We talk a lot about grassroots change at Up2Us Sports. But what does that look like?
In 2018, Javan was a student at Dolores T. Aaron Academy in New Orleans. Like any other middle school-aged youth, he was growing up, navigating the challenges of adolescence, and preparing for the transition to high school.
Javan as a student at Dolores T. Aaron Academy in 2018, where he worked Up2Us Coaches Jerita and Aaron.
“I used to get in trouble a lot,” Javan reflects, smiling with equal parts sheepishness and mischief. “Back then I didn’t know it, but now I see…[my coaches] helped me not go down that wrong path.”
The coaches he’s referring to are Jerita and Aaron, two Up2Us Sports coaches who were serving at Dolores T. Aaron Academy at the time, as well as their host site supervisor, Coach Little, who had also attended Up2Us Sports trainings. These three great coaches were in Javan’s life at a crucial time, and they had his back. They understood his challenges; perhaps more importantly, they understood his strengths and opportunities.
Javan was deeply committed to basketball, and Coaches Jerita, Aaron, and Little helped him use that commitment and passion to stay on track and grow—as an athlete, a student, and a young man in the community.
Coach Jerita witnessed Javan as he continued to grow and flourish as an athlete. He graduated from high school and, in 2023, returned to Dolores T. Aaron Academy to serve as an Up2Us Sports Coach. Coach Javan says it’s great to be back at his old school: he gets to see students who were a few years below him as they grow and complete their studies, and most of the teachers who taught him are still there. “So,” he says, “they show love.”
Jerita is now Program Director of Up2Us Coach in New Orleans. She continues to mentor Javan now that he is a coach. And Coach Javan is inspiring the next generation of youth-athletes to find discipline through what they love, be patient with themselves, and have fun. He’s drawing on the tools modeled for him by his coaches and on Up2Us Sports’ unique training, which teaches coaches how to build positive relationships with youth and help them translate sports skills into life skills.
Javan now serves as an Up2Us Coach at the same school where he once had Up2Us Coaches himself.
“My coaches had patience with me,” he explains. “With the kids I’m working with now, I know patience is key…[and] I’m always positive towards them. They’re going to mess up, get frustrated. I tell them, ‘You got this, come on. Give me one more, try it one more time.’ They get frustrated, but they still push through it. They’re happy when they get it right, and I like that. I try to keep them motivated. No matter if they’re frustrated with themselves, I’m going to try to build them up.”
This is the change Up2Us Sports works to create by recruiting coaches who are from the same neighborhoods they serve, and by partnering with organizations within these communities. This is change at the grassroots level, change that grows and sustains itself through networks of community and relationships, through the act of showing up as a coach and a mentor so that today’s youth are inspired to be tomorrow’s changemakers.
