PAL changing lives in OKC schools
To understand how playing sports in Oklahoma City’s Police Athletic League is changing lives, walk through the glass double doors and into the sundrenched foyer at Southern Hills Elementary.
This is where school principal Jennifer McKay was a couple weeks ago when Jordan Taylor camein.The fourth grader had left earlier in the afternoon to go to the dentist, and McKay was expecting he’d just go home after his appointment.
But late in the school day, he returned.
“Why are you back?” she asked.
“Soccer!” he explained.
Jordan is a kid who has struggled with grades for years and has been held back twice. He has a speech impediment and a family story that McKay considers among the saddest in her nearly three decades in education.
School has not always been a place Jordan loves, but that changed with PAL sports.
So much at Southern Hills has.
“It’s really changed our school culture,” McKay said.
A year ago, the Police Athletic League started offering sports in Oklahoma City Public’s elementary schools, and in only two years of football, volleyball, basketball and soccer, PAL has seen explosive growth. There were 71
total teams a year ago. Now, there are 126 teams.
Total number of kids: 1,880.
Of the 55 elementary schools in the district, 27 have at least one PAL sport, but another six wanted to participate this year. Executive director Peter Evans said the league just didn’t have the resources to accommodate those schools.
“Our ultimate goal,” Evans said, “is to one day bring this ... to every elementary school in OKCPS.”
Talk to folks at Southern Hills Elementary nestled between I-240 and Oklahoma City’s border with Moore, and it’s easy to see why.
Chris Outlaw was one of the kids who joined the PAL basketball team as soon as he had the chance last year. He had basketball blood in his family, and he had played with other teams — but he wasn’t prepared for the expectations.
McKay had decided that kids had to maintain at least a C in all classes and have satisfactory behavior to play PAL.
Chris Mendenhall, one of the coaches at Southern Hills, remembers well the first time McKay and the coaches decided to cancel practice and have study hall because so many players were struggling in class. The kids were none too happy.
Then again, neither were the coaches.
“Look,” Mendenhall remembers telling the kids, “at one point in your life, you’re going to look back and say, ‘Man, I’m glad that happened.’”
Southern Hills even forfeited a game because of grades.
As near as anyone knows, that’s the only time that has happened in OKC’s PAL leagues. Neither McKay nor the coaches are proud that things reached that point at Southern Hills, and yet, they know that their end goal isn’t wins and losses.
“I firmly believe that sport changes lives,” McKay said. “For a lot of kids, that’s why you want to be in middle school, that’s the reason you want to hang in high school.
“But ... you have to make your grades.”
McKay wanted to establish standards early, and the results have been striking. Outlaw, a sixth grader, improved a lagging mark in music to a B. Fifth grader Briseida Acosta moved her math grade from a C to an A. Jordan Taylor, the fourth-grade soccer player who came back after his dentist appointment, got an A in reading.
On and on the successes go. Grades have improved. So have attitudes. Teachers and administrators at Southern Hills credit the coaches for that. All of the men and women coaching at the school are members of Southern Hills Baptist Church. A partnership between church and school was originally established to provide classroom supplies, but when PAL teams were started, the church jumped in to volunteer.
Makenzie Tarpley was among the first. She started coaching basketball a year ago, but now, she helps with soccer and even track, which isn’t associated with PAL.
She has seen great change. At first, the kids thought the teams were all fun and games, and when they realized that there were expectations and rules, some bolted. But the kids who remained have thrived.
What’s more, they’ve become attached to her, even joining her and the other coaches for church, and the attachment is mutual.
“These kids mean a lot to me,” Tarpley said through tears. “I’m so thankful to be able to invest in them.”
Mendenhall, another Southern Hills Baptist member who now coaches every sport, said, “This is one of the best opportunities I’ve had.”
The dedication of people like Tarpley, Mendenhall and Southern Hills Baptist associate children, and youth pastor Ben Woodson makes PAL go at Southern Hills. Without them, after all, the school wouldn’t be able to do PAL sports — and that’s almost unfathomable now.
Even though the teams have only been at the school for two years, no one at Southern Hills Elementary can imagine being without them. That’s because of the big-picture improvement at the school, but more than anything, it’s because of the individual stories.
McKay goes back to that day Jordan Taylor came back to school for soccer practice after his dentist appointment. For several years, she had talked to the boy’s mom about improving his grades. They needed to devise a plan. They needed to work together. They needed to do anything possible to help Jordan.
But momentum was minimal.
Then Jordan started playing soccer. His motivation changed, and his grades skyrocketed. He was invested, and so was his mom.
How all of this could change Jordan’s life — and the lives of other kids — remains to be seen, and yet, hopes are high. The better kids do in elementary school, the higher they’ll be placed and the more electives they’ll be allowed when they enter middle school. That affects them then and for years to come.
“That is just a gamechanger,” McKay said.
So are PAL sports in Oklahoma City.