Beat the Streets New York: 2019 Cliff Keen Gotham City Girl’s Open
The 6th annual Gotham City Girl’s Open is one week away!
For Beat the Streets NY, the tournament signifies an achievement greater than wins and losses. It’s the largest girls wrestling tournament apart from folkstyle and freestyle Nationals, and participation rates are steadily increasing. It’s an opportunity for NY to showcase its ability to host a tournament at scale while exposing its girl wrestlers to some of the toughest competition beyond state lines. The opportunity means that more than a few vans full of NY girls get to compete on a big stage. Greater exposure on the mat equates to more exposure to life experience. Think about it, as we gain experience, meet and interact with more people, our worlds become bigger. The more we know outside of our homes the bigger our world becomes.
Pre-registration Demographics
- 434 entries competing across four age divisions
- 23 states are represented: CA, CT, FL, GA, IL, MA, MD, MO, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA and WA
- 4 countries: Japan, France, Canada & the United States
- 70% of pre-registered girls are from non-sanctioned states; 16% are from sanctioned states and 14% are from outside the U.S.
- 49 All-Americans will test their skills for top spots
Tournament host, Beat the Streets, is a non-profit organization geared toward developing their athletes into great humans. The mission of Beat the Streets NYC Wrestling is “to develop the full human and athletic potential of the urban youth and to strengthen the wrestling culture within New York City” (Beat the Streets NY, 2019).
Beat the Streets as an Organization
Women’s wrestling is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States. Fourteen states, scattered from the East to West Coast, have sanctioned girl’s wrestling at the interscholastic level and, in 2019, over 50 institutions of higher education will be working to offer scholarship opportunities to women wrestlers.
As sports at the level of higher education continue to expand it’s critical to look at the relationship between student athletes and educational goals. Coaches and their administration must ask the question, “How are we ensuring the success of student athletes beyond GPA and competition”. As student athletes graduating from college transition through phases of their personal, pre- professional and professional lives, they require the ability to think critically and rationally, to become experts in their specific fields with an aptitude for change, to assert knowledge confidently, to remain humble and take care of the self first in order to do better for the self and others (developmentally, emotionally, physically, etc.). Beat the Streets is working to equip their athletes with those skills as they move through the program.
“Beat the Streets Wrestling™ is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit that uses wrestling as the vehicle through which young people achieve their full physical, cognitive, and social potential and develop into strong and effective individuals and members of the world. We work with middle and high schools in all five boroughs of New York City to provide a safe, positive atmosphere in which disadvantaged and at-risk youth can learn the essential life lessons of personal responsibility, physical fitness, education, and teamwork” (BTS NY, 2019).
Let’s unpack that a bit.
- Beat the Streets actively bridges the gap between the now and the future. The program sets up college visits, engages student athletes in SAT prep, hosts study hours, provides tutoring and offers exposure to various internship opportunities.
- Beat the Streets develops the FULL human. The program achieves that development through social emotional learning (SEL) areas including self-management, contribution, academic self-efficacy, social skills, positive identity, social capital and sports specific goal orientation.
- Beat the Streets has results. Survey’s show that athletes in the program benefit from healthier eating habits, achieving greater academic success and are challenged in a positive way by the sport of wrestling.
- Beat the Streets offers student athletes a community and structured network in areas where they may otherwise not have one. The program has literally transformed lives.
- Interested in the details? Check out the 2017-18 action-packed Annual Report.
A Single Story from the 3,000 + Served
Destane Garrick, former Beat the Streets NY athlete and 2019 Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Association (WCWA) National Champion for McKendree University, shared a bit of her experience as a Beat the Streets athlete. It goes a bit like this:
Beat the Streets NY literally kept Destane off the streets. She grew up in a NY neighborhood where shootings and violence were common. She was stubborn, frequently in trouble, didn’t listen well and her grades reflected it. Joining wrestling and Beat the Streets finally provided Destane a community to invest herself in. She spent her time with the program on and off the mats, with the community, and coaches Cheryl Wong and Jacque Davis. Destane says her coaches pushed her to be more receptive, helped with homework before practice, exposed her to college opportunities and helped her find value in the right places. Beat the Streets shaped Destane as a person – the program impacted her attitude and her view of the world. Coaches Cheryl Wong and Jacque Davis told her things she needed to hear even when she didn’t want to. She says Beat the Streets will push you to be great.
When asked about moving from a junior college close to home all the way to McKendree University in Lebanon, Illinois, Destane noted similarities between Beat the Streets coaches and McKendree coach Sam Schmitz. She said the move was absolutely tough, but the team did it for her.
“They don’t talk down to you or look at you any different whether you are first or last. If you have a wonderful team behind you the transition will be good, it will be easy. Having so much adversity coming to McKendree it pushed me even more. From my first year and almost dying from a lung disease, to fighting to get my year back, to losing my mother in the spring of 2018, it was tough, but those are the things that pushed me to continue to do what I do and never give up on anything I do”.
Fast forward to 2019. Destane just won a collegiate national title in February, and will graduate with a degree in criminal justice. She plans to commit herself to earning a master’s degree from McKendree while helping out with the team. Destane sees herself using her degree to work in a juvenile detention center helping youth in less than ideal situations.
Women’s wrestling is in a very exciting position right now. Many challenges are in the path toward growth, but the sport is headed in the right direction.
“The opportunity is tremendous. If you want to go somewhere or you want to be part of something huge or make the Olympic team now is the time to start that training. Start believing in yourself and give it a try” (Emma Randall via the ShortTime Podcast).
Importance of Nonprofit Organizations
The number of non-profits within the United States has increased substantially over the last few decades, and not surprisingly. Non-profits are an integral part of civil society. “They [non-profits] are self-governing organizations that do not distribute profits to those who control them and are exempt from federal income taxes by virtue of being organized for public purposes” (Boris).
Non-profits work with local, state and federal governments to improve social policies and benefit their members. That means that non-profits such as Beat the Streets NY use intergovernmental relations to develop the population they serve, and in turn, at Beat the Streets, build members that will grow to invest themselves back into whatever community they serve in impactful ways.
Building great humans is an important mission. Let’s give a big shout out to Beat the Streets for all they do for their members and the greater community.
The Cliff Keen Gotham City Girl’s Open will take place April 19 & 20 at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.
Emma Randall, Beats the Streets New York Girls Development Coordinator, is the tournament contact. You can reach Emma at (937) 409-2440 or erandall@btsny.org
