the many girls I coach.

Last week, our team earned their way to the PIAA Class AAAA State Championship game.  Five of the six seniors had been playing together since fourth grade, had won only a handful of games as freshmen, then fought to a 31-2 record in their final season. They fell just short of a state title with a 25% shooting percentage for the night. Hustle, heart, and determination were never factors; the ball just liked the rim better than the net.  Watching the girls bury their heads in their uniforms—crouching on the very spot they stood when the final buzzer sounded, watching the other team sprint to center court to celebrate.  I cried.  Easily, too.

More than just the moment of having lost the game, it was the loss of 20 hours a week of playing and being a family. The one minute conversation we’d have on the bench, having just asked, “what do you see out there?” The two minutes spent talking about school, family, and prom dresses while rebounding free throws at practice. The 30 minutes after practice where we would just shoot around, dance and play with my two year old son.  What really pushed me to tears was the realization that whether we won or not, these sometimes-basketball, sometimes-life moments with this group of girls would cease.

Here at Up2Us Sports, we call these moments of unstructured play Informal Time; the time where, as a coach, you’re able to develop better, deeper relationships with the player through technical and non-technical conversation.  I believe I would have still developed good relationships with the team, but through attending over 20 Up2Us Sports coach trainings I’ve learned that as sports-based youth development (SBYD) coaches, we need to do MORE than just what is expected to develop GREAT relationships.  We need to Demo, Show, Demo when we instruct our players to fine tune skills.  We need to ask, “how did you do that?” to actually have the players think through the process of completing the said task so that the process is understood and can be readily repeated.   It’s easy to just tell our players what to do; but if they are able to break down why and how they’re doing something, we can get them to think, understand and improve.  What makes coaching such an incredible opportunity is the moment where a player realizes they worked hard and accomplished a goal or really improved a skill.  Through this process they develop characteristics, such as discipline, social confidence, and situational awareness - that are transferrable to school and life.

I’m sure the players didn't realize how often I was using skills and techniques learned at the Up2Us Sports coach training—which was all the time.  As second assistant coach, I had numerous moments to address players individually and develop the relationships I learned about at Up2Us Sports Trainings.  It gave a new meaning to holding conversations on the sidelines with the players about practice and life, and hanging out afterwards while my two year old son was “dribbling” the ball alongside our star point guard.

I’m also positive the players don't know how much they gave me this past season.  I know they don't realize how much I miss them, even just one week out from losing the state championship.  They were the twenty big sisters for my son, the twenty younger sisters for me: a true family.  Hard to say goodbye to a family.

Good thing, then, that post-season starts back up next week.

What Youth Sports Can Do For the Mentoring Movement

Did you know, sports could triple the number of mentors in this country? That’s because coaches are the largest untapped source of mentoring in the nation. For one reason, many coaches still see themselves as just that, “coaches” and not as “mentors”. They view their primary goal as teaching their players athletic skills and strategies for winning their game; however, the better coaches embrace their role as mentors. They incorporate techniques for building positive team cultures, strong relationships among players, and life skills counseling into their practices and games. It’s time that we demand this “mentoring" from all coaches. The results will not only be more successful athletes but better students as well.

Literature is increasingly pointing to the lack of character development education among youth as a contributing factor to school dropout rates, youth violence and other negative social behaviors. Coaches are in a unique position to fill the gap in character education. This is because coaches are uniquely able to engender trust among youth, even those youth who have learned not to readily trust adults and authority figures. Coach-mentors can use this trust to provide young people guidance and advice, tackling the difficult decisions of adolescence. Coach-mentors can make their practices an alternative “space", outside of the school and the home, where young people feel more confident testing themselves mentally and physically without fear of judgment or failure. Coach-mentors help their teams develop values like leadership, teamwork, discipline, stick-to-itiveness, and resiliency. These values directly translate to success in the classroom and the community.

But this transition from “coach” to “mentor” will not happen naturally. It will take training to achieve the fullest potential of the estimated 2-3 million coaches in this country.   Up2Us Sports is beginning a national effort to provide this training and certify coaches in sports-based youth development (SBYD).

SBYD is the merging of athletics and mentoring into an intentional methodology for fostering positive child development. As parents wake up to the examples of poor coaching and the negative impact it has on their sons and daughters, parents should demand SBYD training be integrated into all coach licensing. Schools should require that athletic directors and coaches be SBYD certified so that their coaching reinforces their overall drive for educational excellence.

One day, all coaches should be able to say, “I am a coach, and I am a mentor”. That will be the day several million more adults have joined the mentoring movement to ensure that all American youth have safe and successful pathways to adulthood.

Paul Caccamo Founder & CEO Up2Us Sports

Up2Us on National Mentoring Month

In 1938, more than 200 Harvard students (all men at the time) joined a research study that lasted for the next 75 years. The point of the project was to analyze how the things in our lives—work, family, friends, money, possessions—influence how happy and successful we think we are. Scientists from the university followed these men throughout their lives, checking back in with them every few years to see what they were doing, how successful and happy they felt, and what the causes of this happiness and success were (or weren’t). At the end of the project, lead researcher George Valliant was asked what he learned from the study’s decades-worth of data. It seemed, initially, that his answer might be some sort of complex scientific formula that could guide our pursuit of success and happiness moving forward. Instead, Dr. Valliant said that his research could be boiled down into a very simple phrase: “Happiness is love. Full stop.” When people were surrounded by positive relationships with others and a lot of love, they tended to feel successful and happy, regardless of how other things were going in their lives.

I think of Dr. Valliant’s work often as I travel around the country working with our Up2Us coaches. When I share his results with them, they tend to smile knowingly. The idea that love can move us forward and help make great things happen is the reason why our coaches get up every day and go to work. They are positive adults building strong, lasting relationships with young people—connections that may be constructed initially on the power of sport and physical activity, but inevitably expand to include so much more.

The start of the New Year brings many exciting things, not the least of which is National Mentoring Month, which we celebrate alongside our colleagues in the youth-serving world every January. This year, as I was reading new data from MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, I learned that 1 in 3 young people will move into their adult years without ever having a positive connection with a mentor—that is millions of young people without a teacher, coach, or other adult to help them work through the success and challenges of growing up.

As we head into 2015, we at Up2Us have a long list of things we’d like to achieve this year. At the top of that list, though, is continuing to close the mentoring gap in this country. All young people should have access to a positive, well-trained adult who cares about them and believes that they are worthy of deep, unconditional love. Dr. Valliant knew it, our Up2Us coaches know it—and they, alongside millions of other adult mentors worldwide, live it every day.

Full stop.

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Caitlin Barrett Associate Director, Coach Training & Excellence Up2Us

Happy Holidays from Up2Us!

Your gift this holiday season has the potential to give one kid a coach to guide them through the daily challenges they face on the field, in school and in the community. Here's how:

I want you to imagine.

A child who knows that he or she is capable of being someone. This child deep down inside wants to make the right decisions in life…to stay in school…to read out loud in the classroom when the teacher calls on her...to say no to the kids who want him to do drugs or join a gang…but there is no one in that child’s life to encourage him or her to make these kinds of decisions.

This child is not a bad person, but is surrounded by other kids who laugh at education, who are moms at 15, who want him to participate in a drug deal. He does not want to do any of it. But there’s no one there. Not one positive influence. Not one person to believe in him and say: “You don’t have to do that because you are better than that. You are special. You have your whole life in front of you.”

Was that child you? Did an adult tell you that you mattered at a time in your life when you were alone or dealing with a family issue or unsure of yourself? Did a coach encourage you to quietly walk away from trouble and open that math book late at night? Did a coach make you feel you belong, you can accomplish, you are a leader?

This holiday season, I ask you to please change a child’s life by supporting Up2Us. Up2Us believes that one of the most transformative adults in child’s life is a coach. Not just any coach, but an Up2Us coach. A coach who’s trained to use that kid’s love of sports to build a relationship that guides him away from making bad choices.

If you have a son or daughter who plays sports, you know more than anyone that a coach has this kind of influence. That’s why I am building a national workforce of coaches who use the trust they develop with kids to end violence, increase academic participation and inspire future leaders.

It takes no imagination to find the child who sits on a curb in our cities with no one to inspire him or her. I can point this child out in every community in America. But through your caring, you can jump into this picture and change it forever. With your support, I will hire and train a basketball coach, soccer coach, baseball coach, tennis coach, and lacrosse coach, to walk over to that child and say:

“I believe in you.  Let’s play ball.”

It takes only one adult to see the child who wants to be more than the negative behavior that is reinforced all around him.

Please support Up2Us in your holiday giving and change a young person’s life.

Click here to donate. Every child deserves a coach!

Happy Holidays!

Paul Caccamo

Take That!

It’s time to end bullying in sports. It’s been more than a month since Sayreville, NJ, caught our national attention as yet another example of bullying in youth sports.   Unfortunately, Sayreville is not alone.  Bullying in sports programs goes undetected in our schools, parks and playgrounds across this nation. Yet, bullying in youth sports is preventable.

Three basic steps to prevention:

1. Train Coaches
2. Establish and Enforce Team Codes of Conduct
3. Inspire Student Athletes to See Sportsmanship as Leadership

Training coaches is by far the most important step.  A trained coach sets the example through their language and through the way they intentionally build positive relationships among their players.   A trained coach creates team traditions such as cheers and songs that emphasize cohesion and unity.   A trained coach knows how to  use practices and game days to develop leadership skills in all players which leads to greater teamwork and mutual respect.   And a trained coach knows exactly what to do if he/she observes or suspects that bullying is taking place.

Up2Us teamed up with The Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation to develop trainings for youth sports coaches to prevent bullying.   You can access more information on these trainings at info@up2us.org or check out our coaching tips on how to make your team bully-free.

At Up2Us, we see sports as a critical tool for developing life skills in our youth.   We view coaches as the most transformative adults for inspiring young people to achieve their personal success on and off the field.   Bullying is neither a life skill or a badge of success.   For National Bullying Awareness Week, I challenge every youth sports coach in the nation to join Up2Us and The Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation in ending bullying on our courts, in our fields, playgrounds, and locker rooms.

Paul Caccamo

CEO and Founder

Connecting Inspiring Vets With the Right Jobs

On Veterans Day, we should think deeply about what we are doing (or are not doing) as a nation to support veterans at home. According to the Army Times, unemployment for post-9/11 returning vets is 9.2 percent. This is considerably higher than the nation’s unemployment rate of 5.8 percent. More alarming, the Department of Labor states that for vets under the age of 25, the unemployment rate is 25 percent. It’s fair to say that we as a nation have been unprepared to meet the needs of the roughly 3 million young Americans who have completed their military service and returned home.

So what can we do about it? I had an idea, and it’s working. Let’s create jobs that engage veterans as leaders and problem solvers for the challenges facing youth in America. After all, veterans possess a unique set of skills from leadership, discipline and team building, to a sense of purpose and mission.

Why not employ those skills in urban parks, schools, playgrounds and nonprofits to inspire kids who need these adult role models to guide them away from violence and other negative behaviors? This year, Up2Us announced a new initiative to do just that, Operation Coach.

Operation Coach engages returning veterans as paid youth sports coaches in underserved communities throughout Miami. Through a partnership with the Miami Heat, Laureus USA and Mercedes-Benz USA, Up2Us hired, trained and placed eight veterans to work with almost 750 at-risk youth. Not only did the youth gravitate to the presence of these war heroes in their parks and playgrounds, but the veterans found that being a coach helped them more easily transition into domestic life.

Here are a couple of their stories:

Former Marine Sgt. Alvaro J. Ayala, currently teaches and coaches martial arts classes at an Up2Us member organization called Outside The Ring Champion. Alvaro grew up in Nicaragua and moved to Miami at the age of 12. After high school, he enrolled at Harding University, where he played soccer for a year before enlisting in the Marine Corps. Alvaro became a Sergeant Marine Embassy security guard and served in many parts of the world during his 51/2 years of military service. Upon his honorable discharge, Alvaro returned to Miami to continue his education and is currently enrolled in Florida International University while serving in Operation Coach.

“I didn’t want to be anything else,” said Alvaro. “I realized that being a coach is what makes me happy. That I really enjoy it regardless of how much money I’m being paid, so I decided to go for it as a career.”

Alvaro’s desire to make a difference in the lives of kids has provided him with a renewed sense of purpose and motivation to succeed.

Another success story is Kleiton V. Almeida, a former Petty Officer Third Class in the Navy. Kleiton currently works at an Up2Us member organization that is a public school that services six homeless shelters in Miami. He was born and raised in Brazil. During this time, he fell in love with sports and, in particular, soccer. When Kleiton moved to Miami as a teen, his passion for soccer continued and his desire to give back was born. He went on to enlist in the Navy.

He was an accomplished boatswain mate earning a Navy and Marine Corps achievement medal for his contributions as a master helmsman.

He served honorably and was deployed to the Persian Gulf during operation Iraqi Freedom.

Upon his discharge, Kleiton faced challenges transitioning into mainstream society, but he continued his studies in physical education as he promised his mother he would do before serving in the military. In May, he graduated with a physical education degree from FIU. His unique blend of compassion and discipline has earned him praise from the Eneida M. Hartner Elementary School principal and staff where he serves in Operation Coach, and his kids love him!

“I came at them with discipline,” said Kleiton. “But at the same time, I came at them with the attitude of: I’m here for you and I’m here to help you, so if you need anything you can come and talk to me. You can come see me and I will do my best to help you.”

These are just two stories that illustrate the way in which returning veterans can use their unique skills and knowledge to improve the lives of the nation’s youth, and the communities in which they live.

This Veterans Day, let’s remember those who have served our country abroad and honor their service by creating meaningful employment opportunities for them back home.

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This piece was also published in the Miami Herald and The Hill.

My Secret: I Don't Coach to Win Championships

I coach a team of 10-11 year old girls for a dedicated volleyball club in New York City.  Parents bring their girls, ages 10-18, to this club with the intention of winning tournaments and signing scholarships.  I’ve even had parents of my 11 year-old players pester me about their college recruitment.  What my players, parents and club directors don’t know is that as a coach, I don’t aim to create championship 11-year old volleyball players.  I aim to create a positive sports environment and act as a mentor for my players when they need one. I use the sport my players and I both love as a tool to build and instill the characteristics and traits that create great 11-year old girls, and here are the secrets on how to do it: Secret #1: I create an encouraging team culture I shape a culture for our twice-weekly practices around encouraging your teammates, whether they are on your side of the net or the other.  This takes time—especially in a sport where each point is scored by a ball hitting the ground and a player making a mistake.  Instead of individual goals, I set team goals.  Instead of having each girl get 5 serves over the net, I say lets get 50 serves over as a team.  This teaches players to set goals and to work together to achieve them.

Secret #2: I make practices fun If practices aren’t fun, players won’t come.  It is that simple.  My players are at the age where most females begin to lose interest in sports because it just isn’t fun anymore.  Instead of starting practices with lectures or drills, I begin my practices with Taylor Swift blaring and an intense game of tag.  I make every drill or activity into a game, and use music when I can to keep the environment fun and relaxed.

Secret #3: I never reveal my favorites We coaches do have favorites on our teams.  The challenge is to treat each kid like they are your favorite.  I believe in getting to know each of my girls.  I distract them from conditioning exercises by letting them tell me about what is going on in their life.  At Friday practices, we do abdominal exercises while each girl waits anxiously for her turn to tell the team about her exciting weekend plans.  I urge players to tell me some inconsequential detail about their lives, this way if they have something serious come up, they won’t feel uncomfortable talking to me about it.

Secret #4: I arrive at every practice over caffeinated. All of that energy has to come from somewhere.  Really—It helps.

And here is the secret even I didn’t know—while you’re busy teaching all of these things, the championships often happen along the way.  We finished the season as the top 11 and under team in the tri-state area and went on to Nationals to finish 13^th in the country.

My girls haven’t figured it out yet—this secret plan I have for using volleyball to shape them into better people.   A few parents have though—seeing positive changes in their daughters since they began playing on the team, and they don’t seem to mind.

Alex Bondy Graphic Design & Brand Manager Up2Us

A Special Birthday Wish…

All of us celebrate government when it makes smart investments that result in the betterment of all of our lives.  Great examples of this have been the Internet, our GPS systems, micro-chips, and even the vaccines that keep us healthy. In the same vein, I say we celebrate AmeriCorps.

Just think about it. Talented adults are teaching in thousands of schools because of AmeriCorps.  Millions of children are receiving health and nutrition education because of AmeriCorps.  Millions of seniors receive emotional support because of AmeriCorps.  Disaster sites like New Orleans are rebuilt again because of AmeriCorps.  And now, sports is being revived in inner cities because of AmeriCorps.

This week, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of AmeriCorps: one of our federal government's major success stories.   We need to recognize that AmeriCorps has often provided the seed money to “great ideas” that we have since taken for granted as they have become the fabric of our American lives.

My own program, Up2Us, was based on a simple idea: a coach can be the most transformative adult in a child’s life, especially children who are in underserved communities and lack adult role models. AmeriCorps provided me the opportunity to hire and train my first coaches in 2009.  Since then, thanks to public-private partnerships, I’ve hired more than 1,700 coaches who have committed themselves to serving more than 133,650 at-risk youth in more than 60 different sports.  This simple idea has had powerful results: our trained coaches can reduce violence by up to 40% in urban communities.  Our trained coaches can lead to significant increases in physical activity that reduces the risk of obesity.  And, our trained coaches have helped youth in the worst performing schools to refocus their energy into educational pathways that lead to college and successful careers.  And now, thanks to AmeriCorps, my program is ready to take the innovative training we have developed for our coaches and make it available to the estimated 6.5 million volunteer coaches who want to be more effective at teaching life skills to their teams.

Up2Us is just one example of the power of AmeriCorps has to light a spark that impacts a nation.

Happy 20th Anniversary, AmeriCorps.  When I Google “national service" on the the internet, I will smile broadly at how many of the 52 million results were made possible by you!   And, I’ll smile also knowing that Google was made possible by our federal government, too.

Paul Caccamo

Executive Director and Founder, Up2Us

Up2Us Ambassador John Henson Hosts Basketball Clinic Fundraiser

On July 19, Up2Us Ambassador and Tampa native John Henson, a power forward with the Milwaukee Bucks, and a team of Coach Across America (CAA) coaches hosted "The John Henson Experience" at the Tampa Bay Youth Sports Expo. The one-day basketball clinic helped to raise awareness on the importance of youth sports and funds to support the placement of additional CAA coaches in the Tampa Bay area.  About 100 local youth participated in the clinic. Up2Us member The Skills Center hosted the Tampa Bay Youth Sports Expo at the Tampa Convention Center.  The Expo featured a multitude of interactive sports activities for kids, including hockey, golf, football, lacrosse, baseball, dance, and basketball.

Ride This Way: an Up2Us Film

Greatness often manifests in the face of adversity. Israel Frank, Up2Us Coach Across America (CAA) coach at Brotherhood Crusade Soccer for Success Program, is a true testament to this statement.

Initially, Israel's goals were to obtain his GED, secure employment, and change his life trajectory. With the assistance of his case manager, Israel attended work readiness classes at the YouthSource Center. After demonstrating significant mastery of vocational skills, Israel secured a seasonal job at Vans. Combined with a sincere desire to improve the quality of life for young people, this experience prepared Israel for his CAA appointment.

Check out our video to hear Israel's story and to learn just what makes him Up2Us' Coach Across America Coach of the Year.

What We Can Learn From Recycling

I had the opportunity to eat lunch at a high-end professional office building in NYC the other day.  The cafeteria was in the main lobby, and I arrived at the peak hour, so I settled on the last available table in a corner that also happened to be right near the garbage receptacles.   Oddly enough, as I devoured my subsidized gourmet platter of food, I couldn’t help but stare at the trashcans, one of which was blue, one green and the other a nondescript grey.  What I observed has stayed with me ever since.

Every few moments, a different group of executives would arrive with their trays of emptied bottles, plates, napkins and other refuse.   In most cases, they were all conversing as they approached the bins and slowed almost routinely to discard the tray’s contents.   That’s when I observed a pattern that I never expected: when the person leading any given group paused long enough to separate glass and paper into the appropriate containers, the others that followed almost unthinkingly did the same.  But when the person leading the group dumped all their contents at once into the grey container, the persons that followed DID THE SAME.  Almost without exception, everyone followed the leader.

Now, let’s be clear.  These were presumably, well-educated lawyers, financial managers, business leaders, etc. If you stopped any of them, they most certainly would acknowledge that recycling is good for the environment. Some might even know that recycling is the law in New York City.  Yet, everyone just followed the leader whether that leader recycled or not.  It’s that easy to make a poor decision.  Even when you have all the education, all the resources and all the knowledge not to.

I remained at my table in that cafeteria but this time I was no longer watching the bins.  I was thinking of the millions of kids living in poverty who also follow the leaders. These leaders make it easy to join a gang, become a teen mom, be a bully or just drop out of school. It can be hard for professional adults to separate their garbage, can you imagine how difficult it must be for a child to resist these kind of negative role models when they are surrounded by them and when no one else is there to set a different example?

This is why Coach Across America is so important.  We have allowed too many youth in this nation’s communities to be leaderless.  The result is the failing schools, the crime, and the bullying that have become far too common imagery on our nightly news.

It’s time to get serious and invest in a workforce of coaches to lead youth to make the “right” decisions.  For all children, a coach is someone they can look up to and trust.  A coach is a role model who can guide their decision-making.  A trained coach helps them to see beyond the easy choices to make the right choices.

Every child deserves a coach.  And by investing in one, maybe one day, every child will grow up to be the professional in that office building who approaches those garbage cans and knows exactly what to do.

Paul Caccamo President & Founder