Nampa Optimist Club Club #32214 Project: Nampa Optimist - Beyond Football Time Period: 2009-2010
Club Nampa Optimist Club #32214 District Pacific NW District - 32 Nampa Optimist Beyond Football Category Entered Community Service Project Contact Noe Rodriguez 1015 Creekside Ave Nampa, Id 83686 (208)465-4814 2
Section 1: Project Story Optimist International Community Projects Awards Entry Project Story 2009-2010 Title of Project: Nampa Optimist Football - Beyond Football Category: Community Service Single Club Entry: X Sponsoring Optimist Club: Nampa Optimist Club Submitting Club Number: 32214 Contact Person: Noe Rodriguez E-mail Address: najsrodriguez@msn.com Phone Number: (208)465-4815 Work Number: (208)871-2377 Address: 1015 Creekside Ave City: Nampa State/Province: Idaho Postal Code: 83686 Number of Club Members involved: 88 Number of youth served/attended: 950 Date project completed From: 1 Dec 2009 To: 30 Sep 2010 Estimated project hours Optimist: 400 Other: 1,200+ Number of Members needed to coordinate project? 6+ How many times has the Club run this project? 4 3
Project Description Nampa Idaho takes great pride in the many ways we provide for our youth. Along with our city Parks and Recreation our club provides a wonderful 25 acre, 7 football field, 2 baseball diamond facility for our kids. As a club, we are proud of all of the little football players in our program. But, football is an expensive sport and because of this, many of our players were from more affluent families. We ve given Scholarships to many of the kids who couldn t afford the program. With the vast resources from our football program, we created Beyond Football to take a huge step further. We solve future community problems by encouraging disadvantaged kids to take the steps to become better, successful citizens. Not just football, but scholastic skills and citizenship skills as well. Specific Goals and Why Our Club Chose This Project It became apparent that we needed to focus our energy and resources. We ve always made scholarships available for those who asked and met our application requirements. Football provides an opportunity to ignite passion and excitement in young athletes and their families. We wanted to leverage this passion, along with our people and other resources to encourage success in other areas of our student-athlete s lives. Publicity/Promotion Plan Publicity and promotion is already in place with our football program. Over the years, we ve had considerable front page coverage of our program in both of our local newspapers (Idaho Press Tribune and Idaho Statesman) along with some radio and television (KTVB) coverage. During our football season, each game day, we have about 6,000 people visit our fields. We have also purchased some full page ads in the Idaho Press Tribune to encourage football sign-ups. Some of our events included the Boise State University (BSU) Football team. Seeing orange and blue everywhere leaves no doubt, with BSU s recent winning streak the media would come out in droves. Head Coach Chris Petersen of the BSU Football team felt they already get plenty 4
of publicity. Instead he wanted this to be just about the kids. So, all the events including the BSU football team were all held with an expectation of privacy. Specific Duties Required Entering the 2006 season it became apparent that we needed to focus our energy and resources. Prior to this time, we provided scholarships to those who asked and who met our application requirements. Football provides an opportunity to ignite passion and excitement in young athletes and their families. We want to leverage this passion to encourage success in other areas of our student-athlete s lives. We met with administrators of the Nampa School District to identify high risk schools. These schools have below average income, high rates of delinquency and high dropout rates. With the help of the district administration, we targeted three Nampa Elementary schools. These three schools also had a historically low level of participation with our football program. The first step was to meet with school administrators to help us identify children for our program, children who come are socially and economically challenged, children with poor grades, attendance and disciplinary issues. Once these students were identified (3 to 5 students per school), mentors (coaches within our program) began meeting with these students on a monthly basis with the intent of understanding their situations and attempting to generate an interest in football. At the same time we organized school assemblies at the target schools. These assemblies brought Boise State University football players and coaches into the schools to talk with the kids about the importance of school and education. These assemblies and the one on one sessions afterward were tremendously successful. The next step was to bring these kids into our program. We set a goal of 10% scholarships to total participation. Through a targeted campaign including flyers, site visits by coaches and administrators along with tremendous support from teachers and school officials, we exceeded our goal in the first year by 2%. In 2010 we provided 135 scholarships out of 750 total players and cheerleaders. This season we will expand the BSU assemblies into a 4th school. We will also bring coaches into the three area middle schools (grades 6 through 8), to talk about the dangers of drugs and gangs in addition to the importance of good grades and attendance. Boise State football is very popular in our area and these kids respect the coaches and athletes. These are tremendous opportunities for us to have a very real impact in our community. 5
Benefit to Youth Beyond Football strives to help kids enjoy football in a safe and structured environment. Football teaches values, kids will use the rest of their lives. It is our responsibility to emphasize these values to all of our kids and it is our goal to help every player and cheerleader experience success on the field, in the classroom and in life. Benefit to the Community Currently entering our 10th season of operation, Nampa Optimist Football (NOF) has found tremendous success bringing the sport of football to the youth of the Nampa area. Started in 2000 with 11 teams and 247 young athletes, the program now numbers more than 850 football players from 7 to 12 years of age, nearly 100 cheerleaders and more than 200 adult volunteers with 41 teams. Going into 2010, we expect more than 950 players and cheerleaders. The tremendous popularity of the sport of football has allowed us the opportunity to expand our outreach Beyond Football. Impact on the Club - Planned and Unexpected Results The Nampa Optimist Club is very proud of our football program. We enjoy over 6,000 people in attendance at our fields every Saturday. In world news, we hear about people misbehaving at children s sporting events. Visitor to Nampa Optimist Park are amazed at how organized our program runs and how civilized it all seems. We only allow positive cheering for our children. Complications and Resolutions Complications often arise during football. The solutions to these problems include some simple (not to be confused with easy) guidelines. => Insistence on good behavior and respect for all involved. => Build a system with procedures to handle situations. => Each rule must be applied consistently with wisdom and equality.!=> NFL scouts are not on the sidelines looking for recruits among our 8 year olds!! Each year, we start our sign-ups for our program in April. We sign-up lots of young football players and cheerleaders to our program. Football is expensive. Most of our money 6
comes from sign-ups, so we can t scholarship everybody, but we try to scholarship all we can. Of course we always welcome donations to help scholarship more kids. Recommendations for Clubs Considering This Project This project is designed as an add-on for an existing program. Make sure you are running a quality program and meeting all of your obligations first. This program can get expensive, so set goals and guidelines you can meet. Run Project Again? With What Changes? Most definitely! This project takes a great project (football) and makes it better. These existing programs are just the tip of the iceberg for Beyond Football. Future facets of the program will include mentoring of young athletes by high school players and college scholarships for former Optimist Football players. 7
Section 2: Reference Section Beyond Football Committee Club Support Club President: Noe Rodriguez Club Secretary: Michael Gray Club Treasurer: Bryan Crookham Football Committee Support Football Exec: Noe Rodriguez Football Commish: Mark Arnold Financial Coord: Bryan Crookham Touchdown Cards: Dean Shafer Tackle League Dir: Mike Hoops Flag League Dir: Jody Goodman Fields Coord: Randy Doramus Publicity Dir: Mike Hoops WebMaster: Michael Gray WebMaster FB: Justin Foster Head Coach Support Kevin Brocke, Luis Corona, Randy Doramus, Mike Rice, Beau Bonds, Bob Larison, Glenn Wolf, Mike Miller, Derrick Nalley, Trevor Radford, Scott Duncan, Brian Knight, Cory Overlin, Steve Kincheloe, Mark Sisenor, Todd Stewart, Shea Morin, Marcus Schlegel, Joe Roseberry, Jamie Mertz, Andy Monnier, Jim Beebe, Tom Stillwaugh, Jeff Treinen, James Buster, Justin Foster, Marcus Fisher, Bob Copeland, Chris Bradley, Ed Galdabini, Kim Hilliard, Noe Rodriguez, Curt Gashler 195 Assistant Coaches 42 Team Moms 27 Cheer Advisors + Assistants 8
Budget Details The budget for Beyond Football is intertwined with the Football program. Income: Expenses: Sign Ups 950 football players & Cheer $55,000.00 Beyond Football Donations 6,000.00 Touchdown Cards 35,000.00 Concession Stand 2,500.00 ---------.---- Total Incomes $98,500.00 Advertising $2,900.00 Beyond Football Scholarships 13,700.00 Football Equipment (helmets, etc) 10,000.00 Jr Referees Uniforms 11,000.00 Field Expenses (vehicles, Refs, cones etc) 28,000.00 Concessions 7,500.00 Insurance 3,000.00 -------.--- Total Expenses $76,100.00 Net (first half of season, carry to next fiscal) $24,400.00 9
Section 3: Publication Exposure Press coverage Idaho Press Tribune Main Section - Page 5 (half page) 10
Idaho Press Tribune Sports Page 5 (entire page) 11
Internet Website coverage Michael Gray has spent hours working on our web site at http://www.nampaoptimist.org. This web site not only provides information about our club, but also doubles as historical documentation of what our club has done over the years. It currently prints out to about 190 pages, and growing. We ve recently added another web site at http://www.nampaoptimistfootball.org. Justin Foster has developed and taken care of this site, which specifically involves our football program. Nampa Optimist Club Nampa Opt Football http://www.nampaoptimist.org/ http://www.nampaoptimistfootball.org/ Idaho Press Tribune http://www.idahopress.com/ (links - community service clubs) Idaho Statesman http://www.idahostatesman.com/ (archives and links) Boise Optimist Club http://www.boiseoptimist.org/links.htm Boise Optimist FB http://www.optimistyouthfootball.com Pacific NW District http://www.pnwoptimist.org Optimist Int http://www.optimist.org/ City of Nampa http://ci.nampa.id.us/pages/civicgroups.php Boise Family Mag http://www.boisefamily.com/guides/sports03.shtml Boise Weekly http://search.boiseweekly.com/biz/nampa-optimist-football/ Idaho Football http://www.idahofitness.com/football1.htm MTG EnterPrizes http://www.nampa.net/ Nampa Chamber http://www.nampa.com/business_directory.asp KTVB TV http://blogs.ktvb.com/whereslarry/2007/09/nampa-optimist-football.html Nampa Soccer http://www.nampayouthsoccer.com/field_maps/nampa/nampa.html Capital Youth Soccer http://www.cysaidaho.org/directions%20to%20fields.htm United Way http://www.volunteersolutions.org/uwtv/org/dir-n-1.html Great Pumpkin Race http://www.greatpumpkin.org/sponsors/ Boise White Pages http://www.boisenet.com/a-pages/an.htm Big List http://www.travel-idaho.com/pagenop.html Nampa Parks http://www.nampaparksandrecreation.org Kid Friendly Parks http://www.kidsplayparks.com/ spot_kid_friendly_parks_optimist_park_nampa_id_53233.aspx Ghetto Search http://ghetosearch.com/search/nampa_optimist_club Abbotsford Optimist http://www.abbotsfordoptimists.org/favourite_links.htm Nampa Valley LL http://www.nampavalleylittleleague.com Note: Web sites can change without notice. All of these sites were live at the printing of this book. 12
BSU Coaches meeting with Grade School kids Grade school kids meeting with the BSU Football Team & Coaches 13
Orange and Blue (football field), a favorite of our community! Boise State University Football field 14
BSU Football players encourage the kids to do better in school More encouragement from BSU coaches 15
We have a tremendous opportunity to impact our community. Leveraging the tremendous success of BSU football and the interest generated at the youth level, we can help youngsters see the value of education, dedication and hard work, then guide these youngsters to a path that leads to future success and community involvement. This is a passion for Nampa Optimist Football. While we love the sport of football, we are not only about the sport. This is Beyond Football. Creating opportunities, generating enthusiasm for all facets of life and helping kids recognize their own potential! 16