At-risk youth shown off-field sports careers
Niiobli Armah knew there had to be a better way to engage atrisk kids.
The senior consultant at a nonprofit consulting firm had been working on initiatives with My Brother’s Keeper Outreach Center in the Houston area for years, and saw the way the program and the Houston Independent School District worked to support kids of color in under-resourced communities to deter them from the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
When the Super Bowl came to Houston three years ago, the idea to use sports to motivate children hit him and colleague, Mike Bloomberg. They weren’t aiming to make them athletes but to help them pursue off-the-field sports careers.
“We tell the school counselors to send us the kids who typically don’t participate in any kind of activity,” Armah said. “This is designed for kids falling behind and not focusing.”
More than 100 high school seniors from the Houston area were honored Wednesday by politicians and athletes, including Mayor Sylvester Turner, for completing a year with the program Team Up Houston. Team Up, which operates under the umbrella of the outreach center, works to introduce these struggling students to non-athlete sports careers, such as management or communications.
“Investing in our youth is one of the most important things we can do for our city,” Turner said. “Team Up provides opportunities to young people in some of our most vulnerable communities expanding horizons and encouraging them to stay in school and pursue careers they may not have otherwise considered.”
Students at the event came from majority-minority schools such as Sam Houston and Scarborough high schools in the Northside, YES Prep AcademyGulfton and the Urban Enrichment Institute in the Fifth Ward. Armah estimated that about 70 percent of the kids Team Up works with are severely at-risk, and many of them aren’t the most popular kids in school.
Through a collaboration with My Brother’s Keeper, the Houston Health Department, the Houston Health Foundation and multiple sports teams locally and nationally, the program has been able to thrive for two years.
The main feature of Team Up is monthly Discovery Days, where professionals come to a school to introduce students to their offthe-field career, such as running a team’s social media account. Many of the speakers come from similar backgrounds to the kids, helping them connect and engage.
The program also introduces students to volunteer and fundraising experience, scholarship opportunities, mentorship and networking.
According to Team Up data, all Team Up students “strongly agreed that this program has increased their understanding of the sports business industry, as well as the degrees that they can pursue in college related to sports.” Students also said they better understand how to act professionally (90 percent) and will likely try to go to college after Team Up (70 percent).
LeJuan Starghill, a senior at Sam Houston High School in the Northside, beamed from ear to ear Wednesday evening as she said “I just got to shake the mayor’s hand!”
Starghill grew up loving football and thought he would become a professional athlete. But after participating in Team Up, the 18-year-old African-American said he wants to own a professional sports team to help diversify the ownership ranks. (In 2018, there were only two owners of color in the NFL.)
Starghill wants to study sports management at Texas State University. “I want to come back and show that there’s more stuff to do than playing sports, because I was never taught that,” Starghill said.