In the final installment of Johannah Mitchell’s blog
on her experience this summer with Coach Across America, she
relects on her summer working for Harlem Lacrosse and
Leadership.
Read Johannah's first blog here.
Read Johannah's second blog here.
Read Johannah's third blog here.
By: Johannah Mitchell
After working with three camps and over 30 children, my summer
working for Coach Across America has officially come to an
end. I was extremely sad to leave the wonderful group of kids
I spent the last two months working with. This summer was an
incredible learning experience for me and I could not be more
grateful to both Coach Across America and Harlem Lacrosse and
Leadership for awarding me this amazing opportunity. I had
the chance to work with influential coaches, as well as coach an
awesome group of kids.
The final camp I worked with was HLL’s Boarding School Boot
Camp. This camp is designed to work with a few select players
who are either already attending, newly accepted to, or potential
candidates for boarding school. During the camp, players
worked on their reading and writing skills so they could be better
prepared for the demands of boarding school.
During camp the kids read The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball
Dreams, by Darcy Frey. Frey’s non-fiction account of
Coney Island’s four most promising basketball players,
including Russell, Tchaka, Corey, and Stephon, is undeniably
moving. These players were given the chance to play
basketball for the dedicated Coach Hartstein, who essentially had
the ticket for them to get out of the ghetto. In return
basketball provided them with guidance, support and the hope of
escaping a future filled with crime and poverty.
Nelson Mandela once said, “Sport has the power to change the
world. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else
does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand.
Sport can create hope where once there was only
despair.” Participation in sports has immense power on
a child's life. Sports can afford youth with the necessary
tools, such as responsibility, teamwork, and leadership, to succeed
in life.
Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership does just that! HLL has taught their
players the importance of education, as well as what it means to
set goals and work hard to achieve those goals. For instance,
one day we had a guest speaker, a HLL Board Member, who also went
to a boarding school. He asked the kids their dreams for the
future. Hearing what the kids had in mind was
incredible. Many of the players have dreams of becoming
marine biologists, lawyers, and businessmen and women. One
player, who is incredible bright, wants to study English Literature
and one day become a college professor. Unanimously, all of
them want to graduate from boarding school, get into a college
where they can play lacrosse, and pursue great paying jobs that
will, as they put it, get them out of the ghetto.
HLL emphasizes the meaning of challenging yourself and working hard
to achieve your dreams. However, they make it clear that not
everyone is going to accomplish his or her goals. At the next
level of education everybody is in competition with each other to
achieve the best of the best. Often, this competition is
unfair. This is probably the hardest idea a teacher or
coach has to come to terms with. Just like in Frey's book,
and as the campers found out in the epilogue, even though these
four players were talented, hard working, and had dreams of their
own, Stephon was the only player to succeed and make it out of
Coney Island. Teaching and coaching can only go so far and
you are not going to get through to every kid. At the end of
the day, you can only hope you have given your students and/or
players the necessary tools to move forward in
life.
Working with HLL this summer has allowed me to see how unbelievably
great a program like this is for a struggling community with
"at-risk" children. HLL offers their players the chance to
become part of a team, as well as the opportunity to take advantage
of the many resources they have. To educate their players,
Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership sets up a variety of different field
trips. They also have many volunteers and guest speakers who work
with the children and help teach the players about all the various
opportunities available to them, such as playing lacrosse, going to
college, and getting a great job. The common message with
every trip and speaker is the importance of education.
For a program to offer services not only to these children during
the school year, but also during the summer is absolutely
fantastic. The players who take advantage of both services
are the children who are ambitious, enthusiastic, goal-oriented,
devoted, and focused. These children have a willingness to
learn both on and off the field, as well as a desire to achieve and
experience bigger and better things.
I have always understood the power of sports because I, myself,
credit all my accomplishments to being a student-athlete. At
a time when budget cuts, layoffs, and in extreme cases school
closers are all too familiar in our society the group that truly
suffers the most are the children. The art, music, and
athletic programs are always the first programs to face the ax when
school districts cut back. In a startling two-year period,
there were “more than $3.5 billion cut from sports programs
in public schools.” (Up2Us.org)
These cutbacks are only hurting society. Programs like Coach
Across America and Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership bring communities
with “at-risk” children the resources to help educate,
facilitate physical health, and promote social development for
their children. When you take away programs, whose main goals
are to benefit participates, you are not only doing a disservice to
the kids, but also to the community. Our focus as a nation
should be on the future and how these decisions will effect our
youth. By supporting these programs, the youths of tomorrow
are no longer crippled by society and can be given opportunities to
achieve their goals.
The feeling of giving back to your community and helping children
learn and grow is one of a kind. And I am unbelievably
thankful for the opportunity to work with these nonprofit
programs. Ending my service with Coach Across America and
Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership is definitely bittersweet.
While I am certainly going to miss the people I have worked with
and the kids I have met, I am excited to take what I’ve
learned this summer and apply it to my future endeavors.
I owe a great deal of gratitude to the East Coach Conference
Commissioner, Dr. Dranoff, who helped me throughout the entire CAA
process, Coach Across America for awarding me the job, and Harlem
Lacrosse and Leadership for facilitating my growth as a
coach. I would also like to thank all my friends and family,
past coaches and teachers, and my past teammates, without their
guidance and support I would have never been able to accomplish all
that I have. This summer I can undoubtedly say I have grown
as a person, a player, and a coach.
Please check out www.up2us.org and www.harlemlacrosse.org to learn
about what you can do to help.
