There are many critical issues facing American society today and numerous organizations that seek to aggressively address those issues using various remedies. Among the core issues are matters related to the economy, health, sports and today’s youth.
This comes as no surprise to most Americans because high unemployment and foreclosures coupled with elevated obesity rates, failing schools, rising tuition costs and budget cuts to both sports and the arts are often at the forefront of today’s headlines. But what those headlines often lack is an answer to society’s ills.
Could skateboarding, once considered an activity of society’s problematic fringe members, be considered as part of the solution to some of America’s problems? In a word, “yes”, if you believe what organizations such as Up2Us are saying.
“Get: Set to make the case presenting sports as an agent for social change”, a collaborative report created by the group and Nike, indicated; that 33% of the nation’s children are overweight or obese by the 3rd grade, America’s national school dropout rate is 30% (and approaches 50% in many inner city areas) and more than 750,000 children are in gangs throughout the country.
Furthermore, the report indicated that participation in sports, including skateboarding, is correlated with reductions in obesity, dropout rates, gang involvement and youth violence.
Based on what I read about Up2Us and their and use of skateboarding as a vehicle for change, I decided to contact the organization in an attempt to learn more. As such, I was granted an interview with Megan Bartlett, the group’s Director of the Center for Sports-Based Youth Development (SBYD).
Here’s what she had to say about the organization’s work, the importance of skateboarding and sports programs in general, the anniversary of Title IX and more:
Gonzalez: Please share with us how your organization started and what its mission is?
Bartlett: Up2Us is a national nonprofit coalition leading the movement to advance sports as a vehicle to address critical issues facing youth, including childhood obesity, academic failure and anti-social behavior. Up2Us supports a national network of close to 500 member organizations in all 50 states.
These organizations serve 20 million youth through traditional and non-traditional sports. Members share best practices, advance initiatives that extend opportunities to new players, and deliver quality programs in underserved communities where there is a tremendous need for constructive outlets for youth.
Gonzalez: Does your organization recognize skateboarding as a sport?
Bartlett: Yes! At Up2Us and Coach Across America, we feel lucky to have a core group of high-quality member organizations that engage kids in skateboarding as a way to keep them active, safe, and engaged. Especially in cities like Los Angeles and New York, skateboarding is really popular with kids, and our goal is to ensure that these young people have the coaches, equipment, and guidance they need to channel their passion for skateboarding into long-term success on and off the board.
We’ve had coaches at NVISION, a division of the Woodcraft Rangers program in Los Angeles, for the past year; the work they have done to get kids into the sport, to build teamwork skills, and to foster peer connections has been nothing short of remarkable.
Up2Us supports both traditional and non-traditional sports. Our member organizations offer programming ranging from traditional sports such as baseball and soccer to non-traditional sports such as surfing, rugby, rowing and squash.
Gonzalez: How does your organization provide support?
Bartlett: Up2Us has more than 475 members across the country and supports its members through several services including: coaches (members receive highly-trained and highly-subsidized quality coaches from the Up2Us Coach Across America program), volunteers (members connect with passionate volunteers in their community through the Up2Us Volunteerism Initiative),equipment and apparel (members can access heavily discounted equipment for their program through unique Up2Us apparel-provider partnerships), evaluative tools (members can use research-based, practitioner-tested standards of quality to assess their programs) and research (members can access updated research and statistics to help make the case for sports).
Gonzalez: Please talk a little bit more about your organization’s Coach Across America program. I read that the program recently received a sizable infusion of cash through a Corporation for National and Community Service grant for the purposes of expanding the program’s reach. Was the organization able to expand as planned and if so how did it expand?
Bartlett: Coach Across America (CAA), the AmeriCorps program of Up2Us, is the first nationwide effort to mobilize a workforce to promote positive youth development through sports. CAA uses sports as a means to promote health and nutrition, education success, civic engagement and personal and social development among youth in some of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods.
CAA coordinates full and part-time placements for high school and college graduates as coach-mentors in schools, nonprofits and recreation/community centers. CAA coaches are certified in sports-based youth development, whereby they learn to inspire health, educational and social success among youth participants.
The program measures the impact of the coaches on reduced obesity, reduced dropout rates and prevention of anti-social behavior. Currently we have 250 coaches at 100 host sites, serving about 35,000 kids nationwide; because of cuts to AmeriCorps funding we will remain the same size in 2011-2012 as we were in 2010-2011, but hope to expand during the 2012-2013 program year.
Gonzalez: With this year marking the anniversary of Title IX there has been much discussion as to how far women have made it in terms of receiving gender equity in sports. This is especially a hot topic in the world of pro skateboarding where opportunities for women are shrinking and marked differences between men and women’s prize amounts remain. Do you think that overall Title IX has been successful and what more do you think needs to be done?
Bartlett: This is an incredibly complicated question to answer. There are so many things to consider. If the question is “Has Title IX been successful in delivering on its promise of gender equity?”, then the answer is, not completely. But there are so many reasons (enforcement, legal, stakeholders not mandated by it, etc.) why and the situation is so much better than it would be had Title IX not existed that it’s hard to think of Title IX as anything short of a success.
Gonzalez: As you are already aware, given today’s current political and economic climate many schools and community based organizations are drastically cutting their sports programs. What do you feel are the short and long term ramifications of this and what specifically is your organization doing in response?
Bartlett: Eliminating sports opportunities for youth is dangerous for many reasons. Coupled with the decline in both physical education and recess over the past decade, the recent decline in sports opportunities leaves young people with precious few chances to be active.
Youth who don’t have the chance to be physically active are more likely to suffer from a host of health and developmental difficulties. And perhaps equally threatening trend to the elimination of sports opportunities is the privatization of them - the rise of participation fees or pay to play fees.
While in these situations there are still some youth who are able to afford to participate in sports, a terrible dynamic in which the inequity between the “haves” and “have nots” is reinforced by these fees. In this situation, the obvious “haves” are youth who have families who can afford to have their children participate.
However, another group of “haves” are the athletically gifted youth, regardless of their financial state. In most situations, if a young person is not able to afford the fees but will help the team win, often times the fees are waived or paid by someone invested in the team’s success. So, not only is this practice inherently economically discriminatory, but it discourages youth from participating unless they happen to be athletically gifted.
Gonzalez: What advice would your organization give to those communities seeking to save or establish skateboarding or sports programs in general and what resources would you suggest they look into?
Bartlett: The things that we have seen have some level of success are: wide mobilization of parents and students appealing to the school board or whoever is making the budget decisions to save sports and fundraisers.
Fundraisers are not a sustainable solution because, well, there are only so many bake sales and car washes a team can have. But many parents and teams have decided to take matters into their own hands and provide the financial resources to allow the team to continue.
Another option is public-private partnerships where local businesses invest in the local athletic community and keep teams from going under.
None of these solutions typically provides any long-term relief. Unfortunately, even in the three states that have legal mandates that sports be considered a student’s right to free education (Rhode Island, Iowa and California), there is evidence of pay to play (sometimes disguised as transportation or insurance fees, not participation fees). Without a more systematic solution, this situation will not soon be resolved.
Additional information
For those interested in learning more about Up2Us, their use of skateboarding programs as a vehicle for change as well as the research the group has done on the benefits of sports, I suggest you read the 20 page “Get: Set to make the case presenting sports as an agent for social change” report referenced earlier in this article. The report is a true eye-opener.
In addition, Up2Us has other research materials available on its website that skate fans may find useful when approaching government officials for the purposes of making an argument for the establishment of a public skatepark as well as community based skateboarding programs.
Author's Note: My interview with Megan Bartlett took place several years ago and was originally published on Yahoo! Sports. The publishing rights now belong to me. As such, the above is a reprint of the original Yahoo! Sports article.
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