Sport is just the bait...

The following quote from the former director of the CYO West Side Center in Chicago taken from Roger Treat's Bishop Sheil and the CYO (1951) says so much about what we do at Play Like A Champion Today.

"One thing, however, has to be made clear on these programs. I think a lot of good efforts are wasted because nobody knows this quite like Bishop Sheil knows is - that sport is not the whole answer, sport is just the bait. You can't throw a football down in a crowd of young hoodlums, walk away, and expect them to be good citizens. They've got to have directions and instruction, and you must use sport to get their interest and their respect. Then it isn't so hard to make them see that it's smart to be a right guy."

- E. A. Giovangelo, Director CYO West Side Center, 1950

Bishop Bernard J. Sheil founded the original Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) in 1930 to keep young people from joining gangs and becoming criminals. Bishope Sheil felt that by creating the CYO, he could give young men and women new idols/heroes to take the place of gang bosses like Al Capone, "Bugs" Moran, and "Machine-Gun Jack" McGurn.