Education - Coaching Corps' Take Your Team to College
The Coaching Corps’ AmeriCorps* VISTA project focuses on providing girls and boys from struggling communities with volunteer coaches and role models from local colleges and universities across California to improve their social, educational and physical health. Members are placed in teams of two throughout the state to develop college chapters so local after-school programs have a steady supply of trained coaches to run quality sports programming for their youth. VISTA members support college chapter presidents utilizing best practices in volunteer management; recruiting new volunteer coaches; building partnerships with after-school programs; organizing days of service to address important community needs; creating various healthy futures curriculum and planning Take Your Team to College days to bring kids to college campuses to inspire them to think about their futures and dream big. We work hard so that all kids—regardless of race, sex or economic status—have the resources and mentoring they need to understand that anything they want to do, including going to college, is within their reach.
The current VISTA class has demonstrated an admirable commitment by taking part in a College Access task force. This task force, through the course of one VISTA term of service, committed to implementing a pilot college curriculum for coaches to use at practice and seven Take Your Team to College days in regions that Coaching Corps serves. The pilot college curriculum is a collection of fun and insightful activities that coaches lead to frame college as an attainable option for their kids. Take Your Team to College days guide 15-20 youth (from Coaching Corps participating after-school programs) through a college tour. During the tour, coaches discuss financial and academic success resources and advice on how to remain physically fit through college and life. Take Your Team to College took place at San Diego State University, University of San Diego, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles and Stanford University this April.
Coaching Corps recognizes that physical activity has a direct result on academic achievement. Part of the organizational vision has been how to utilize the coaching experience to encourage young players to think about college. Coaching Corps VISTA members made that vision a reality with the Take Your Team to College Day Pilot.
18.2% of high school students in 2011 dropped out before graduation (California Department of Education, 2011). In the Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, etc) a drastic 37% of students are dropping out.
Coaching Corps uses our nationally recognized Building Blocks of Quality Sports training to arm our coaches with the tools they need to use sports to provide kids with emotional safety, caring adults, the confidence to speak up and enough moderate to rigorous activity to provide them healthy futures. Thanks to the VISTA program, we are able to evaluate the impact coaches can have on a child’s aspirations for college and success.
6 comments
Mindy Towe • almost 14 years ago
I loved being a part of the event planning process for such a meaningful event. Many of the kids who attended these events on various college campuses throughout the state come from low-income communities. An opportunity of this magnitude makes such a significant impact on the kids we serve and provides them with knowledge that college is a viable option after high school graduation!
Jessica Heitman • almost 14 years ago
So proud of the people who make this possible for all of the vulnerable children. They are able to find a voice through your hard work!
Allison Bauer • almost 14 years ago
Coaching Corps is a great organization that goes beyond creating better athletes. The Take Your Team to College events are designed to give underprivileged youth the tools, resources and exposure it takes to pursue post-secondary education. Coaching Corps was able to look at scholastic research and studies from the 1970s to present and understand best practices when creating an event such as this. Through this research, Coaching Corps was able to create an effective plan to implement impactful, memorable, fun events. I developed the UC Berkeley event which was an amazing experience; we partnered with a Soccer Without Borders, an organization that works with Southeast Asian Refugees. The amount of smiles and excitement I saw on not only the youth's faces but also our chapter members' was beyond gratifying. This has been my highlight of my VISTA year thus far!
Jamie Sharp • almost 14 years ago
These events were HUGELY successful at UCLA, UC Berkeley and at Stanford. The kids asked personal questions about college financing and challenges graduation, and they were able to get answers from students, not parents. When else is that a possibility?!
Ben Nyhoff • almost 14 years ago
Down in San Diego I witnessed and helped play two awesome Take Your Team to College Days at SDSU and USD. Combined, almost 40 youth from our coached teams got to see the campuses. They were in awe when they got to see the actual basketball team at SDSU practice, and play soccer on a real turf field at USD. It didn't surprise me that by the end of each event kids had questions about everything from "were you nervous to be at this huge school?" to "you really get to choose from all these foods!?". It was so fun to go beyond sports with these youth and their coaches and look further ahead at life.
Michelle Cahill • almost 14 years ago
Take Your Team to College Day was an amazing way to get kids interested in/excited about college! It was also a fantastic way to make them aware of their opportunities beyond the sports field!