A nonprofit, known as “Beat The Streets Baltimore,” uses volunteers to coach elementary and middle school student the sport of wrestling. It aims to save kids by resurrecting wresting.
It gives kids a place to play wrestling, get academic help, as well as develop a strong character. Although basketball rules in Baltimore, wrestling thrives outside of Baltimore.
Beat The Streets Baltimore was incepted six years ago by Lydell Henry, who is a native of West Baltimore’s Sandtown neighborhood. The wrestling campaign runs November through March, as well as summer camps and other tutoring programs.
The nonprofit has been operating on a shoestring budget, without a gaudy outward display. However, Henry and his team of coaches, including Patrick Coleman Jr., have still been making inroads.
Patrick Coleman is the wrestling coach at Banneker Blake Academy. He wrestled in high school and college. He knows the impact of mentoring.
The team believes that wrestling instills personal responsibility, resiliency, and hard work. The sport demands a sort of discipline, self-reliance, and grit, which are rarely found in the modern world.
He said, “My coaches in high school, when I started wrestling, when they took me under their wing, it was bigger than wrestling. And I still speak with them until this day and they encourage me every day, so I know that if I would’ve had them in my life a lot sooner, especially in this age group, I feel like I would’ve been more successful.”
The founder of Beat the Streets, Henry said, “We always tend to attract some of the toughest kids. We have some really great students, but we also have some who need some extra work.” Maurice Hargrove, a seventh-grader, said, “In Baltimore, there’s a lot of selling drugs, killing. I’ve seen some of my friends that I grew up with, it was people they were hanging around, but they’re selling drugs now.”
