1. Home
2. News

Spring Into Sports 2010: The Beat Goes On

By Oji Eggleston on Thursday, April 15, 2010

A year ago, hundreds of Chicago youth from neighborhoods all over the city converged on Crane High School for the Spring Into Sports finals. That competition, in basketball, volleyball, fencing and a variety of other sports, was the culmination of an unusual week-long series of events at which 1,500 kids competed at four Chicago high schools kept open during the traditional spring break.

So successful was Spring Into Sports that the Near West Side Community Development Corporation decided to keep the spirit alive this year by opening Crane’s doors once again to kids who used their spring break time to hone athletic skills, make new friends, and enjoy competing in an organized, safe environment.

Though smaller in scale than the previous year, Spring Into Sports 2010 was a big hit. During the three-day event, more than 220 youth from eight Chicago Housing Authority sites competed in both tournament play and clinics where they were introduced and trained in selected sports, including archery, baseball, boxing, swimming, track and field, and baseball. Wii tournaments, Jeopardy, double dutch, modern dance clinics and mentoring sessions were also on the agenda. And the youngsters also registered for Youth Ready Chicago summer employment positions.

As in Spring Into Sports a year ago, kids competed against one another for gold, silver and bronze medals. But this year, youth also completed a ‘Play Passport’ (a post card with four squares that youth were able to get stamped to receive an additional medal) designed to ensure that everyone in attendance tried at least four activities. Overall,

• 150 youth attended the boxing clinics
• 220 youth tried archery (crowd favorite!); 22 youth hit ‘bulls eyes’
• 212 youth participated in the basketball tournament and clinics
• 100 youth played Jeopardy
• 60 youth played in the Wii tournament or individual games
• 22 youth exercised with Robert Morris University fitness interns
• More than 100 youth swam daily
• 256 medals were issued

Participants were re-energized after their hard work with fresh healthy lunch and fruit. Near West hired

 student interns to help with a variety of assignments. But the unspoken success of Spring Into Sports was the fact that for three days 220 youth from eight different communities came together, interacted and competed against one another without a single incident. Meanwhile, youth established new friendships despite invisible, yet real, neighborhood borders making the city potentially smaller and thus safer. One participant, while leaving the final day, posed a question that was on everyone’s mind – “Why did you only do three days? Next year you all should do seven.”