^Jortlanb Observer
A u g u s t 15, 2012
Page 11
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
North Portland
Zhykaire (from le ft) N a ss e ir and
Larry lin e up fo r a relay race a t
P ortland S tate U niversity during
a su m m e r cam p run by the
Police A ctivitie s League.
Introduction
WW*
Camp shows boys
and girls the way
to higher ed
C ari H achmann
T he P ortland O bserver
by
Just a few years behind the college-age
students who surround them, a group of
teenage boys walk coolly in two lines through
the heart of Portland State University’s tree-
lined campus.
At Portland State University, Christian Nicolas, 1 1 (from left), Pedro Rondon, 1 1
and Jonathon Guerrero, 1 1 , learn about healthy foods as one o f their lessons
during National Youth Sports Camp. The exposure to college life also gets them
thinking about their futures, a goal o f the sum m er camp.
The young men are enrolled at the Police
Activities League’s annual National Youth
Sports Camp, an educational getaway for
kids who come from poor and disadvantaged
families.
Considering many have never stepped
foot on a college campus before, the boys’
quiet composure is impressive and hopeful to
the watching elders.
Lance Waddy, 27, a PAL camp leader and
staff member o f 15 years, said the camp gives
kids who have never been on a college cam
pus before an example of college life and how
feasible it is to attend college.
Waddy says it may be that in many of these
kids’ homes, nobody is talking about college.
Maybe mom or dad didn’t go. “But if you’re
here for four straight weeks and you see
people with your face in college, you know
it’s that easy to make the transition,” he said.
Fives buses from Beaverton to Gresham
were used to transport about half of the 410
low-income boys and girls who participated
in the summer program. The youth are split up
by age and gender into six groups that rotate
throughout the day and around the college
campus.
Camp leader Tommy Rudd, 25, was just
nine years old when he hopped a bus to his
first National Youth Sports Camp in 1996.
“I was really nervous,” he remembers. At
Cun Hv M.MKw'TMt fa c r tv * O fc iittt
that time, many kids his age were sneaking on
buses and into camp just to spend a day away
from home, off the streets and out of trouble.
Now, Rudd is one of the 90 percent of camp
staff members who return every summer to
help kids cycle through.
NYSP was created in the 1960s during the
Civil Rights Movement to teach young mi
norities in the south how to swim as well as
expose other underprivileged youth through
sports to opportunities of higher education.
Held at university campuses, the summer
program spread nationwide.
For the past 19 years, PAL has held the
camp at PSU, where the university donates
over $100,000 in services. At camp, an in
structional swimming program is mandatory
and kids participate in additional sports like
basketball, football, track and field, soccer,
bowling and dance.
Coach Paul Frazier has been coaching foot
ball at PAL and NYSP camp for lOyears, but
says his main purpose here is not football.
“It’s education,” he said. “I’m here to help
these kids understand the importance of edu
cation. I just use football as a vehicle to get
that across.”
Frazier says kids revel in the excitement of
being on a college campus, where university
continued
on page 19