Photo: Courtesy of Philadelphia Union

Although the Men’s National team suffered its worst CONCACAF shutout defeat since 1957 on Tuesday evening, the evening was not a total loss.

YSC Academy opened its doors to the public for the first time.

And the soccer academy in Wayne preceded its viewing party of the Costa Rican debacle with a question and answer session for early-bird fans and then a panel discussion for later arrivals that began to put some independently observed substance behind the praise organization insiders have been lavishing on the school for some time.

Maximizing excellence not only on the pitch

Probably the single most striking statement of the evening came from school founder Richie Graham when he said that it was “actually irrelevant” how far Academy players progress in the game of soccer itself, that the academy’s more profound goal is to maximize “who [the students] become in life.”

Dr. Nooha Ahmed-Lee, Head of School, further reinforced Graham’s point when she posited the cross-fertilization between using analysis, synthesis and creativity to solve academic problems in the classroom and using exactly those same skills to solve problems on the soccer field. First team head coach Jim Curtin also reinforced the point. Developing the skills in one place helps their growth in the other. Development flows both ways.

Educational psychology veterans will of course recognize Analysis, Synthesis and Creativity as the three “higher order” thinking skills of Dr. Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive thought.

Successfully thinking for one’s self can be a lot of fun.

Community and culture

A second point comes collectively from Academy Director Tommy Wilson, Union Sporting Director Earnie Stewart, and founder Richie Graham.

To join the YSC “soccer guys” a national scouting organization identifies talent, a candidate’s academic record must present college-preparatory strength, the candidate must be of good character, and an in-person visit to the school must occur.

Twenty-one or twenty-two young men in the older grades live in four homes run by three full-time house mothers and one other full time staff member.

When asked the obvious question about the off-field, out-of-school behaviors of older high school adolescents, a number of points were described that help to keep “wild oats sowing” to a minimum.

• the high commitment of the students to achieving a dream,
• the intense twice a day demands of the soccer pitch,
• the strong demands of a rigorous academic program,
• the “brotherhood” created by the common goal shared among the group,
• and the group’s mutual support for group members striving to achieve the dream

The school-built community has a culture of good decision-making.

Practicing meaningful trust

From all panel participants came the message of empowering students, believing in students, and trusting students. It came especially from Head of School Dr. Ahmed-Lee and from Earnie Stewart who is not only Sporting Director but also a parent of a current YSC student.

An important symbol is that adults and adolescents are on a first name basis.

Not so symbolic and even more important is that everybody knows everybody. Anonymity is impossible. When Stewart characterized the number of people his child interacts with at the academy, without thought he said “ninety.”  That is the approximate sum of the students and the adults in the daily community at YSC.

For trust to be meaningful, responsibility has to be real. Failure to carry it out must be allowed to create real problems. No adult should swoop in to “make it all better.”

One example is clear cut. The Academy has a kitchen where students may go for meals or snacks as needed. The students order the groceries, manage the budget for them, and take care of storage [stock rotation, etc.]. They do so in consultation with the nutritionist, but the responsibility is meaningful. Ineffective execution has consequences for the whole group, all of them “bottomless pit” teenage-athlete mouths. Mr. Graham did comment that the adults had not anticipated the needed size of the food budget very well.

Other assertions for such belief and trust have been made but are harder to verify without direct observation. Academic mentoring and students participating in determining what they need to learn next are two important examples. Probably the question “why” gets asked a lot, but that’s a guess.

More to come

Fortunately, Mr. Graham and Dr. Ahmed-Lee responded most enthusiastically to PSP’s inquiry about an all-day future visit.

When, is yet to be determined.