CANTON, Ohio – August 9, 2004 – The National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame (NFF) and U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige today announced a $10.7 million No Child Left Behind grant to expand the NFF’s highly successful PLAY IT SMART program for at-risk student-athletes.

“Under the leadership of Chairman Jon F. Hanson, the NFF has proven that a critical connection can be made between the playing field and the classroom, increasing college enrollment by more than 50 percent for student-athletes in underserved communities,” said NFF Vice Chairman Ron Johnson. “This grant is the first step in expanding PLAY IT SMART’s principles to the more than seven million high school students who play high school sports each year.”

Launched in 1998 and currently in 88 high schools in 55 different cities with 7,000 participants, PLAY IT SMART trains “academic” coaches to work with high school athletic teams during the entire school year, taking the lessons learned on the field and applying them in the classroom and the community. The grant will specifically add 60 new schools to the program from underserved areas while expanding the program to girls and boys engaged in extracurricular activities other than football at 20 existing PLAY IT SMART schools, reaching a total of 11,000 different students over the course of the five-year grant.

The grant is part of the Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Education program, which supports innovative projects in elementary and secondary education. The No Child Left Behind Act is the landmark bipartisan education reform law designed to change the culture of America’s schools by closing the achievement gap among groups of students, offering more flexibility to states, giving parents more options and teaching students based on what works.

“President Bush and I believe that every child can learn and will learn—that’s why he pushed for the education reforms of the No Child Left Behind Act,” Secretary Paige said. “This grant will help the National Football Foundation continue its public service mission of mentoring young people and helping student-athletes reach academic success.”

“This is exactly the kind of program that we want out there with good theory and research behind it. There is no other program like it at the high school level,” said Michael L. Sachs, Ph.D., a past-president of the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology and a professor at Temple University. “The DOE grant will provide the critical mass of data so hopefully schools across the country will see that the program is cost effective, finding the resources to support it. The potential is fantastic.”

“PLAY IT SMART offers schools a new tool for taking a student’s passion for sport and channeling it into their classroom and community service work,” said Alex Kroll, PLAY IT SMART Founder and NFF Board Member. “By creating a systematic link between a student’s athletic and academic experiences, PLAY IT SMART has proven that extracurricular activities should be part of the academic agenda in all our nation’s schools.”

A broad public-private coalition of individuals, foundations and corporations has rallied behind the program, including the NFL and the NFL Players Association, who have established a special relationship with the program, committing over $5 million and ensuring that at least one high school in each of the 32 NFL franchise cities has the advantage of an academic coach.

“We are pleased the Department of Education has made a commitment to enhance and broaden the reach of PLAY IT SMART,” said Art Shell, Pro Football Hall of Fame player and coach and current NFL senior vice president of football operations and development. “Educated and motivated players consistently rise to the top and this program provides a strong foundation for the next generation of athletes and citizens.”

Other organizations that have provided significant support include The Peyback Foundation, IDT Corp., The Prudential Foundation, PSE&G, the New Brunswick (NJ) Board of Education, The Miami Dolphins Foundation, The Jonathan Ogden Foundation, the City of New Haven, FleetBoston Financial, The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the Washington Redskins Charitable Foundation, Hampshire Management, and the Philadelphia Board of Education.

Fundamental to the success to of PLAY IT SMART is The National Football Foundation Center for Youth Development Through Sport at Springfield College in Massachusetts (NFF Center), which is responsible for creating the conceptual model for the program as well as developing the training for the academic coaches.

“It’s a common misconception that individuals learn life skills by simply participating in sport,” said Dr. Albert Petitpas, the director of the NFF Center. “Our experience shows that if you engage young people in an activity that they love, surround them with caring adult mentors, create the right kind of learning environment, and provide them with opportunities to use their transferable skills in the classroom and community, some truly wonderful things can happen.”

Under the grant, the professional staff at the NFF Center will conduct qualitative and quantitative research to further refine the program’s model while broadly disseminating the project’s findings to every high school in the country. Additionally, the grant enables the team at the NFF Center to enhance the training of the program’s academic coaches by adding a three-day mid-winter session to the program current week-long summer conference. As tracked by the NFF Center, PLAY IT SMART participants’ accomplishments thus far include: