RICHARD
E. LAPCHICK
Founder / Director
NOTE: Richard Lapchick now serves as Sport in Society Director Emeritus
Sport in Society Dedicates its next year of service to the legacy of Lenny Zakim.
Lapchick / Zakim
RICHARD
LAPCHICK
ARTICLE INDEX
Sport
in Society Dedicates its next year of service
to the legacy of Lenny Zakim.
Dear friends,
As we closed the door on the 20th Century, we have opened a new door of enormous potential for progress. We are proud of our accomplish-ments, yet relish the challenges of the 21st Century before us.
Through the steadfast support of Northeastern University and its committed President, Richard Freeland, we aim to expand our sphere of influence. With the corporate and individuals support of our friends and donors, our programs have flourished and helped create a more tolerant society for our children to grow up in.
Our Athletes in Service to America program, part of President Clinton's AmeriCorps initiative, had a remarkably strong year. The Corps members, all of whom have collegiate athletic experience, provided over 84,000 hours of service in the last year to young people.
The Northeastern University site was selected to host the AmeriCorps "Call to Service" rally on April 23, 1999 featuring Tipper Gore and Harris Wofford. Northeastern joined the University of Kentucky, Canisius College, and the ACES program in Chicago as the four operating sites. We have recently opened a fift regional office at Eckerd College.
The Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Program had a tremendous impact on the issue of men's violence against women. In a year when the media reported numerous cases of athletes and violent crimes, MVP once again shifted the focus back to the positive effects athletes are having in society.
In addition to the thousands of high school and college student-athletes trained last year, MVP served the professional ranks. MVP trained all the players in the International Basketball League. For the second consecutive year, MVP trained rookies and free-agents of the New England Patriots. Patriot's owner Robert Kraft continues to be a visionary sports owner with his proactive stance to violence intervention by his support of Sport in Society and the MVP program. MVP also presented at the 1998 NBA rookie orientation.
Project TEAMWORK had another busy year working in 8 middle schools and 12 high schools in Massachusetts in the last year, training 4,000 students with their specially-designed curriculum. TEAMWORK also trained every Athletes in Service to America Corps member with 18 hours of intensive diversity sensitivity and conflict resolution training.
The annual Human Rights Squad Forum was convened in May 1999 at Northeastern University. The appropriate theme this year was "Preventing School Violence." In a terribly tragic year for high-profile school violence, never was this issue more critical.
The Urban Youth Sports Program had a tangible affect on the youth of Boston over the past year. The program established multiple initiatives for young people in inner-city schools, particularly young girls, who were limited in their ability to participate in sports.
Urban Youth Sports coordinated field hockey clinics, softball and baseball clinics, double dutch events, soccer programs, tennis and volleyball clinics, a cycling initiative, as well as coordinating the Jump Up and Go! physical fitness program and the Try-A-Sport Day with the Massachusetts Governor's Council on Physical Fitness.
The SportsCAP program continued to provide opportunities in the sports business world for women and people of color. As America itself has become more diverse, concerns about race and gender in sport are often central to discussions about the future of sport.
The need for such racial diversity was never more apparent than after the release of Sport in Society's tenth-annual Racial and Gender Report Card. The 1998 Report Card exposed discrepancies of hiring practices in the major sports in regards to race and, for the first time, included the professional women's basketball leagues - the WNBA and ABL. We are grateful for the pioneering work of the Women's Sports Foundation for monitoring gender hiring practices in college sports.
National STUDENT-Athlete Day (NSAD) has truly become a nationwide day to celebrate the positive roles our high school and collegiate student-athletes play in their communities. NSAD, honored around the country in all 50 states on April 6, recognized 268,000 student-athletes with awards certificates for their academic and athletic success and community service. President Clinton welcomed us to the White House for the fourth consecutive year to celebrate the day with us.
The success of all of these programs is the result of the tireless work of their respective directors and staff and the administrative staff at the Center's office at Northeastern University in Boston and our satellite office at Disney's Wide World of Sports in Orlando, FL. A very sincere congratulations must be given to our staff for their extraordinary work.
We celebrated our sixteenth year of service to the Boston community and beyond. We will dedicate our work for the next year to Leonard P. Zakim.
Lenny was not only a very close friend but also a hero for me in the way he battled racism and Anti-Semitism for decades even as he fought the deadly cancer that invaded his body in the last five years. Sport in Society was privileged to give Lenny our first Human Rights Award several years ago. Northeastern University gave him an Honorary Doctorate last June. He was part of the Northeastern family. Throughout his life, Lenny's light burned bright.
We will celebrate his legacy by dedicating the next year to him. Lenny was a once-in-a-lifetime type of person. He showed us that anything and everything is possible when you open your heart. We all have the capacity to be dreammakers, be it for the world, our nation, our city or for even one other human being.
We can make a difference.
For the sake of our children, we have no choice.
We officially dedicated our next year of service to Lenny at our annual Awards Banquet and Hall of Fame Induction on November 16, 1999.
Earlier the same day at the FleetCenter, Lenny hosted 14,000 young people in the nation's largest youth rally against racism and Anti-Semitism as part of the Team Harmony Foundation. All of New England was saddened two weeks later when Lenny Zakim passed away on December 2. As I listened to Lenny's three courageous children eulogize him to the 2,000 people gathered to say good-bye to our friend, they said over and over "I love you, Daddy."
Anyone who knew Lenny loved him. He was a hope-giver supreme. Lenny was a bridgebuilder and was among the people who understand that ...
You don't have to be a woman to fight against sexism,
You don't have to be Jewish to fight against Anti-Semitism, and
You do not have to be a person of color to fight against racism.
He knew and taught others that the battle for human dignity is a battle for all of us. That is the legacy that Lenny leaves with all of us today. It will continue to inspire us in the more lonely days and months ahead.
Lenny Zakim will always live in my own heart. I am a better person for having known him and the world is a far better place.
Thank you all for supporting our efforts for so many years.
Richard
E. Lapchick
Director
Northeastern
University's
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SPORT IN SOCIETY
360 Huntington Avenue, Suite 161 CP
Boston, MA 02115-5000
Phone: (617) 373-4025
Fax: (617) 373-4566 / 2092
E-MAIL US at [email protected]