Harolds Story

Harold joined our program at Belmont Charter as a 7th grader with little to no idea of what the sport of wrestling involved. He was encouraged to join by Coach McCabe and quickly became one of the team leaders not only as a result of his work ethic, but more importantly due to the leadership he displayed on a daily basis as a student. Harold is a gifted student. He has maintained straight A’s academically, compiled quite a portfolio of creative writings and did exceptionally well on his state board tests and admission exams for the area private high schools. Harold was nominated by his coach to be a participant on the BTS Philly Middle School Travel team which helped him continue his development on the mat and gave our staff the opportunity to understand what an exceptional young man he is. As with many of our student-athletes, Harold’s personal confidence and sense of self-reliance have grown tremendously over the last few years – personal traits and characteristics that we believe will serve him well in the years to come. Although he excelled both athletically and academically, Harold’s options for high school were slightly limited for several reasons that were not entirely in his control. BTS Philly staff worked with a number of Harold’s teachers throughout the application process to Penn Charter- an elite private school in Philadelphia. As a result of his hard work both in the classroom and on the mat he was awarded a scholarship to attend and he is currently in his freshman year in school. He is excelling academically and has continued to impress all those with whom he comes in contact. BTS Philly certainly does not profess to be the sole reason that Harold is currently succeeding at Penn Charter, but we believe we have helped to positively “alter the trajectory” of his life- our primary goal as an organization.