Mar. 2017
Scarsdale Daily Voice
Dynamic Specialized Sports Program In NYC Opens In Scarsdale
Ken Davis and Zak Failla
SCARSDALE, N.Y. -- Kids In Sports, a dynamic specialized sports program for children
ages 12 months to 12 years, recently announced the opening of its new facility in the
Archway Plaza at 365 Central Park Avenue in Scarsdale early next month.
Headquartered in Manhattan's Upper East Side, Kids In Sports offers its programming in several locations throughout New York City, including the 92nd Street Y and Greenwich, Conn., with franchises in Walpole, Massachusetts and Fayetteville, NC.
Founded in 1999 by educators and former collegiate athletes Michael Strutt and Kenneth Colon, Kids In Sports instructs children in multi-sport classes, including basketball, baseball, football, hockey, lacrosse, soccer and volleyball. …
Full article
August 2009
Game On : A Special Place
By Heather Peterson
Headed Up By Two Sports-Loving Dads And Trainers, Kids In Sports Instills Children With Skills, Sportsmanship, And A Love Of Athletics
The athlete stands poised in
front of the basket, ball in
hand, eyes focused. Someone
in the background calls out her
name, which is emblazoned, along with
the team name, “Rookies,” on the back
of her shirt. She releases the ball and for
one tense moment it seems to linger in
the air before hitting the rim and falling
to the fl oor. “Almost!” the coach calls,
and gives the player a high fi ve. Her face
breaks into a wide, toothy grin, and all
three-and-a-half feet of her runs to the
back of the line to try again. At Kids In
Sports, success is defi ned as something
more important than simply getting the
ball into the basket.
Founded by dads Michael Strutt
and Kenny Colon, Kids In Sports,
which just celebrated its 10-year anniversary,
is an innovative athletic
program offering, among other things,
classes that focus on multiple sports at
once—including baseball, basketball,
football, volleyball, soccer, and hockey—
giving every child a chance to fi nd
a sport they really love. The program’s
goal is to not only teach the fundamentals
of athletics, but to instill in kids a
sense of confi dence and sportsmanship,
and, most importantly, a love of
physical activity. “Even if they’re not
going to play a team sport, we just want
to get the message across that physical
activity is a great thing,” says Strutt.
“Fun doesn’t only come from T.V.,
videogames and computers.”
Strutt and Colon, who prefer
“Coach Mike” and “Coach Kenny,”
met in 1995 during their fi rst post-college
jobs as personal trainers at New
York Sports Club. They had similar
backgrounds: both were athletes with
degrees in athletics (Colon in exercise
physiology, and Mike in physical education
and personal training) and had
a passion for working with kids that
included experience with after-school
programs. They also shared an entrepreneurial
spirit, and saw a need for
a more comprehensive kids’ athletic
program than what was available in
New York at the time. “A lot of people
who ran after-school programs were
good with kids, but they didn’t necessarily
have any sports knowledge,” says
Strutt. “I think we said to ourselves,
‘wait a minute, that’s the way they’re
teaching how to dribble a basketball or
throw a baseball?’”
The two launched Kids In Sports
in 1999 as an after-school program for
30 kindergarteners through 4th graders
at the Allen-Stevenson School on
the Upper East Side. In the beginning,
Strutt and Colon had a limited budget and fondly recall making their own
sports equipment. “We actually used
a plunger for a batting T and
bats we made out of noodles,”
says Strutt. “But the great thing
was that the children loved
the creativity that we brought,
and they learned how you can
create sports games with really
anything,” adds Colon.
Their passion for sports
and dedication to teaching
attracted families to the
program and kept budding
athletes coming back. Ten
years later, Kids In Sports has
expanded to an enrollment
of 1,000 children between the
ages of 1 and 10, with classes
held at several locations on
the Upper East Side. Now,
Strutt and Colon utilize topnotch
equipment.
Classes are held once per
week, with six sports practiced
two to three consecutive times over
a 12-15 week session, ending with an
achievement awards day. When athletes
reach age 5, they can choose to focus
on one sport for an entire session or
continue taking multi-sport classes. Indoor
and outdoor summer camps and
birthday parties are offered for children
through age 12 and take place throughout
the city.
A key part of Strutt and Colon’s
program is consistency: from “Tiny
Athletes” (12- to 18-month-olds) to
“Veterans” (9 and 10-year-olds), all
participants begin with warm-up
exercises, followed by activities that
hone their individual skills, and the
chance to play the sport in a group
setting. The class ends with a cooperative
learning game like tug-of-war. “We
show them how to give a high five or
shake hands—how to win and how to
lose,” says Colon.
The skills taught at each level are
age-appropriate and serve as building
blocks for the next level class. “When
we’re teaching basketball to 12- to
18-month-olds, they will really just be
dumping the ball, however they get it
into the basket,” says Colon. “They are
working on their reach, their strength,
and their coordination. The next level
up will be pushing it, then push and
jump, and before you know it, they get
their hands into the right position for
shooting.”
But the skill considered most
valuable at any age level? Confi dence.
Coaches use positive reinforcement to
assure kids that whether or not the ball
winds up in the basket, they did a great
job just shooting the ball.
Each class has an excellent coachto-
child ratio (typically one coach for
every four or fi ve children). And the
language coaches use is purposeful and
repetitive: phrases like “push the ball
to the basket” and “hug the ball” are
familiar by the time kids graduate the
program or move on to the next level,
a consistency that prepares kids for the
structure of athletic programs in grade
and high schools. Strutt and Colon interview
hundreds of people to fi nd the
right coaches for their program. They
must go through training programs,
starting out as support coaches and
learning Kids In Sports’ language and
teaching methods.
The founders’ own love of children
informs their dedication to Kids
In Sports. Both Strutt, who is dad to
12-year-old twin boys, Matthew and
Michael, and 7-year-old daughter Emily,
and Colon, who has a 2-year-old
son, Kenzel, truly believe in the skills
as well as the bigger messages the program
imparts. “Everything that we’ve
taught our kids here, I’ve tried to teach
my son,” says Colon. Strutt says he gets
a feeling of pride every time he sees a
child on the street wearing the Kids In
Sports t-shirt. “Yes, it’s our business,”
he says, “but we also look at every kid
in the program as our kid.”
Back in the gymnasium, another
group of athletes is warming
up—stretching, walking on tiptoe,
and skipping. When one little boy
becomes frustrated after having some
trouble with his lunges, a coach is
there by his side, gently correcting his
movements and making sure he’s not
left behind. “We realize how much
sports has been a part of our lives
and how it molded us as people,” says
Colon. “We want to do that same
thing for these children.”