By: Pamela Stern
Each year, Spring Creek Towers (SCT) residents who have seniors in high school are encouraged to apply for the SCT Scholarship Program. The students must meet certain criteria to be eligible to apply for this distinguished award. After the applicants submit the required information, and the selection committee reviews all of the applications, the winners are selected and award notices are sent out.
Kristopher Carroll is one of the 2016 recipients of the SCT Scholarship Program winners. Carroll graduated in May 2022 from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina with a degree in Business Administration. Carroll explained how appreciative he was to receive the scholarship. “It was extremely beneficial, no matter what aid you receive for your education academically or athletically it is helpful. I was extremely grateful to receive the SCT Scholarship from my neighborhood, because it was an honor to be recognized as one of the scholars from the neighborhood. It enabled me to go on to and do great things,” said Carroll.
Carroll grew up in SCT and spent an enormous amount of time at the Brooklyn Sports Club (BSC). “I grew up in that gym for a better part of my life,” stated Carroll. When he went away to school, and would come home for breaks and vacations he would work a part –time position at the BSC, he also worked there every summer, since 2016.
Currently Kristopher is the Director of Youth Sports Programing at the BSC and also is a trained and certified lifeguard. He holds certification in CPR and in First Aid. These are a part of the training course to become a lifeguard. You might be wondering how did Kristopher become the Director of Youth Sports Programming?
“There was a vacancy for a Director of Youth Sports Programing, and upper management called me into the office one day to discuss the possibility of me taking over this program, enhancing it, and building it up ad much as possible,” said Carroll.
Carroll had previous experience working with the Summer Youth Program for children ages 6-11 at the Italian-American Civil Rights League (IACRL) as a camp counselor for a number of years. Carroll also returns to his alma mater in North Carolina to work as a camp counselor for their Boon e Basketball Academy. This camp is usually held for two weeks every summer for students’ ages 4-14 years old.
The Brooklyn Kids Sports Club is for children ages 5-13. Currently there are nine children enrolled in this program, which just began a couple of weeks ago. In addition to Coach Kris, there are two other coaches that work in this program.
This program includes an introduction to sports with an emphasis on basketball, daily workouts predicated to basketball,, physical fitness, team handball, team building skills, motor skills, learning how to be in a team environment, and building confidence. This allows everyone to have an enjoyable experience.
In this Kids Sports Club, we try to make everything easy, and show how important the basics are; to stretch properly, to focus on the fundaments of everything, which shows how it all ties in together. “We usually start off with a warm up and then we have them do laps around the gym, then we line the children up and do stretches,” said Carroll.
We have two additional coaches, one of the coaches does the fitness training with the children along with doing planks, push-ups, sit-ups, and squats. The other coach works on techniques with the children for ball handling drills, defensive drills, and shows them how to properly slide their feet and also shows them the mechanics to play defense. All of the children are at different skill levels, and are at different age levels, so we split tem up into two teams, and show them how to play steal the bucket, game. Whichever team scores first is the winner and we make it into a series. This fun game and allows the children to become team players and it enhances their participation. The students are developing their motor sills, getting physical fitness while they are improving their confidence, and learning how to evolve in a team environment.
The Brooklyn Kids Sports Club currently is running on Saturdays from 10am to 12 noon and is $20 per class.
“I enjoy seeing the progression of the kids, when they leave after learning the skills, and their focus shows that they are starting to understand the fundamentals. Besides SCT Basketball, I didn’t have older people looking out for me. A motivating factor for me is being the person who has done what they are aspiring to do. I am like the bridge for the kids,” said Carroll.
Carroll would like to definitely see this program flourish and grow into a full time program, like a four-day program with a full staff, not just on Saturdays, but a thriving program. It will take some time for this to gain traction, but there is definitely potential for growth. This program has only been running for three Saturdays so far. Over the course of time it will grow. Carroll would like to see as many children in this program as there possibly can be so that they can offer a wider enough curriculum.
“Fall in love with the process and understand that things are not always going to be ok,” said Coach Kris.
Photos courtesy of: BSC
