Gabriel Sekou Kromah Jr. and Frankie Miamen are looking to change the game when it comes to student-athletes. Once athletes for the Hawks, both now co-run the Minnesota-based Sports and Leadership Academy.
Sports and Leadership Academy is a 501(c)(3) organization that forms partnerships with local athletes, high schools, and technical schools. With an emphasis on academic excellence and moral courage, they look to set ethical and academic standards for the use of their facilities and programs. The organization was founded by Kromah and Miamen.
The academy features programs relating to basketball, track and field, soccer, and football. According to Kromah, the operations are based around three core missions that highlight the areas in which student-athletes need to grow.
“There are three tracks that the organization is established on. The first track is sports performance enhancement. In that track, each sport is an academy within an academy. Within that, we have a strength program, skills, and development on and off the field. The second track is community engagement,” Kromah said. “We have partnerships with different organizations like the City of Brooklyn Center to do things like recreational development with basketball, soccer, and dance. The third component is our academic tutoring. We’re still working on getting that part off the ground, but we’ve been in talks with North Hennepin to provide resources to the community. ... We want to be a platform for our athletes to serve and give back to the community.”
The organization’s work also branches out beyond sports training. The academy has teamed up with the city of Brooklyn Center for a 5K for mental health awareness, which will enter its third year this summer. Sports and Leadership Academy also does one-on-one social work with many of its athletes, especially those who leave home to pursue collegiate opportunities.
“We do a lot of in-house work with our athletes, especially the ones in college,” Kromah explained. “We’re always touching base with them and seeing how they’re handling mental challenges. ... We’re working on building the whole human, from an athletic standpoint and an education and community standpoint.”
Both Miamen and Kromah were born in Liberia and left during the nation’s civil war. Faced with change and separation from his mother for nine years, Kromah found an early passion in football. He went on to attend and play football at Robbinsdale Cooper High School, before playing two years of football at Ridgewater College and earning an associate’s degree. He later earned his Bachelor of Science degree at North Carolina’s Wingate University.
Miamen and Kromah’s experiences in the Robbinsdale School District and as members of the Minnesotan Liberian community have informed the problems they identify with current students and how to address them.
“One of the big forces that I see hindering the Liberian community here is a lack of early athletic development,” Kromah continued. “I was affected by that and didn’t really start getting the type of training we provide now until I was almost in college already. There was a lot that missed out on and it affected me. ... So we took our experiences and used that to provide these services now. ... We’re mentoring them on the way to think, how to do the extra work and build a mindset to control your emotions and build emotional intelligence.”
A major lesson the academy looks to pass along to its athletes is the topic of not reaching one’s goals, something many athletes struggle with when not reaching the professional level of their sport.
“Part of what they have to learn is what happens when you don’t make it as an athlete. I didn’t make it professionally,” Kromah said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was mentally kind of broken and every athlete will go through that. ... It’s not a guarantee that our kids are going pro, but the lessons they’re learning now, being on time, working extra, that’s going to apply to every part of their lives.”
The organization runs similar programs in Liberia and has helped several Liberian youth athletes transition to life in the United States. According to Kromah, Abiola Bakare is an example.
“Our first program in Liberia was a basketball program and we worked with [Ola] there. A year or so ago he transitioned into the United States,” Kromah said. “He came here and played two high school basketball games because he came later in the year, but we were able to work with him and his family as he transitioned in school and life, and he eventually received a track scholarship to the University of Wisconsin River Falls. He’s there now. ... Everything we talked him through in Liberia, he applied when he got here.”
Women’s basketball player Grace Massaquoi, a Holy Angels graduate who recently transferred to Austin Peay State after playing junior college ball at North Dakota State College of Science and struggling to find minutes at North Dakota State University, is another prime example of a Sports and Leadership Academy success story.
“Getting out of high school, [Grace Massaquoi] wasn’t getting recruited much and was in a situation where she ended not playing much,” Kromah said. “She reached out and we worked with her and her family. ... We knew Austin Peay were really interested in her and we kept that relationship going. Now she’s committed there and using the lessons we passed along to her.”
The academy has big goals ahead, from the launching of its after-school program to building on its infrastructure and training space locations to improve its ability to work with athletes.
“One of the goals for next year is to get our after-school program off the ground,” Kromah explained. “We had an event at Hennepin Tech in order to establish a relationship. That’s part of the process to plant a seed for our program for next year. ... We’re playing another event there now.”
More information about Sports and Leadership Academy can be found at: www.sportsandleadershipacademy.org.
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