...more than sports!
Empowering
Student Athletes
To lead change through sports...
We Are 5A!
The Academy for the Advancement of Academics, Athletics, and Awareness
We Build the Systems That Power Human Potential
Sport has always been bigger than the scoreboard. It’s where character is shaped, leadership is born, and potential is revealed. Since 2007, 5A Elite Youth Empowerment has reimagined the power of sport, transforming athletic culture into a structure for lifelong learning, healing, and leadership. At 5A, we don’t run programs that fade. We build systems that endure because we turn the game into a gateway for transformation.​
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The Story That Sparked the Movement​
He was a standout athlete; gifted, disciplined, and devoted to the game. But behind the highlight reels came heartbreak. During his senior year, a false accusation cost him the team he helped build and the first half of his final season. The setback didn’t just halt momentum; it shattered recruiting hopes and exposed how fragile trust could be.
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He kept fighting, transferring from college to college, searching for a place where his work, talent, and name would finally be safe. Then came the injury, a devastating blow followed months later by another false claim that ended his career for good. The phone went silent. The scholarship disappeared. And in that silence, he was placed on suicide watch, questioning whether his life still had meaning.
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But from that darkness came light; a vision, not to return to the game, but to rebuild the system that had failed him. From that moment, 5A Elite Youth Empowerment was born; transforming pain into purpose and personal loss into a model that now restores students, schools, and communities from the inside out.
This is the story of our Founding CEO, and the spark that ignited the 5A movement.
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A Generation in Crisis. A System Built to Restore Hope.
Across the country, a quiet crisis is reshaping the lives of young people. Students are growing up in a world filled with digital noise, fractured relationships, and rising despair. Nearly 40% of high schoolers report persistent sadness or hopelessness, and one in five has considered suicide. (CDC) Chronic absenteeism now exceeds 30%, and educators report steep declines in motivation and hope. (U.S. Department of Education)​ Yet while so many systems struggle to hold students’ attention, sport still holds their hearts. On fields and courts, young people still show up, searching for belonging, direction, and purpose.
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The Student Athlete Advancement Academy was built for this moment.
We transform the structure of sport into a framework for learning, wellness, and leadership.
Where Systems Become Solutions
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The Civic Campus Model: 5A Elite’s blueprint for rebuilding the ecosystem around youth. It integrates sport, education, wellness, and leadership into one interconnected framework; turning every field, gym, and classroom into a hub for human potential.
The Engine: At the heart of each Civic Campus is the Student Athlete Advancement Academy, a school-based transformation system that aligns six Flagship Systems to build measurable growth across learning, belonging, and community engagement, creating student-athletes who lead both on and off the field.
Strategic System Alignment
Built for Schools. Aligned for Policy.
The 5A Framework is fully aligned with national education and wellness standards, ensuring every partnership strengthens academic outcomes, student wellness, and workforce readiness.
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Each Civic Campus naturally integrates with:
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FSCS (Full-Service Community Schools): advancing the four pillars: Integrated Student Supports, Expanded Learning Time, Active Family Engagement, and Collaborative Leadership.
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MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports): embedding prevention, intervention, and enrichment through trauma-informed coaching and data-driven growth.
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ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act): supporting social-emotional learning, attendance, and student achievement through evidence-based practices.
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Title I and Title IV: expanding equitable access to academic enrichment, mentoring, wellness systems, and leadership development.
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CTE (Career & Technical Education): gaining real-world experience in sport management, NIL literacy, media production, and entrepreneurship, connecting classroom learning to 21st-century career pathways.
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5A doesn’t replace existing frameworks, it connects them.
By aligning academics, wellness, and leadership under one integrated system, the 5A model transforms compliance into culture and turns educational mandates into measurable human outcomes.
...more than sports!
Where Systems Become Solutions
From 2021–2024, the Student-Athlete Advancement Academy, powered by 5A Elite Youth Empowerment, was tested through a feasibility study funded by The AthLife Foundation across a cohort of schools including Northgate, Cornell, McKeesport, Pittsburgh Obama, University Prep, and Pittsburgh King.
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The study affirmed what our mission continues to demonstrate; when sport is intentionally structured as a system, it elevates everything it touches.
Students achieve more. Coaches lead better. Families engage deeper. Schools grow stronger.
Validated through multi-year implementation, the 5A model transforms sport into a scalable framework that drives measurable gains in academics, wellness, leadership, and community culture.