Project Coach @ Western New England University

At its November 10, 2011, meeting, the Sport Management Association invited Project Coach (PC) Director Andy Wood and Assistant Director Greg Rosnick to campus to give a presentation on PC's work with Springfield Public School students in the North End, in a program that utilizes urban high school students as mentors to inner-city youth.  Wood and Rosnick talked to SMA members about the impact of this unique program that leverages sport to promote healthy lifestyles and teach life skills, on both the youth participants and the high school "coaches," 100% of whom have graduated from high school since the program's inception in 2005.  This is a remarkable statistic in a school system where barely half of high school students make it through to graduation.


by Professor Curt Hamakawa, Director of Center for International Sport Business, Western New England Univ.