A handful of summer campers with kick boards splashed back and forth in the lap pool at Case Western Reserve University’s natatorium on a recent summer afternoon as Dennis Harris wildly applauded from the sidelines.
Harris — just “Coach” to the kids — has run the camp for nearly 30 years, but every year is as exciting as the first.
"I get goosebumps," he said. "I'm excited. Wow. This is beautiful. Look at this!"
The National Youth Sports Program, which once was a coalition of about 200 universities, was originally founded in 1968 to provide economically disadvantaged youth with access to sports and educational programs.
But now, decades after federal funding dried up, Case Western Reserve University says it’s home to the last National Youth Sports Program. Some universities still host the sports camp in different forms, but others have cut it altogether.
Harris said he’s grateful to the university for preserving the low-cost, five-week program, which is backed by annual city, county and nonprofit funding. It helps kids ages 8 to 16 to get active with a variety of sports: from dancing to volleyball to swimming.
Harris, who played football under hall-of-fame coach Woody Hayes at Ohio State University, said he knows firsthand how sports can change lives: but the camp is more than that.
"I get the sports, we add in some educational classes," he said. "Now we teach the kids about history, about leadership, civics. We have a music class. We have it all here."
The majority of campers come from the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, and about 95% are Black, according to the university. Harris sees it as a way for those students to start to picture themselves in a college setting.
"Basically it's getting students ready for college at eight years old," Harris said.
Ari Wallace, a 21-year-old camp counselor and former camper, said the camp set her on her higher education path to Ursuline College, where she studies exercise science and runs track.
"It opened up so many different opportunities for me. I found my love for track," Wallace said. "So it makes a big difference. I probably wouldn't have even got this scholarship if I didn't know about track."
The love from staff came through in her time as a camper, she said.
"Kids need to know that somebody cares about them," she said.
In a gymnasium at CWRU's Veale Center, instructor Aviana Veléz, 29, helped students get their feet moving during a volleyball drill. She also started out as a participant when she was 13.
"It's a really awesome way that the kids can socialize with other kids in the Greater Cleveland area, even if they don't go to the same school as them," she said. "It gets you kind of out and moving, socializing, moving your body. It's something that we want to see here for a long time."
Bryce Ashford, an eighth grader at St. Dominic School in Shaker Heights, practiced setting the ball with Velez. He’s attended the camp since 2019 and said he's a fan of how easy it was to make friends during the camp. It’s helped him with his time on the basketball team at his school.
"It also helps with sports and being a better team player," he said.
Harris said they get calls from all over the country seeking to replicate their program after federal funding ended roughly two decades ago. Despite that, attempts to reestablish it have gone nowhere. The program costs about $600,000 annually, and the largest share of funding comes from the city of Cleveland — about $150,000.
"What about those 70,000 students that's been lost across the country?" Harris said of other bygone National Youth Sports Programs. "Why can’t we do this? That’s why I want Cleveland to have our chest out, that’s why I want this university to have our chest out. Like, ‘Look what we’re doing.’"
Rochelle Taylor, former executive director of the foundation that once supported the National Youth Sports Program, recalled that the federal funding provided toward the end of the national program's life was only about $18 million. Despite the small investment, she said the programs have a big impact.
"One of the founding principles, which remains important today, is to introduce and link community youth to higher education," she said in an email. "A world of opportunities open up when kids realize they can aspire to attend college. When a campus like Case Western allows youth to benefit from their vast resources — facilities and staffing — it truly can be inspiring. When the program was fully operating, we had a multitude of stories of former participants crediting NYSP for their choices towards a career, through the local institution."
Harris also thinks the camp is a way to keep kids safe during the summer and teach them important life skills like swimming.
"Every year you hear about someone drowning in Lake Erie," he explained. "A lot of my kids are African-American. Having the opportunity to teach them how to swim, it's so important. It's a cultural reason, why people of color don't swim. And that's so important. Safety, safety."
He added that keeping young people occupied could be a way to start to address serious societal issues, like gun violence. He said sports is the carrot.
"What does sports teach you?" he said. "Discipline. Belonging. Respect. Leadership. Character. Problem solving. That's what we do in this program. That what’s so important."
