C
Courage
We step forward and take initiative, even when it is uncomfortable.
Helping young people connect today’s experiences to tomorrow’s opportunities.
Every young person deserves the opportunity to reach their full potential. Too often, that opportunity is limited by cost, access, and a lack of exposure to what is possible beyond the classroom.
Sports teach discipline, teamwork, resilience, and confidence. But for too many young people, those lessons are never connected to academics, careers, or future opportunities. The result is lost potential.
SMART Sports was created to bridge the gap between sports and opportunity. We use sports as the vehicle to connect young people to academics, leadership, career exploration, and real-world experiences that prepare them for life beyond the game.
“Exposure changes outcomes.”
Our approach is shaped by the voices and experiences of the young people we serve.
One of our curriculum units challenged scholars to identify a real issue in their community and take action. They chose litter around their own school. Scholars designed a survey, gathered input from teachers and administrators, analyzed the results, and developed an action plan. The curriculum provided the framework. The scholars created the impact.
Smart Sports is guided by leaders committed to expanding opportunity for young people through education, sport, and community impact.
A Note From the Founder
Smart Sports was not built from a distance. It was built from decades inside collegiate and professional athletics, watching firsthand how powerful sports can be in opening doors, and how rarely those doors get opened for young people who do not already have access to the right networks, the right mentors, or the right exposure.
I spent my career in rooms that most young people never get to see. Rooms where decisions get made about careers, opportunities, and futures. What struck me was not who was in those rooms. It was who was not.
Smart Sports is my answer to that. What I have seen already has reinforced everything I believed when I started this, and made me more committed to building it into something that reaches far beyond Chicago.
Kelly Mehrtens
Founder, Smart Sports
There are multiple ways to bring Smart Sports to more young people and expand access to opportunity.