About The Athena Program

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The Athena Program offers curated options to support both player growth and program development with a holistic approach that engages athletes, parents, and coaches. Through seminars, workshops, and seasonal series, we create opportunities for athletes to build confidence, resilience, and leadership skills while also strengthening the culture, reputation, and success of the overall program. The outcome is a win-win-win: players thrive, coaches are empowered, and the program is elevated.

We know that sports participation provides many benefits to youth that they can take with them, from childhood through adulthood. But research shows that 70% of youth athletes drop out of sports by age 13 due to burnout and pressure (National Alliance for Youth Sports.) Even more concerning is that by age 14, the dropout rate for girls is twice that of boys! (The Aspen Institute) 

The Athena Program helps create a supportive and fulfilling environment to keep kids in the game, while addressing the three primary challenges that cause kids to quit sports: 

1. Stress/Burnout-  With programming, focused on helping players gain clarity on their purpose, set and communicate their own goals, and learn to identify lessons and successes beyond sport that they will benefit from for a lifetime, while also helping ground them with perspective and stress management tools.
   
   
2. Pressure- With programming, focused on parents and coaches that help educate them on the unintended consequences of pressure and also provide the resources and prompts to foster healthy conversations and expectations with their athletes around purpose, expectations, performance, life lessons and more.
   
   
3. Access- Rising costs are pricing kids out of sports. Families now spend an average of $1,016 per year on a child’s primary sport, a 46% increase since 2019. Children from low-income households are six times more likely to quit due to cost, and schools cutting funding or charging pay-to-play fees only widen the gap.
   
   We believe socioeconomic status should never determine access to sport. Athletics build confidence, resilience, and life skills, benefits every child deserves. Beyond participation, access to mental performance and resilience training is even more limited, leaving many athletes without tools to manage stress and burnout.

The Athena Program addresses access by:

1. Hybrid, digital platform: Scales high-quality education, resources, and training to players, coaches, and parents who otherwise may not have access.
2. 5% giveback: We reinvest 5% of profits into providing resources and support for under-resourced athletes and organizations.

The Athena Program helps players set personal goals and recognize achievements beyond the sport, fostering a sense of purpose, accomplishment and joy. 

And, it also helps program improve experience and create unique value and distinction to increase player and coach retention in an increasingly competitive landscape. 

Why does this matter? Because the youth sports industry has more than doubled in the last twenty years ($9 to $19 billion,) and an estimated 40-50% of that is connected to program and travel sports. 

What this means is that there is both significant growth opportunity, but also significantly increased competition for players and coaches. The Athena Program allows you to do good while you do well! (That rising tide lifts all boats philosophy, remember?) It provides a unique benefit that helps you grow your program while also helping keep more kids in the sport!