Johannah Mitchell, a member of the women's lacrosse team at St. Thomas Aquinas College will spend her summer coaching with the Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership organization.  For the second straight summer, Up2Us, a coalition of more than 650 nonprofit organizations that believe in the power of sports to fight childhood obesity, end academic failure, and reduce gang participation, selected an ECC student-athlete to serve as an Up2Us Coach Across America coach.

Blog No. 1
By: Johannah Mitchell

This summer, I was given the amazing opportunity to represent Coach Across America at a day camp run out of Frederick Douglass Academy through the non-profit program Harlem Lacrosse & Leadership.  "Harlem Lacrosse & Leadership (HLL) is a youth organization that builds leadership skills and social responsibility through lacrosse.  We provide a safe and structured setting for our players as we guide them both on and off the field through coaching, mentoring and academic intervention.  Broadening players' experiences and skill sets prepares them to become effective leaders in the Harlem community." (HarlemLacrosse.org)

HLL provides tutoring, mentoring, academic advisement, and lacrosse education to the players of Fredrick Douglass Academy and The Sojourner Truth School.  Since it's founding in 2008, HLL has made tremendous strides in bringing lacrosse to the children in Harlem.  The direct involvement HLL has in their player's lives allows for their continued success.  HLL has taken many of the children who have dealt with academic and behavioral issues and transformed theses "at-risk" children into successful students and players. Thus, HLL has seen players collectively increase their GPA's and graduation rates, as well as witnessed many students receive scholarships to secondary schools.  And "today over ninety middle school boys and nearly thirty middle school girls are involved in the program between our two sites, which now involves intensive, mandatory academic tutoring five days per week, high school transition and boarding school admissions counseling, and of course, year-round lacrosse." (HarlemLacrosse.org)

Harlem Lacrosse & Leadership's year-round program gives players the opportunity to stay busy with their Summer Day Camp, all while working on improving their lacrosse skills and perfecting a sport they have grown to love.  The camp is held Monday through Thursday at Frederick Douglass Academy from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and on Friday's the campers are taken on field trips from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  Typically our day consists of lacrosse practice in the first half of the day followed by academic and leadership training in the afternoon.  The camp has attracted about twenty boys and eleven girls and we're hoping these numbers only increase with each week.

There are three coaches and a few volunteers for the boy's team.  I coach along side Coach Amanda and Coach Kate for the girls team.  My duties as the girl's camp director is to engage, educate, and enable my players.  For the past week, I have been arriving at FDA at 8:30am to help watch the children who arrive early.  Once all the kids have arrived we gather the equipment and head out to the handball courts, where practice is held from around 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  

Not only has holding practice on the handball court posed as a great challenge, having camp in the middle of July has been incredibly grueling.  Every day has been over 95 degrees and sunny.  And even though we finish out practices by 12:30, the girls, some more than others, struggle with the heat.  I think these conditions have been the most challenging components so far.  And while these aren't the most conducive conditions for learning, the girls have been great.   

Monday consisted with getting to know the girls individually as well as evaluating their skills.  Once we had a better understanding of where the players were skill wise, the other coaches and I decided our practices for the rest of the week would focus on perfecting the fundamentals of lacrosse.  We wanted our girls to be able to catch and throw, cradle, pick up ground balls, and have a greater understanding of defense and offense.  While eleven girls can be hard to put together successful drills, it does allow the coaches and me to give each player, especially the girls who are just beginners, more one-on-one guidance.  And in only one week, we have seen incredible improvements from all the girls.

For example, I have one player, who is an aggressive, competitive, and incredibly enthusiastic player who is focused on improving her throwing and catching skills.  Ideally, as a coach, this is the type of player you can only hope for!  When we take water breaks, she doesn't waste any time and is right back up playing wall-ball.  Because she is such a passionate player, the coaches and I decided to make a deal with her: If she can complete 30 wall-ball catches, without dropping the ball, by the end of next week we will reward her with a prize!  Each day she comes in with a big smile assuring us today's the day.  I absolutely love her excitement and I believe she will be able to achieve her goal in no time.

After practice we head inside to the school cafeteria for lunch and then head to the classroom for our academic and leadership activities, such as Math and English workshops.  These workshops are a great way for these kids to keep their minds active during the summer months.  On Friday, we took the campers to a nearby New York Sports Club were they got to learn how to use the fitness machines, as well as partake in a class where they combined stretching and strengthening moves with music.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed this trip, especially the class.  Players were leaving NYSC raving about their experience and how they didn't know working out could be so much fun!   

I whole-heartedly believe in the positive influences team sports have on a child's life, so long as the environment allows players to grow and foster their abilities, as well as a coaching staff that is actively involved in passing on their knowledge of the sport and teaching their players valuable life lessons.  HLL provides at-risk youth with these very tools to succeed and I couldn't be more thrilled to be apart of such a great program.  And although I am only with HLL for their summer program, I hope I can make an impact on these players' lives.