Dallas

America SCORES Dallas empowers students in urban communities using soccer, writing, creative expression, and service-learning. With teamwork as the unifying value, America SCORES Dallas inspires youth to lead healthy lifestyles, be engaged students, and become agents of change in their communities.

History

In late 2003, a board of directors headed by Steven Christensen was formed to launch America SCORES Dallas (formerly Dallas SCORES).  America SCORES Dallas, an independent affiliate of the highly respected ten-year old national program America SCORES, was launched in October 2004 in response to the ongoing need for high quality after-school programs in Area 3 of the Dallas Independent School District.  The program began in 4 schools with 128 students. In 2007, America SCORES Dallas received the Dr. Emmett Conrad Extra Mile Award by the District. Currently, the America Scores Dallas program serves over 500 students through our Flagship Program and our Soccer Clinics. 

America SCORES, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, after-school soccer and literacy program also serves public school children in Washington DC, Denver, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New England, New York, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Los Angeles,  Atlanta, and Cleveland.  America SCORES has served over 10,000 children since inception over 10 years ago.

The America SCORES concept was created in 1994, when a public school teacher in Washington DC was worried that the 5th grade girls in her class spent their afternoons in a concrete lot behind the schools with boys much older than them from the nearby middle school. One day, she was fed up and marched right into the lot, pulled out a soccer ball and told the girls to follow her onto an overgrown field. There, for the first time in their lives, these girls were exposed to the sport of soccer. They were so excited that they showed up on that field every day for the rest of the week!

When it rained one afternoon sometime later, the girls all gathered in the teacher’s classroom and asked her if she had any other hobbies for rainy afternoons. She told them that she wrote poetry. They had never experienced poetry and when she explained what it was all of the girls grabbed pens and started to write. The teacher suddenly saw the translation of teamwork from an athletic pursuit to a literary one. These girls felt comfortable writing and wanted to share their poetry with one another. That was a far cry from the traditional school day when students barely want to write and even less so want to read out loud.

The teacher talked to some teachers in other schools, raised some money and before the end of the year she had 4 teams of poet-athletes. Four years later the program was in 10 schools throughout the District.