CARLTON FLETCHER: National Youth Sports Program at ASU quietly sent into that good night

How bitter will be this last farewell.

— Roger Whittaker

I generally don’t like to write about something until I have all – or as many as possible – the facts available. I’ll forego that bit of journalistic integrity this week to discuss a topic that I feel needs to be addressed.

According to social media, and people who have long been involved with the program, Albany State University has decided to cut its ties with the annual National Youth Sports Program that has been held in Albany for the past 50 years, most of them on the ASU campus.

I reached out to Albany State President Robert Scott this week, going through my alma mater’s process of requesting an audience with the prez online and, when there was no response, calling and getting a voice cue to leave a message. That was three days ago, and I so far have heard nothing. So I will go on with this without a reply unless one comes in by deadline. (And, not to be nitpicky, but I don’t see the “progress” of having such a tedious process just to make a phone call that might take 15-20 minutes.)

This newspaper has covered the National Youth Sports Program (NYSP) to some degree during each of the program’s 50 years. I went last year to talk with participants, coaches, administrators and volunteers on the monumental 50th anniversary, and I got the same good feeling I’ve gotten in going to past iterations of the summer program.

For those who’ve been hiding under a rock the last several decades, NYSP is a program that gives young people positive outlets for their pent-up summer energy and, as event organizers have pointed out each year, offers kids with time on their hands positive things to do rather than the bad-news alternative that many are subject to.

I visited the program and talked last year with men like Robert Skinner and Jesse Massey, men who have given a large slice of their lives over the years to make sure the program continued to thrive in Albany, and they recounted for me the positive impacts that were abundant with the summer program.

Both added proudly that a new addition to the program last year was academic classes to help students with subjects that maybe had plagued them during the school year.

Another positive of the NYSP program is that all of the participants were fed healthy meals. Again, for those under-the-rock people, these meals were the only nutritious food many of the program participants got during the summer in one of the nation’s poorest Congressional districts.

I also talked to some of the NYSP participants last year, and their enthusiasm for the program was contagious. It was heart-warming to talk with kids who’d been afraid to get into a body of water prior to coming to the program who were diving off the diving board in the ASU pool. And it was cool to talk with program volunteers and instructors who told me about kids who were too shy to talk with any of their fellow participants when they first arrived who were opening up and making friends.

Just a really good experience all around.

Now, it appears, the program – the last of its kind in the nation – is going away. And I, as well as a lot of people who went through the program or had kids do so, don’t quite understand why. And, quite frankly, the move may be justifiable. Few of us are in on the decisions made about budget restraints at this level.

That’s where, perhaps, that 15-20-minute phone call might have helped.

It would have been appropriate to ask the ASU president why the program was being shut down. It would have been helpful to know if the money that was typically used to fund the NYSC program was needed for another program. (Colleges and universities are like the rest of us; they’re being impacted by this lousy economy that politicians with large egos have forced us into.)

There may have been issues with the program that have not surfaced. There could have been any number of hiccups that led to the apparent demise of NYSP. But an administration that has promised – and thus far kept that promise – transparency has, for whatever reason, kept pretty much tight-lipped about a program that has been a godsend for students, parents and grandparents in the region.

Another NYSP-like program may arise in its wake if the program has indeed been canned. One can only hope so. And one can also hope that the leadership at ASU will be forthcoming in its explanation of why such a beloved program is going away.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].