national governing body for the sport of your
choice, or simply calling up someone who runs a
program. (Regardless of the sport, they’ll know
what’s going on around the country and should be
able to help you network.)
Another option is to start a community team or
program yourself. Our sports outreach veterans say
to start small, however. “If it’s a good idea and it’s
popular, it will grow faster than you want it to,”
warns Zack Lehman. Lehman, 27, is the executive
director of MetroLacrosse, an organization that
supports lacrosse programs in 10 communities
around Boston.
Lehman says anyone who is considering starting
computers, hired a part-time learning center coordi
nator, and recruited volunteer tutors to work with
kids in the program. “There aren’t many things that
catch kids’ attention these days, and if you can find
one, like lacrosse, you’ve got to leverage it,” says
Lehman. Furthermore, he says, in order to go after
larger grants, you need to offer something beyond a
sports program, whether it’s drug and alcohol pre
vention or academic tutoring.
For his first three years with the program,
Lehman didn’t take a penny of salary. He was a
third-year law student when he began the neighbor
hood team and later worked full-time in law while
an urban sports pro
gram needs to focus
on three main things:
raising money, getting
kids interested, and
“There aren’t many things that catch
kids’ attention these days, and if you can
find one, you’ve got to leverage it.”
securing racmues ana
a competition schedule. For funding, Lehman
turned to friends and relatives, got local businesses
(from pizza joints to funeral parlors) to sponsor
players, sold T-shirts, and had kids stand outside
grocery stores soliciting money. “We had bake sales,
for crying out loud,” says Lehman. That first year,
the collective efforts brought in $15,000 to cover
equipment costs, buses for the games, and sundry
expenses. Lehman set up a 13-game schedule
against prep school junior varsity teams simply by
calling up the athletic directors of all the prep
schools in the area and asking them to play his
team. (“Don’t set [kids] up with a varsity schedule
where they’re going to get crushed. Give them a
chance to learn the game,” he says.)
Like Lehman says, if you’ve got something good,
it grows fast. “Year two we had 160 kids and 20
▼ experience.com
For a list of outreach programs nationwide, go
to www.experience.com/sportsoutreach.
w
coaches and a much bigger budget. We formed a
board of directors, filed for tax-exempt status,
incorporated, had monthly board meetings, and
started a core of volunteer parents to do everything
from cutting oranges for games to watching the
clock,” he says. The most important difference the
second year of the program, however, was the addi
tion of an educational component. Lehman and
friends took over an abandoned storefront, put in
running the program. Only after he left his corpo
rate law job to work full-time on replicating the
program in other communities did he begin to be
paid. Traditionally, Lehman explains, parents have
taken on the role of volunteer coach for community
sports programs, and it’s never been in the spirit of
the organizations to pay these people. He says, how
ever, that the climate is changing, particularly in
urban communities. “Great programs don’t just
come out of nowhere and last forever. You have to
have someone who runs them, and volunteers get
burnt out.” While coaching positions may continue
to draw on volunteers, there will be a growing num
ber of paid positions for administrators in organiza
tions like these.
If you’re starting an urban sports program, any
sport will be beneficial, Lehman says, “but there’s
something about starting this kind of traditionally
suburban type sport that opens kids’ eyes. They’re
saying, ‘I can compete with those kids in the sub
urbs in lacrosse, maybe I can compete with them in
the classroom, maybe I can compete with them in
the workforce.’” And believing they can compete is
half the battle. 0
Associate Editor Aimee Whitenack’s sports out
reach efforts include hobbling a few balls on the
experience.com softball team, which is hoping for
better luck next year.