Author: BTSPhilly

Beat the Streets Philadelphia is excited to announce that we are launching a wrestling program at the Philadelphia School. This opportunity was made possible by a transformative gift from John and Gina Moore.
The program will offer free wrestling instruction, tutoring, and mentoring to middle school students in the South Philadelphia area. The program will be held at The Philadelphia School; however, we plan to attract wrestlers from all over South Philadelphia.
This program will allow us to engage with middle schoolers from the South Philadelphia and grays ferry community as we strive to change the life trajectory of underprivileged inner city youth.  Partnerships have already been established the Chester Arthur School to recruit students from the community and additional recruitment will be made to ensure the program is accessible to a diverse group of participants from the community.
We look forward to continuing to growing wrestling in South Philadelphia. We are extremely optimistic about this expansion, and cannot wait to bring opportunity and positive energy to South Philadelphia middle school students.

BTS-Philly stresses the importance of training year-round in order to make gains while potential opponents are content to take time off. This concepts is one of many that are encouraged within the sport of wrestling, but also transcend the mat into life and academics. With that theme in mind the BTS-Philly mentoring center established The Summer Scholars program, comprised of the most committed student-athletes within the Mentoring Program with the goal of continuing to develop academic skills over the summer.
During this past summer we divided the Summer Scholars into two groups: Middle School students and High School students, each with its own specific goals.
The Middle School group consisted of 10 student-athletes who attended small group sessions in a classroom setting, with a very strong ratio of instructors to students. The class was taught by Mentoring Program Director, Chris Chambers, and included 4 experienced BTS-Philly mentors supporting the learning environment as teachers’ assistants. The primary goals of the class were to develop Math and Language Arts skills in order to best prepare students for the transition to high school. The Math component consisted of mainly Pre-Algebra and Algebra skills in accordance with the Keystone standards as well as PA Common Core. For the Language Arts component students read “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens”, which served a dual role. Students were able to practice comprehension and expressing themselves through writing and discussion in class, while the content of the book itself taught basic life skills that are conducive to happiness and successful lifestyles.
Each of the High School Summer Scholars participants received one-on-one tutoring from experienced BTS-Philly Mentors toward improving SAT scores, as many of them were approaching their senior year.
Each day the high school students received their tutoring while the middle school students participated in class simultaneously. Finally, the middle school and high school groups would come together at the end of each day for 30 minutes of nutrition taught by Joe Stanzione, Asst Coach for Drexel University Wrestling and studying to complete his Master’s degree in nutrition.
BTS- Philly recognizes the commitment that the wrestlers have made to the program and more importantly themselves. These individuals have shown great improvement in academics and wrestling. The sacrifices that have been made by the wrestlers to better themselves was rewarded with an end of the beach trip. The talent, commitment, and determination that has been displayed year- round is special and BTS- Philly is proud of everyone who participated. Many of the students that participated in this program have already realized the benefits with strong starts in the classroom and in preparation on the mat for the upcoming season.

I have been surrounded by the sport of wrestling for my entire life.  Competing from elementary school through 5 years of college clearly played a big part in developing me into the person I am today.  However, now over 15yrs has passed since my last official match and I arguably find myself more absorbed into the sport than ever.  I am on the board of BTSP,  the board of my hometown (Chatham, NJ)  wrestling club and President of the University of Pennsylvania’s Grapplers Club.   As a result I feel as though I am constantly advocating all aspects of the sport of wrestling.  Whether it be discipline, mental toughness, team building, self confidence or just simply highlighting the fact that wrestling is a foundational sport overall I am constantly reminded of all the sport has to offer.    With that understood,  it simply brought a smile to my face to watch this video and hear a tremendously successful man like Joe Moglia offer his opinion on the topic.   It is WELL worth 3 minutes of your time.
You can watch the video of Joe speaking on the right hand side of this page.
Brett Matter
Beat the Streets Philadelphia Board Member

Beat the Streets Philadelphia Seniors
Beat the Streets Philadelphia (BTSP) takes great pride in the students that participate in our programs as a result of their successes on the mat, in classroom, and in life. Many of our participants are willing to put in extra time in all that they do so that they can achieve their goals. Although there are many points during their time with BTSP that can be celebrated, there are few that are as important and exciting as their graduation from high school and their transition to the next stages in life. BTSP staff, coaches, and mentors consistently promote the importance of education and provide direct support in the form of tutoring and mentoring to ensure the resources to promote success in that part of their lives are available. The results of this combined effort between the students and BTSP are extremely encouraging, with 98% of seniors during the 2014-2015 school year graduating on time from high school and 78% of those students will be attending some form of post-secondary education. These numbers are even more impressive when compared to the overall student population of Philadelphia where just over 65% of students graduate on time and 44% attend post-secondary education.
BTSP participants will be attending the following school next fall:
 
Clarion University
Community College of Philadelphia
Culinary Institute of America
Delaware State University
Drexel University
East Stroudsburg University
Edinboro University
Harrisburg University
LaSalle University
Manor University
Penn State- Altoona
Penn State- State College
Saint Josephs University
Temple University
Thaddeus Stevens
University of Iowa
University of Pennsylvania
Widener University
Many of these students will come back to serve as mentors and role models for future participants and the culture of success will continue to build within their communities.  BTSP was founded with the idea that coupling mentoring and wrestling would have the potential to alter the life trajectory of our participants.  These graduates are prime examples that the progress that our students, coaches, staff, and organization have made together has had the desired impact.