The swish of a ball sinking cleanly through a basketball hoop. The echo of one teammate calling out to another for a pass. The unmistakable squeak of sneakers on a shiny gym floor.
I haven’t played basketball in years. Softball was my strong suit back in my athletic (adolescent) days, and I’m almost certain I could still handle a line drive at third base and get the runner out at first if, for some reason, my life were to depend on it. I was never any good at basketball.
Still, I recently found myself transported back to that time a dozen or so years ago when I visited the JCC of San Francisco to learn more about its Teen Fellowship in Sports Leadership (JFiSL) program.
“It’s a mouthful,” admits Alan Scher, the JCC’s teen program manager. “That’s why it became J-Fizzle.”
Now in its third year, the program began as a way for athletes who had grown too old (17) to be eligible for the Maccabi Games to continue their athletic involvement with the JCC.
“We had a big cohort of teens in 2009 who were really frustrated that they’d been aged out,” says Scher. So the JCC piloted Coaches in Training, matching teens with youth sports teams from its afterschool program.
The 3-year-old fellowship now has a highly selective application process, with a new group of 8 to 10 students participating each year. Programming includes a weekend retreat, monthly seminars for fellows to reflect on their experiences, an annual service project (in 2011 they put on a 3-on-3 basketball tournament to raise funds for the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame of Northern California) and the coaching element, which is treated as a paid internship.
Oh, and these teens find time to go to high school, as well.
“I was talking about this with some of the other J-Fizzles recently, and we all agreed it’s a lot harder than we ever expected,” says Arielle Sacks, a junior at San Francisco’s St. Ignatius High School. Sacks, 17, learned about the program at the Maccabiah Games in Israel last summer. In addition to this twice-a-week commitment, she teaches Hebrew to third-graders at S.F. Congregation Emanu-El and is running for student body president.
“We talk about things like what it means to be a good leader, how hard it is to put that idea into action,” she tells me. “Right now I’m working on how to be firm and authoritative without sounding angry … which is sometimes tough with 9-year-old boys! But I’ve learned so much about myself from it — I know my communication skills have gotten better.”
In the second half of the yearlong program, participants have the option of coaching a soccer team; Sacks is choosing to work on a group service project with the other fellows. They’ll be meeting this weekend to figure out a focus.
Upstairs, Scher and I observe from the sidelines as teams begin the afternoon’s practice. He tells me the basketball program has “exploded” over the past few years, with some 700 kids and teens now enrolled.
There are clearly some skilled players, but I find myself watching one particularly reserved-looking boy who appears to be 7 or 8 as his team lines up for drills.
“Nice shot!” his teen coach tells him after the boy makes a basket. The kid beams, unself-conscious for a moment, as he runs to get back in line.
That was me: A quiet kid, I got along well with most people but was rarely the leader in any pack. Team sports have a way of neutralizing all that. At their best, they have the potential to upend social totem poles; at their worst, they at least teach you how to cooperate with people you might not otherwise meet. It’s a giant cliché, but there’s a reason “rag-tag team of misfits making it to the playoffs” is such a feel-good narrative. In sports — unlike a lot of real life — underdogs are frequently welcome.
Sacks says earnestly that while the program is harder than she was expecting, she can’t imagine not having participated. And then she’s off across the room to greet her team for the afternoon.
“There are kids growing up with sports at the JCC as a huge part of their lives, and we’re making sure they can carry that into adulthood,” says Scher. “That’s the whole idea. That’s community.”
Emma Silvers lives in San Francisco. She can be reached at [email protected].