{"id":12360,"date":"2014-10-30T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T04:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/challengedetroit.org\/blog\/jenniferehrhardt\/?p=19"},"modified":"2014-10-30T04:30:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-30T04:30:00","slug":"beat-the-streets-detroit-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/beat-the-streets-detroit-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Beat the Streets Detroit"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Walk into the Patton Rec Center in Southeast Detroit after school Tuesday through Thursday, and you will find 75 enthusiastic 8\u201314 year-old girls and boys learning the art of wrestling as they participate in Beat the Streets Detroit<\/a>.\u00a0 Head Coach, Mike Conflitti, and his team of dedicated assistant coaches, many of whom were participants in the program, teach and perfect positions (moves) with the students.<\/p>\n

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Assistant Coaches who were former participants: (left to right) Antonine Hill, Carlos Cerda, Jason Baer, Jose Rosario, and Tim McCotter<\/p><\/div>\n

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Coach Mike Conflitti on right with Beat the Street Detroit participants<\/p><\/div>\n

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Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of attending a practice.\u00a0 Class begins with students practicing skills learned in prior classes.\u00a0 Halfway through the class, a new move is introduced and the coaches go around helping each group master it. The last 15 minutes are left for the kids to \u201cfree wrestle,\u201d a time where they can put together everything they learned.\u00a0 I was amazed at how quickly the kids picked-up on all the moves, and their toughness.\u00a0 Wrestling is a rough sport but these kids didn\u2019t seem to notice, they were just having fun while learning.<\/p>\n

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Beat the Streets is a youth wrestling program that was started in New York City in 2004 and has since expanded throughout numerous U.S. cities.\u00a0 In 2007, the highly regarded former wrestling coach of Detroit Catholic Central High School, Mike Rodriguez, and former Michigan All-American Wrestler, Mark Churella, partnered to bring Beat the Streets to Detroit.\u00a0 The program is dedicated to improving the lives of at-
\nrisk children by providing them with something meaningful and fun to do in a city where few after school programs exist. The program focuses on building character, discipline, and self-esteem.<\/p>\n

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Participants also learn about accountability and the value of hard work.\u00a0 Every Thursday, each student receives $5 if they attended every practice for that week, were on time and prepared, worked diligently, and listened.\u00a0 The program also provides the kids with a t-shirt, shorts, wrestling shoes, and a healthy snack.\u00a0 Clearly, this is quite an expense but Beat the Streets Detroit is fortunate to have the following generous corporate sponsors:\u00a0 Quicken Loans, Cliff Keen Athletic, FDI Group Insurance Services, and Detroit Parks and Recreation.\u00a0 Last but certainly not least, Christina Guzman is the operational guru that makes sure all the moving parts come together.<\/p>\n

\"Christina<\/a>

Christina Guzman and Rosa Barajas providing participants with their daily snack.<\/p><\/div>\n

It often feels like the only positive stories about Detroit are regarding investments in Downtown and Midtown.\u00a0 While a strong core leads to a stronger city, there are so many individuals who are doing really amazing and positive things for Detroit.\u00a0 I hope this post will shed some light on the incredible work being done by Coach Conflitti, Mark Churella, Christina Guzman, and the other remarkable people and companies involved with Beat the Street Detroit.<\/p>\n

(Be sure to \u201cLike\u201d Beat the Streets Detroit on Facebook<\/a> to receive updates on the program and opportunities to help.)<\/p>\n

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Beat the Streets Detroit 2014 Team<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walk into the Patton Rec Center in Southeast Detroit after school Tuesday through Thursday, and you will find 75 enthusiastic 8\u201314 year-old girls and boys learning the art of wrestling as they participate in Beat the Streets Detroit.\u00a0 Head Coach, Mike Conflitti, and his team of dedicated assistant coaches, many of whom were participants in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}