Fitness Program for Kids in New Milford, Connecticut Seeks to Build Confidence Over Competitiveness

"Do I look to create super athletes? Absolutely not. It's not what I'm about," says Rich Massa, owner/operator of Gymbuddys based in New Milford, Connecticut. For him, it's what happens in the athletic programs he teaches in Westchester and Fairfield counties when two kids arrive together at a beanbag. If one selflessly gives it up for the other, he revels in the knowledge that an important lesson has been learned.

Certainly fostering kindness and building a cooperative spirit among children is a priority for any community, but in counties such as these, where a highly competitive atmosphere can often prevail, it's not the only thing he's trying to build.

He says, "It's time to get out of that 1950's mold," where the focus has been on winning and losing rather than on teaching life skills and building confidence. Because, he adds, "without confidence, I don't care what you do - reading, math, music - if a kid doesn't believe in himself, they're not going to want to try." And this is clearly reflected in the growing number of kids who don't participate in physical education and traditional sports.

It's a road Mr. Massa, 33, might have gone down. He says, "I was the short fat kid nobody wanted, but growing into a svelte 6'5" by high school had to be helpful towards becoming the captain of the basketball and track team. He prefers to credit a coach who, he says, "saw something in me that no one else saw." From there, he pursued a degree in Physical Education and Sports Medicine at Manhattan College and skipped grad school for a job at Spotlight Gymnastics in Westchester.

Eventually he landed a Phys Ed position in New York City and later one in Stamford, Connecticut. In turn, this led to his first one on one case. When he saw how a child responds to individualized attention of their own specific needs, the idea of GymBuddys was born. In between, he's coached baseball, basketball, soccer and cross country track in several schools in Westchester and Connecticut.

Thankful to Coach Mike Elfers of Irvington High School for knowing something about the needs of each child, and being on the lookout for that child is still a cornerstone of Mr. Massa's game plan. Even in preschool games where the competitive intensity is minimal, children still can find themselves defeated.

For example, in a game he calls, "clean your room," where children scatter and "clean" at the sound of the whistle and the dispersal of a large bucket of bounce-ables, large is a relative term. He knows there will always be the child who becomes unhappily focused on the red beanbag another child has picked up. Rather than unsuccessfully explaining that, you can't always get the red one, he emphasizes, "de-emphasizing" the red to the child or just adding more red beanbags to the messy room.

As for the messy rooms of his own two young children, all the strategies and "tricks" he's learned as a Gymbuddy, he says "are like kryptomite to my kids." He's not complaining and he's not concerned if they don't grow to embrace his love of sports. So far his daughter is focused on dance, but "the little guy's a tank," he says.

Maybe someday he'll boast an all-state tight end, but Mr. Massa's values clearly extend past his programs, which range in age groups from toddlers to adults. He's not against competitive sports or athletes, as he currently works with two nationally ranked high school tennis players, but he worries that adult's needs are too many times put ahead of children's. Questioning, "When does it stop, high school, middle school? So now in kindergarten, we're scopping out the next Kobe Bryant. How many of those kids go on to the pros and how many get left behind?"

Obviously too many, but since business is good, he's helping to make a dent in the future, and opening up a new site in Westchester County in New York is his next objective. He's optimistic because, he says, "awareness is out there and more and more people are starting to embrace the ideas." And he's also doing his part to raise awareness.

In addition to GymBuddys, which conducts a class at the Increase Miller School in Katonah, New York, he does staff training to any organization that will listen, including a seminar he gave several weeks ago to Phys Ed students at SUNY Cortland.

For now, he continues to pursue, he says, "the middle of the road kid who's getting left behind." That's his joy but recently he couldn't help wondering what happens to the kids who end up on the losing side of the Little League World Series - in full view of a nation. To him, a far more frightening prospect than he had snaring Spauldings in traffic on 133^rd street in the Bronx as a stickball playing youth.

Rich Monetti interview of Rich Massa