VETERANS GET BACK INTO GAME
Cambridge firm connects college coaches with military athletes
When he ended his four-year run with the Marines, Swampscott native Alex Stone had no idea that he was still eligible to play football and hockey for the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Being on a team would have helped him ease more smoothly back into civilian life, encouraged him to attend college sooner and led to an easier time in the job market.
Things ultimately turned out well for Stone, but he wants to make it easier for veterans like him to seize opportunities. That’s the idea behind the venture capital-backed startup he founded, Athletes of Valor, an online platform that connects college coaches with athletes who have served their country in the armed forces. The company opens its first office in Kendall Square tomorrow.
“Veterans don’t want handouts. We want opportunities,” said Stone, 30, who worked his way up the corporate ladder at Under Armour before leaving to found Athletes of Valor. “And every coach will go back to the one time they had a veteran on their team and what a great experience it was.”
Civilian athletes only have NCAA eligibility until one year after high school graduation, but for veterans, NCAA eligibility extends until after their service through the little-known Military Service Exemption. That makes the potential user base for the startup vast, with two-thirds of veterans having played high school sports, and 1 million expected to transition out of the armed services over the next four years.
Athletes of Valor has already raised several hundred thousand dollars toward its first investment goal. College coaches pay a subscription fee to use the platform, which will also host job boards and other resources for military athletes. Athletes set up a profile that offers personal statistics on weight, height and ability that college recruiters look for. Athletes can post videos and keep in touch with coaches during their career in the military.
For both coaches and veterans, the platform, currently being beta tested, is a win.
“Coaches are saying we’d love to get more veterans, but we don’t know where to find them,” said Stone. “And we’ve spoken with veterans who say their experience in sports literally saved their life.”
The lead investor behind AthletesofValor.com is Jordan Fliegel, founder of CoachUp, the successful startup platform that connects private coaches with student athletes.
“What we’re really going to do is encourage high school athletes to serve their country before going to college,” said Fliegel, 29, who relates to the platform as a former college basketball player for Bowdoin College. “If you had told me that instead of going to Bowdoin directly out of high school, I could go into service and still play college basketball, I would have jumped on that.”
Government support makes college virtually free for vets, but currently, only 60 percent of veterans enroll in college and only half of those graduate. More vets, Stone said, need to “separate (from the military) with a sense of purpose.”
Certainly the philanthropic community has not solved the gravest problems faced by veterans. A landmark study by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in 2013 showed that roughly 22 vets commit suicide each day. The prominent nonprofit Wounded Warrior Project has been in turmoil after revelations about its lavish staff expenditures. We need new ways to reach our growing population of former service men and women.
Athletes of Valor is a great litmus test of for-profit social impact companies for veterans.
The company’s goal, said Fliegel, is “a veteran on every college sports team.” Here’s hoping that’s just the beginning.