“We emphasize team as much as individual,” Mr. Gregg says. Every SquashSmarts student gets a PACT score—Participation, Attendance, Conduct, Teamwork. “We are as interested in the kids who sit in the back of the class as in the middle of the class as in the front of the class,” he says. SquashSmarts reaches out in many ways to help students keep growing, Mr. Gregg says. As an example, he tells the story of one teenager who was taking a train and two buses to school every day. He eventually got overwhelmed. He missed almost 45 days of school in a row, partly because his mother worked two jobs and was not there to wake him up in the morning. The SquashSmarts staff bought him an alarm clock, called his house every morning, and met with his teachers to get him back on track. He graduated from high school and attends community college. He has a good job, owns a car, and now helps support his mom. One of SquashSmarts’ most important goals is to keep its students on track so they can graduate from high school. Mr. Gregg takes enormous pleasure when young people who had been in the program return as volunteers or as staff members. Of the 13 people on the SquashSmarts staff, six participated in the program as students. About 150 students from three Philadelphia schools currently participate in SquashSmarts. “Our goal will be to add more kids and more schools,” he says. “My goal would be for every boy and girl to have sports as part of their lives.” —By Healthy Bulldog staff AMY Northwest 15 Illustration by Gabrielle Savage, AMY Northwest Healthy Bulldog