Sportmen's
PLEASE NOTE THAT SPORTMEN'S IS NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR THEIR 128TH BOSTON MARATHON TEAM.
Sportsmen’s Tennis & Enrichment Center’s (Sportsmen’s) mission is to build leaders on the court, in the classroom and in the greater community by providing academic, wellness and social development programs alongside recreational and competitive tennis instruction for youth and adults. Sportsmen’s is committed to improving life opportunities for youth in Boston’s Blue Hill Corridor while welcoming a diverse community from the Greater Boston area. We teach, mentor and embrace our youth, building not just their tennis games and academic skills but also their characters. We encourage them to take their place in the community and contribute to society.
Sportsmen’s strategic priorities are to:
- Provide high-quality afterschool academic and enrichment support for under-resourced youth at the K-5 levels.
- Offer Junior Tennis programs that place local, low-income and/or minority youth on a clear developmental pathway to high performance, college/post-secondary level tennis.
- Offer youth programs that teach life, self-management, and leadership skills which align with the City of Boston's Achieve, Connect & Thrive framework.
- Leverage the Center for Community Wellness (CCW) to provide health & wellness, financial literacy and academic programs for neighborhood families.
HISTORY
Sportsmen’s was founded in 1961 as the first indoor non-profit tennis club built in the United States by and for the African American community. We are one of the 20 largest organizations in the US that combines tennis with academic and life skills programming for youth, under the US Tennis Association (USTA) Foundation's National Junior Tennis & Learning (NJTL) concept created by Arthur Ashe. In 2022, the USTA named Sportsmen’s the NJTL Chapter of the Year. We are also the only organization in New England ever to have been commended by the USTA for multicultural excellence.
We have a six-decade history of investing in and supporting Boston’s most vulnerable low-income and minority youth and families. Our programs like Volley Against Violence (VAV) have received national recognition for their innovation. VAV has brought police and young people together for play, dialogue, and understanding since 2009, well before the current national dialogue began, and has been replicated by the USTA Foundation in 7 cities across the US. In 2021 we marked our 60th anniversary by conducting a $15M capital campaign with a focus on upgrading and expanding our facility. This is the first campaign since the facility was constructed in the 1970s, and our success will magnify our impact and better position Sportsmen’s for success for generations to come by expanding our facility and doubling our program capacity.