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Issue Date: May 11, 2008
Most Caring Coach winners
Our judges pick the three top mentors for 2008 from a record 1,920 nominations.
This winter, for the 15th time, USA WEEKEND invited readers to nominate outstanding youth coaches who have an impact in their communities and inspire their young charges, on and off the field. Nearly 2,000 players, parents, school administrators and others inundated our offices with heartfelt tributes. We had a big job ahead of us.
Last month, with the list narrowed down to 10 finalists, our judges, including the Colorado Rockies' Clint Hurdle and the Arizona Cardinals' Ken Whisenhunt, chose the three winners. Each gets $1,000 for his team or favorite charity and will be honored by our program partner, the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame, at its awards ceremony in Boise on June 26.
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Mark Rhodes, York, Pa.
Creating a healthy outlet, and hope, for inner-city students
Rhodes saw a huge need for a youth league and ran with it.
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Day after day, kids asked Mark Rhodes whether they could play basketball and other sports in the parking lot of his business, which left him wondering why they weren't playing organized sports in a park. After discovering that such programs didn't exist there, Rhodes formed the York City Youth League with baseball teams and later added basketball teams. Fifteen years later, there are 30 teams with more than 300 kids in grades kindergarten through 10.
"In York, a city plagued by racial issues, a failing city school district, increasing gang activity and youth violence, and mounting municipal debt that limits financial support for community youth activities, coach Mark Rhodes is aconstant source of light and hope to city youths," wrote reader Lyn Becker.
Rhodes, 48, has shouldered mostof the work of maintaining the league, working the night shift at Harley-Davidson so his afternoons are free for coaching. He transports players to practices and games, and he brings in speakers to talk about careers and life choices. He has provided shoes,equipment and program fees and brought food to team families in need.
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Mike McGee, Fairfield, Maine
Teaching kids that empathy is more important than winning games
McGee enjoys shooting baskets with student Evan Klane.
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In his 24 years as varsity boys'basketball coach at Lawrence High School, Mike McGee has shown players and students that sports are more aboutrelationships than about championships. When one of McGee's beloved former players passed away from a brain tumor, McGee was at his side, holding his hand and telling the boy how much he was loved and admired. When a seventh-grader started losing his battle witha fatal illness, McGee delivered avideo from all the boy's classmatessaying goodbye.
"Coach McGee has demonstrated his caring in hundreds of displays of kindness through the years," wrote nominator Doris Pratt. "He has been the first to celebrate the accomplishments of his players through his thoughtful letters and warm phone calls."
Every season, McGee, 50, finds spots on the basketball team for physicallyor mentally handicapped students. Whether it is a job as team manager or cheerleader, or making room on the bench next to the players for a student to sit, McGee makes the students feel needed and welcome.
"He has tremendous patience that he shows to those kids, and that transfers over to the players," says Elon Firmage, McGee's assistant coach for the past 10 years. "They see how McGee treats the handicapped students, and they support those kids and cheer them on, too."
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Marciano Cruz, Santa Cruz, Calif.
Using soccer and surfing to keep kids out of gangs
Cruz shows the way through soccer and his passion, surfing.
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For nearly 20 years, Marciano Cruz has dedicated himself to guiding at-risk youths away from the world of gangs, a world with which Cruz is all too familiar. After coming to the United States from Mexico, Cruz, now 45, got involved in gang activity. After five years in prison, he decided it was his turn to give back to the community.
He set to work, organizing a team of young soccer players, all immigrants like himself, to keep them off the streets. That first team has blossomed into a year-round league through the city's Resource Center for Nonviolence, where Cruz has been a staffer for 10 years. More than 800 children and adults play on 45 to 65 teams.
Cruz also began introducing kids to surfing, his passion. With Ed Guzman, owner of a surf school, Cruz runs a free summer surf camp that provides equipment and instruction three days a week. And each young surfer is equipped with a free wet suit and surfboard -- not an inexpensive feat, but one that's made possible through fundraising, donations and Cruz's dedication to collecting used and broken equipment that he fixes up for the kids.
"He is showing the kids that they can actually make something out of themselves," Guzman says, "and if they push against the odds, they can come out on top."
 7 Caring Coaches Meet all of our finalists:
Dean Curtis, Fairless Hills, Pa.;
Donald W. Green Jr., Jacksonville;
Allison Ishii, Honolulu;
Bill Kalenius, Vancouver, Wash.;
Mark Rocha, Clark Fork, Idaho;
Zachary Smalls, Graham, Wash.;
Kristin Stahley, Lansing, Mich.
By Olivia Branco, Dana Kinker and Emily Yahr, with Elizabeth Schumer
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