We all know that youth sports can feel like a high-stakes race to a scholarship, with the loudest voices from the sidelines coming from hyper-invested parents. But here in Queen Creek and other East Valley communities, Paladin Sports Outreach is shifting the goal into shaping players with purpose.
“It really just started as a grassroots community sports,” founder Jason Best explains about forming the non-profit organization in 2008, after moving to San Tan Valley. “My two youngest kids were very young at the time and we didn't have anything out there, even Queen Creek didn't really have a whole lot of organized sports, so we had to go into Gilbert and Chandler for everything.”
Jason says what started as a couple of free clinics grew into a T-ball league with about 30 kids. “That became soccer, and then word of mouth and it just kept kind of growing and growing and growing.” They now serve roughly 4,000 kids a year playing half a dozen different sports in the East Valley, with their outreach stretching to communities in Northwest Minnesota and Central Florida.
Paladin Sports’ success is greater than any trophy. That’s because scoreboard victories take a backseat to something bigger: building faith, igniting a lifelong love for any sport and embracing teamwork.
“I think the two biggest things that distinguish us from any other organization is that one, we're Christ-centered,” Jason says with passion, “we infuse faith into everything that we do. And second, we are curriculum at the recreational level. We call it Character Matters.” Every week, kids are given a character trait to memorize along with an associated Bible verse. While faith is not a requirement, Jason treats Paladin more as a sports ministry.
However, he says kids having fun and falling in love with sports is always the priority. “Sports is such an amazing vehicle for learning about teamwork. There's just so many lessons about life that can be garnered from sports.”
Changing the culture of sports is more than a mission statement. Jason sees it as a mission of community.
“The moments I feel the most pride is when I'm in Fry's and I turn the corner and I see a kid wearing a Paladin Sports shirt,” Jason says. “This is not just backyard sports anymore. This is something that is really having an impact on kids and their families.”
www.paladinsports.org
'Changing the culture of sports is more than a mission statement. Jason sees it as a mission of community.'