The Giving Tree of Continuous Participation

Time, or lack thereof is the reason why athletes leave the teams they love. Under-resourced athletes need more time to solve economic, nutrition, and transportation challenges; under-educated athletes need more time to overcome academic challenges; late bloomers need more time to mature; older athletes need time to develop leadership skills; and every athlete needs the perspective of time to internalize the cumulative benefits of continuous participation.

Unfortunately, within every corner, niche, and segment of ‘sports incorporated’, time is an unforgiving adversary. An athlete's birth year is coupled to a non stop train of grade-year expectations. By grade five, you will be X; by grade six you will be Y; and by grade seven, you will be Z. The train never stops, and by grade ten, most athletes grow tired and disembark. The burden of time-based expectations, costs, and competing needs derail the sports journey for all but a shrinking segment of athletes.

For dedicated athletes, continuous participation is a giving tree of positive outcomes including: accomplishing athletic milestones, inheriting team values, acquiring the art of team execution, establishing meaningful relationships, learning healthy habits, experiencing the power of reciprocity and gratitude, maturing into leaders, and ultimately becoming self-actualized adults. At Boston Rising Sports, we believe the personal development pillar that’s necessary to achieving remarkable technical, tactical, and physical growth comes from the giving tree of continuous participation.

BRS nourishes the giving tree of continuous participation through Transformative Athletic Events [TAEs]. TAEs are uncoupled from the demands of time. BRS events are multi-age, mixed-gender, multi-lingual, club-neutral, recurring, and are focused on “impact” rather than win/lose outcomes. Event costs are income adjusted; participants are offered food and transportation; and TAEs are fully resourced (facility, equipment, shirts, coaches, etc.). Many TAE participants (but not all) are athletic two-percenters and could play anywhere. BRS coaches are background-checked, experienced, exceptional, often bilingual, and are chosen for their passion to coach and mentor. Every BRS event is designed to teach a skill, a strategy, and a lesson for bravely living life.

There are many camps, clubs, and programs where an athlete can learn Technical, Tactical, and Physical (TTP) skills. However, there’s a fourth pillar, the personal development pillar (referred to in academia as the “psychological ” component in [TTPP] sports performance training) that BRS emphasizes by coaching the application of “ethical bravery” both on and off the field; with “ethical bravery” roughly defined as ethically motivated grit, valor, spirit, resolve, courage, fearlessness, daring, and gallantry.

To continually feed the giving tree of continuous participation through an ever-growing and unbroken string of Transformative Athletic Events, BRS will build an alumni network of qualified coach-mentors that can teach [technical] skills, [tactical] strategy, and lessons for bravely living life. To grow our network, BRS will create a certificate course: “Practical Applications of Ethical Bravery in Sports and Life”. Every BRS coach and our [older] athletes will be given the opportunity to participate as students and/or as contributors.

Our short-term goal is to create, promote, fund, and manage a successful series of Transformative Athletic Events in the Boston area. Through this series, we will determine where to strategically apply resources and technology to scale our vision. Longer-term, we believe the combination of TAEs, our certificate course, dedicated and salaried mentors, athlete scholarships, and an app for tracking participant progress and maintaining mentor-athlete connections will profoundly impact the lives of the athletes we work with. In addition, our vision is to become entirely self-sustaining. We are Boston Rising Sports.