Community organizations are collaborating to give kids from Britton Middle School a unique sports experience, paring access to quality facilities and equipment with coaching from high school mentors.
Claudia Rossi, mother of two and trustee for the Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Education, came up with an idea to get more middle school kids in Morgan Hill playing sports, but she didn’t know where to start.
“I asked myself why aren’t more (middle school) kids participating in after-school sports programs?” Rossi said. “And I kept asking who do I go to help remedy that? And everybody said, you need to talk to Jeff Dixon… and as soon as I did, he made it happen.”
Jeff Dixon is the president of Morgan Hill Youth Sports Alliance whose mission’s byline is “more kids in more sports.”
“It’s like you’re looking for something to make sure your organization’s mission is accomplished,” Dixon said, “and here comes someone with a way to do it and a goal to accomplish.”
Together Rossi and Dixon crafted the pilot for the Sports Mentors Program at Britton and over time they hope to expand to Martin Murphy Middle School.
Teachers and advisors at Britton selected 30 students they believe will benefit from the program. Typically, these are low-income students who don’t have the opportunity to play in other sports leagues, which not only cost but also often require a greater time commitment and transportation needs, Dixon said.
Those students are matched with eight high school coaches – juniors and seniors identified for their leadership abilities. The coaches receive community service hours for their participation.
The school district participates with Sports Mentors by selecting students for the program and providing transportation to the program.
Superintendent Wes Smith OK’d an extra bus stop to drop the kids off at the Outdoor Sports Center on Condit Road for the Sports Mentor Program after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The program ends at 5:30 p.m., by which time parents are off work usually. Transportation is often a roadblock for kids getting involved in sports leagues, Rossi said.
The district is “about supporting community members who have rallied around our youth,” Smith said. “We feel on many levels that that (the Sports Mentors Program) is a great activity.”
The Outdoor Sports Center has nine grass fields and two fully lighted stadium turf fields over 22 acres. It’s run by Dixon and MHYSA.
Sept. 25 was the first day of the program. Opening day coincided with the Gatorade Junior Training Camp, a free football camp sponsored by Gatorade and NFL teams offering kids across the country the opportunity to learn football skills. San Francisco 49ers staff brought equipment and set up four stations for the kids to rotate through; quarterback, receiver, lineman and running back.
Over the course of the program, Dixon plans to take the kids from field sports (“rectangle sports” as he calls them), to court sports, to water sports. The specific plan for these segments has yet to be determined.
The funding for the program is from Leadership Morgan Hill’s Class of 2011, which raised over $40,000 intended to support “disadvantaged youth,” partnered with MHYSA to provide Sports Mentors with its sole source of monetary funding. Leadership is an organization that runs training and development programs designed to “inspire future leaders to community service.”
“They’ve funded us, effectively, for the next two to three years, maybe more,” Dixon said. Though funding has yet to be secured for beyond then, Dixon is confident that the program will be sustainable due to partnerships with the school district and the city, lowering the cost of operations.
The Morgan Hill Police Department has also partnered with Sports Mentors.
“The Sports Mentors Program is one way for police officers to interact with youth in an positive non-traditional setting,” said Capt. Shane Palsgrove, special operations captain.
“Officers will get to know the future generation and begin developing that trust and confidence in each other that leads to a successful and safe community.”
Dixon explains that the idea is for officers to mentor both high school and middle school students, and for the older kids to mentor the younger kids.
The program is still in its earliest stages, but Rossi and Dixon look forward to seeing what comes when kids and mentors have had a chance to build cohesiveness on the field.
