Posts by Mike Powell
What Makes a Community? Reflections on 2022-23
It’s easy for me to talk about wrestling. I live it. I breathe it. I know it works. I know it changes lives. So why is it so hard for me to describe what exactly we do at Beat the Streets? As we end the 2022-23 year, I find myself struggling for the right words, even while I know it has been a phenomenal year.
Too often, we flip-flop between sports vocabulary (matches, tournaments, practices and state qualifiers) and nonprofit vocabulary (programs, impact, social-emotional learning, theory of change). But neither feels right for us. We are neither a typical sports club doing nonprofit work nor a normal charity-funded youth program doing sports. We are more.
We are a community.
We are a community united by wrestling and reinforced by year-round opportunities to engage and build lasting relationships. Like any strong community, we look out for each other, ensuring that all wrestlers can access the resources they need to become Life Champions. Our community is a place to belong for all Chicagoans who share our values and culture.
Strong communities provide a sense of belonging.
Strong communities meet their members’ oft-changing needs.
Strong communities’ members support each other.
Strong communities save lives.
Wrestling is the entry point into our community. And, we believe wrestling by itself is powerful – the best vehicle for self-improvement, in fact. But beyond wrestling, some of our community members need more. Not everyone needs the same type of support or the same amount of support. We’re here for our wrestlers, whatever they might need. I suppose we can call these extra support systems programs, but they really are opportunities, created to meet needs, open to all, accessed by many and critical to some.
Some organizations focus on one or two aspects: sports plus tutoring or sports plus mentoring or enrichment in a safe community space. We believe we are alone in the local nonprofit sector offering a combination of all five: sports, academic support, enrichment, mentoring and community. Yes, we have a programmatic approach to each, but more importantly we customize the experiences we deliver to the needs of each of our community members individually.
How does that play out for us?
Last year, we served 3,000 unique wrestlers who in total registered 4,500 times for our programs, events and activities. 1,700 wrestlers were guest participants at our events. 1,300 we’d call our “Beat the Streets” team.
52% of our team of 1,300 came mostly for the wrestling. With world-class clinicians and the top coaching staff in Chicago, we’re here for that! These 675 sports-focused wrestlers received not only phenomenal wrestling instruction available to our whole community, but also the powerful message of our values-based coaching style.
Almost half, or 625 “Impact Wrestlers“ on our Beat the Streets team, accessed additional opportunities and events within our community throughout the year. This is the group for whom we start talking about delivering impact both on and off the mat.
Intensity deepens with engagement. Over 25% of the Impact Wrestlers group, or 160 “High Impact” wrestlers, not only wrestled with us throughout the year, they also took part in a variety of enrichment activities, including academic support, travel, and life skills workshops.
Sometimes, even that isn’t enough. 50% of our 160 High Impact Wrestlers need even more support to become Life Champions. We do whatever it takes for our 80 “Three-Sixty Wrestlers” which could mean helping them resolve homelessness, work with their families, secure scholarships, access city and state resources, get a ride to practice or simply feel seen. Whatever they need as individuals.
It’s much easier for me to talk about our community of wrestlers and how deeply they engage with us. Their stories compel us, their needs drive what we do. Nevertheless, we have to organize ourselves as a business, to ensure that we are offering the highest quality services to anyone in our community who might need them. I’m delighted to say that we’ve spent a good part of this past year tweaking our organizational structure and putting a strong leadership team in place to do just that.
Wrestling – headed by former World Team Member Patrick Martinez, Coach Martinez focuses on bringing the highest quality wrestling experience to our entire community, from tots to high school, through seasonal programs, clinics and tournaments. With six primary wrestling sites and the SCORE partnership at twenty Chicago Public Schools, Martinez is able to bring the power of wrestling to youth throughout the City and beyond. He is joined by Head Men’s Coach Mike Boyd and Head Women’s Coach Sammie Barrientos and a roster of over 200 paid and volunteer coaches.
Enrichment – headed by teacher and wrestler Leila Cleofe, Coach Leila manages our vast menu of enrichment activities, including our flagship Life Champions Academy, camps, college visits, scholarships, and cultural excursions. Coach Leila’s team also includes the “Three-Sixty Wrestlers” program, which coordinates the myriad of services required to support our community members most in need of additional resources.
Academic Support – also managed by Coach Leila is our Academic Support Services. This includes our organized programs such as the After School Tutoring Center and our program that matches individual tutors to wrestlers needing assistance in specific subjects. It also includes meeting wrestlers’ requests for help on one-off projects, such as a college essay guidance, homework help, assistance with research projects and help enrolling in school or signing up for FAFSA.
Mentoring – our formal mentoring program relies on our Young Professionals, our alumni and our connections within the Chicago wrestling community. We deliver mentoring both through our Life Champions Academy and one:one matching of mentors and coaches to wrestlers as part of our “Three-Sixty” program. Informally, our coaches develop meaningful mentor relationships with individual wrestlers organically throughout the seasons.
Community – the hardest to codify but the most important to changing lives is the sense of community we build at Beat the Streets Chicago. Our staff, our wrestlers, our families, our donors, our coaches and our supporters all come together in a supportive, affirming place for all of us to belong and celebrate each other. From formal activities and events to online platforms to impromptu birthday parties to friendships to ensuring that every youth has a positive adult relationship: we are a year-round culture-first community doing everything we can to match resources to the needs of our youth wrestlers so that they may go on to become Life Champions.
It takes structure and resources to manage our community. In addition to coaches Patrick, Leila, Mike and Sammie, we’re thrilled to have on our team Ian Rose as Director of Facilities and Events, Cathy Yen as Director of Strategy and Finance, Hannah Weigel as Development Coordinator, Justin Hames as Marketing Coordinator, Alex Madrigal as Assistant Enrichment Coordinator, Chris Helm as Facilities and Program Associate and Ryan Cone as our Administrative Assistant. We’re shortly going to announce our newest hire who will manage our tutoring center and Three-Sixty Program as well as announce the dozen incoming Up2Us coaches for the 2023-24 year. These are the people who hold our community together.
So, let’s try this again:
What is Beat the Streets Chicago?
We are a vibrant community accessed through wrestling and organized to help our community members get what they need to become Life Champions.
What do we do?
Whatever we can; whatever it takes; whatever our members are looking to us to provide.
How do we know it is working?
3,000 wrestlers participated in our community last year.
1,300 of these wrestlers call themselves “Beat the Streets” wrestlers.
625 of our Beat the Streets wrestlers are here for more than just wrestling.
160 of our wrestlers seeking additional resources are deeply engaged year-round in both wrestling AND enrichment activities.
80 of these wrestlers need three hundred and sixty degrees of support, which we do our best to provide.
We must be doing something right.
Thank you to each and every member of the Beat the Streets Chicago community. You are Beat the Streets and we are here for you.
Special Appeal: Help Coach Hale
Our coaches are Life Champions too! And sometimes they can use a little help.
Andrea Hale, one of our top all-around coaches but especially a role model for our girls, is pursuing her degree. COVID has made it hard to earn the tuition money at the same time financial assistance is hard to come by.
Mike Powell shared this special video inviting you to join us is getting behind Coach Hale so she can overcome this obstacle and continue her Life Champion journey.
To visit Coach Andrea Hale’s GoFundMe page and read her story, click here: https://gofund.me/38223d71
Why a Facility? More Like “Who”
You’ve met Monica and Mikhel. Soon you’ll get to know Kaila, Mikekal and Coach Mike Boyd.
In our six-part year-end video series, you are meeting some of the people behind our “why.” For us, the answer to why we need a facility is so clear once you know for whom we are building it.
Each of the Champions we are highlighting are unique, but they share similar ambitions. These are special people and they deserve the same opportunities their suburban counterparts enjoy. They want to put in the work, they want to build themselves, on and off the mat. So we are providing them a place where their ambitions will know no limits. It’s happening in late January – early February.
As an organization, we strive to embody the spirit of the budding Life Champions mentioned above. They are the reason we are thriving despite very unique circumstances. Their passion and drive fuels everything we do. With our kids at the forefront, our team set a vision to build a world class youth development center. A place where anyone with a good attitude and an appetite for work, despite social, economic, or geographic circumstances, can call home – THE FIRST EVER BTS STAND ALONE WRESTLING FACILITY.
We have not let Covid slow us down. Our focus is not on the pandemic but our reaction to the pandemic. Cathy Yen stepped up. Our board stepped up. Our Capital Campaign committee stepped up. Our coaches stepped up. Our student-athletes fought like only wrestlers can. And here we are, positioned to come out of this unprecedented time with a world class facility run by master leaders, mentors and coaches (Yes, we hired three incredible people during a world-wide crisis!).
The end and aftermath of the pandemic will be extremely difficult in Chicago. Particularly for many of BTS families. We will continue to work with our kids in mind. We will focus on the controllables. We embrace our community and feed from their unbreakable spirits.
BTS Chicago is guided by our core values; Accountability, Gratitude, Grit, Integrity, and Excellence. One of these stands out now more than the others – Gratitude. I am so grateful for our BTS Family, the wrestling community, and all those who have rallied to support our mission. We hope you will continue to bet on our kids, our community, our team. Thank you!!!!
Help us keep this going. Your contribution to Beat the Streets Chicago funds not only this critical facility but the life-changing programs we can offer there. Give at btschicago.org/donate
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Powell Announces BTSC Book Push
In light of extended closings of youth programs as Chicago works to contain spread of COVID-19, Mike Powell, Executive Director of Beat the Streets Chicago, today began a series of “work from home” challenges for our student athletes. These challenges will be shared through email and social media.
Today Powell challenges students to limit screen time, pick up a book and read. To promote reading, Powell will send a free book to any BTSC who wants one.
Powell’s full email is below.
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SENT VIA EMAIL
“Coach Powell says…”
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Beat the Streets Chicago is dedicated to supporting our families and student-athletes. We want to keep our people engaged and challenged despite the significant necessary changes to our daily routines right now.
In the coming days, expect a series of physical and mental challenges put forth through social media. It is our sincere belief that during this difficult time we can continue to build ourselves and perhaps even improve in many areas. We implore our student-athletes to limit screen time and, instead, go “old school” and pick up a book and some iron (or body weight if you lack iron). Start putting in work. “Work from home” means all of us!
To our wrestlers:
Mental challenge #1
READ!
Below you will find a list of recommended books we have compiled in the past couple days (admittedly, through text and social media). We are offering TO SEND A BOOK TO ANY BTSC STUDENT-ATHLETE FOR FREE. Finish your first book, send a request for a 2nd, 3rd, and on. Simply look at this list, or choose one of your own, and reply to this email with:
Title of the book you want:
Your Full Name:
Your Address:
We’ll have a book shipped to your home. On us. It’s that important to us that you keep reading!
Recommended for our younger kids:
- The Tales of Despereaux
- The Spiderwick Chronicles
- A Series of Unfortunate Events
- The Percy Jackson Series
- Rick Riordan Series (over 20 books, choose any)
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid
- Amulet
- The Harry Potter Series
- How to Train a Dragon
- The Chronicles of Narnia
- The Invention of Hugo Cabret
- The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
- Savvy
- The Borrowers
- The Penderwicks
- The Giver
- From the Mixed Up Files of Basil E. Frankweiler
- The Mysterious Benedict Society
- Salt in His Shoes
- Jackie Robinson: Strong Inside and Out
For our older crew:
- King of the World (Story of Muhammad Ali)
- Grace, Gold, and Glory
- Buccaneers of America
- Pirate Hunters
- Relentless, From Good to Great to Unstoppable
- I Never Had it Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson
- Grit
- Clemente
- No Summit out of Sight, The True Story of the Youngest Person to Climb the Seven Summits
- To Be Popular of Smart: The Black Peer Group
- Jack Strong: A Story of Life After Life
- A Wrestling Life: The Inspiring Story of Dan Gable
- The Things They Carried
- The Power of One
- Lord of the Flies
- Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
- Unbroken: An Olympian’s Journey from Airman to Castaway to Captive
- Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes in Stepping Stones
- 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente
- When I was the Greatest
- Exit West
- All-American Boys
- Jason Reynolds “Track Series”
- Behind the Eyes
- Ready Player One
- The Heart of a Champion: Inspiring Stories of Challenge and Triumph
- The Eye of Minds
- A Gentleman in Moscow
- Crossover
- Outliers: the Story of Success
- The Living – dystopian; So Cal
- Repossessed
- The Long Run
- City of Thieves
- More Happy Than Not
- 212 The Extra Degree
- Orphan Train – girl is orphan and meets older woman who was orphan
- How it Went Down – kid killed by cop told from a bunch of different perspectives
- Can’t Hurt Me
- Extreme Ownership
- Long Walk to Water
- Refugee
- The Hard Hat: 21 Ways to be a Great Teammate
- The Hate You Give
- Underground Railroad
- A Man’s Search for Meaning
- Four Days to Glory
- Into Thin Air
- Unstoppable
- American Victory
- There’s a Girl in my Hammerlock
- Carry On
- Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
- Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
- Make Your Bed
Accountability. Gratitude. Grit. Integrity. Excellence.
These are the values we live on the mat, in our communities, and even when you have to stay home. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more daily challenges to keep your skills sharp in the days ahead.
Stay safe, stay strong and stay committed. Reach out if there is ANYTHING you need.
~ Coach Powell
To request a book, email Coach Powell.
Coaches Convention Focuses on “Whole Athlete” Says Mike Powell
Beat the Streets Chicago is excited to partner with the IWCOA on the 2019 Officials and Coaches convention, held at the Holiday Inn in Countryside, IL. The IWCOA and BTS Chicago are actively trying to promote and build wrestling in our great state. The convention is a major part of this effort.
We received many suggestions after last year’s convention. Many of those suggestions revolved around off the mat coaching. We heard you! This year’s convention will have plenty of technique and will have significant focus on coaching the “whole athlete.”
It is a great honor to welcome the two-time reigning world champion J’Den Cox to the convention. J’Den is fresh off an absolute dominant world championship where he did not give up a single offensive point. He will be our lead clinician. J’den will also delve into the underestimated but crucial mindset of a wrestling and life champion.
Mark Ellis, former NCAA Champion at Missouri, and midwest director of wrestling at the FCA, will present on 3Dimensional coaching. The 3D coaching philosophy is unique in sport and is something I have personally followed for years. Mark is a dynamic presenter and this will be a can’t miss presentation.
Fresh off announcing the world championships, former college coach, master recruiter and wrestling guru Dave Mirikitani will present on how coaches can help their athletes transition from high school to college athletics. Many coaches want to see their athletes go on and wrestle in college, and thus reap all the benefits of being a supported college athlete – tutors, counselors, being part of a team, higher graduation rates, etc. Dave will arm coaches with all they need to make this a reality for their athletes.
Bryan Medlin, Illinois RTC coach, builder of the powerhouse Washington HS wrestling program and Illinois Greco dynasty, will present on building and sustaining a winning culture. Anyone who has coached or wrestled for Bryan will tell you that he is the best in the game.
How do you get your wrestler to have the 5 instead of 4 in those tight 5-4, high pressure matches? NCAA Champion and master technician and tactician Jeremy Hunter will present and entire session on winning close matches. This is something we heard loud and clear from coaches as we asked for suggestions following last year. This will be hugely beneficial to coaches who are trying to get their wrestlers over the hump.
Several coaches at last year’s social (this year, it will be on Friday evening at the hotel) suggested a session of drills that can be immediately implemented into practice. After 20 years of traveling the country coaching, I stole drills from Cubans, college coaches, master HS coaches, and anyone else who would talk with me about running a great room. I even came up with a few drills myself. I will present an entire session on wrestling drills, most of which are unique and can be added to youth, beginner, and advanced practices immediately.
Last, we have the Northwestern staff coming in to present more technique. More information to come on this is the coming days.
We have purposely designed this convention to serve both high school and youth coaches. We hope everyone will come join us as we prepare for another season in the great wrestling state of Illinois.
Hope to see you there.
~Mike Powell, Executive Director Beat the Streets Chicago
Hotel information:
To register:
www.btschicago.org or www.iwcoa.net
Want to Grow Wrestling? Look to the Cities
This article appeared first on InterMat on July 31, 2019
Everyone calls him Jules. He moves like water. He’s a hardworking and dedicated athlete. But Julian Valtierrez wasn’t built for basketball. Or football. Or baseball.
He’ll be a senior at William Howard Taft High School in Chicago this year where he’ll wrestle at 113 pounds. Valtierrez has an impressive resume for someone who only started to wrestle as a freshman; one match away from all-state as a junior and a Fargo qualifier.
For all he’s accomplished in a short time, imagine what might have been if he’d wrestled sooner. If all of the future Julians in Chicago knew of wrestling at a younger age, had it as an easily accessible opportunity and knew the names of its stars, the sport would have an abundance of riches.
While those riches go widely untapped, overall participation numbers for boys in both youth and high school wrestling are down. According to surveys by the National Federation of State High School Associations, participation has dropped in four of the last five years. Based on those same surveys, the sport has lost nearly 24,000 boys in those years for an average of almost 4,800 per year.
But it doesn’t have to continue that way.
The solution to slowing, reversing and then building our youth and high school numbers lies in our most populous areas and that’s where Beat the Streets is positioned to spearhead the effort.
There are currently eight Beat the Streets programs recognized by our umbrella organization, the newly created Beat the Streets National; Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Cleveland, Boston, Providence and Chicago. The combined population of those eight cities, not including the suburban populations surrounding them, is nearly 18 million people. This is almost as populous as New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, the District of Columbia, Vermont and Wyoming combined.
Historically, wrestling has been dominated by small town heroes and programs. Doug Blubaugh, Dan Gable, John Smith conjure images of small-town kids going on to become global champions. Oklahoma State and Iowa have combined for 57 national team titles. But there are only so many USA memberships that can be sold in Del City, Oklahoma.
Chicago has 2.7 million people residing in the city proper. With the help of boosters, coaches, volunteers and contributors, Beat the Streets Chicago is poised to grow by leaps and bounds with the hope that the declining numbers in Illinois rebound beyond the previous high. A tiny glimpse of that success can be seen in the nearly 500 more IL/USAW memberships in Chicago in 2018-2019 than in the previous year.
It’s not just in Chicago where change is slowly taking shape. Support organization Beat the Streets National added four accredited programs this year throughout the country’s most populous cities. That means nearly 115,000 young people now have wrestling opportunities they didn’t have before.
New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles are leading the way through leadership, arduous work, and significant resources. The goal for BTS National Executive Director Jeffrey Marsh is to reach more kids and to make the organizations in individual cities into difference makers.
That difference making is sorely needed, not just for the sport, but for the young people who would benefit from the lessons wrestling teaches, arguably better than any other discipline.
A reminder of the need came at the annual Beat the Streets Chicago gala in June. Just blocks from the fundraiser someone shot four people. We heard the gunfire loud and clear. It was an audible, painful and very real call to action. The gunfire underscored the importance wrestling can play in the lives of Chicago’s youth. It’s why we are doing what we do.But the wrestling community can do more. More to grow resources and organizations in places that are not traditional wrestling strongholds, but where there is wealth of young people who are in desperate need of distraction, direction and discipline. Wrestling needs our cities and our cities need wrestling.
Join the movement. Make a difference. Jules and the young men like him are our future.
Mike Powell is Executive Director of BTS Chicago. Caryn Ward is a BTS Chicago advisory board member.