What is Heart of the Team?
Heart of the Team is a leadership training program that prepares high school athletes to be principled leaders and inspiring role models in sports and beyond. Its premise is simple yet compelling; highly principled, inspiring leaders are critical to the success of every institution and endeavor; and sports is a powerful medium for engaging young people and promoting the strength of character and the skills needed for such leadership.
Begun in 2003, the program was developed by the American Heart Association, Ukrop’s Super Markets, Chesterfield Public Schools, and the University of Richmond’s Center for Educational Leadership, a joint program of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and the School of Continuing Studies.
Creating Principled Leaders: The core of the program is a dynamic all-day event for varsity team captains and other team leaders nominated by their coaches. Via workshops, participatory learning, and inspiring presentations by local leaders, the student-athletes learn the values, attitudes and skills central to effective leadership. They leave the event inspired to positively influence their teammates by fulfilling two fundamental commitments: my values will always guide my actions; and my actions will always speak louder than my words.
Engagement: We have designed a program with great appeal to young athletes. Our leadership development emphasis fully engages their interest and motivation; they are about to begin their team captain responsibilities and are therefore hungry for information and skills that will enhance their success. We capitalize on this to instill a commitment to principled leadership – leadership based on values and positive example.
Success: In its short history, Heart of the Team has already served almost 300 participants. The most recent all-day event in August 2005 attracted nearly 100 team captains from several school divisions. Evaluation surveys were uniformly positive – students value the variety of topics and speakers, like the opportunity to interact with athletes from other schools and sports, and especially like the leadership-oriented content. All rated the experience highly positive and would definitely recommend it to others.
Our Future: The original co-sponsors have created an independent not-for-profit corporation to guide Heart into the future. Our vision is to create a regional program run by and for the benefit of high schools throughout Central Virginia - a showpiece program preparing our young people for principled and inspiring leadership in sports and beyond.
