Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Levin.
Michael, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Lacrosse was a big part of my life growing up in Upstate New York and I had an incredible experience playing lacrosse and going to school at Brown University. After school, I was fortunate enough to play in Major League Lacrosse for 7 seasons while simultaneously pursuing my career as an educator. I developed an interest in urban education reform and decided to go back to school to get a master’s degree in education so that I could become a teacher in an urban district. Upon completion of my master’s program at Boston College, I came across a non-profit organization in Boston called MetroLacrosse and applied for job on the program staff there. At MetroLacrosse, I developed a deep passion for sports-based youth development and also an interest in non-profit management as a career path. Eventually, I became the Executive Director at MetroLacrosse which was an incredible opportunity and learning experience. In 2014, I received a call from Doc O’Connor, who at the time, was a partner at Creative Artists Agency. Doc told me that he had heard about MetroLacrosse and was interested in a program like that existing in South Los Angeles. I had a personal interest in moving to LA so after meeting with Doc a few times, we decided that this was a project we wanted to work on together. Doc has been incredibly generous and has also become an incredible friend and mentor of mine. In the fall of 2014, we launched City Lacrosse and had a blast doing it. We were thrilled with our progress and starting to generate some real momentum when I received a call from Simon Cataldo, founder and board chair at Harlem Lacrosse in the Summer of 2016. Simon wanted to know if I was interested in becoming their Executive Director. Harlem Lacrosse was a much larger organization than City Lacrosse and growing very rapidly so Doc and I and the rest of the City Lacrosse board decided to merge our organization with theirs and become Harlem Lacrosse LA. Today, I oversee the entire organization which operates in 5 cities and serves 900 kids around the country.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I don’t think that anything is achieved without setbacks along the way. I’ve certainly had my fair share including funding setbacks which caused me to go without pay for months at a time. We are deliberately trying to operate in low-income communities in which kids can face significant obstacles so we face challenges every day. However, whenever we face challenges, it reminds me that we are doing work that needs to be done.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Harlem Lacrosse is a nonprofit organization which provides academic support, behavior intervention, mentorship and lacrosse programming to students in low-income urban schools in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Los Angeles. We employ a program model which embeds a full-time staff member in a school, all day, every day of the school year to support and lead the kids who need us the most. We make a deep investment in each student because we believe that every student deserves the opportunity to reach their full potential.
I’m most proud of the achievements of our students, of the character of our staff and of the community that has been built around our organization.
What were you like growing up?
I was a pretty focused student and athlete growing up. I loved athletics and played 3 sports in high school and always knew that I wanted to take sports as far as I possibly could. I was pretty outgoing and enjoyed and great network of family in friends in Pittsford, NY which was an amazing place to grow up.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.harlemaclrosse.org
- Instagram: @harelmlacrosse
- Twitter: @harlemlacrosse
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