FOR COACH LIFE

Paul Caccamo loves telling a story about a boxing coach in Chicago. One of the coach’s boxers was arrested on a drug charge and sentenced to a few months in a juvenile facility. The coach was devasted but sent the young man letters saying, You can overcome this. You’re better than this. When the teen was released, he immediately walked five miles to the boxing program and asked to re-enroll. When asked why, he said the coach was the first person who believed in him. The young man not only returned to the sport, but straightened his life out and eventually went to college.

“When someone feels cared about, you can change the entire direction of their), which trains young adults to be coaches in low-income communities. “Coaches go the extra mile to say, ‘Regardless of what happens on this field, on this court, in this ice hockey rink, I care. And I’m going to care tomorrow, and I’m going to care next week.’ And when a kid hears that over and over again, it’s amazing how it changes their view of themselves.”