Oct. 3 – Oct. 16, 2021
Welcome to issue three hundred and seventy-four of the Sports Doing Good newsletter. This week’s 10 stories include:

1. El Salvador: Meet fan who googled players to improve side – and was rewarded with full-time job (BBC Sport)
2. The unstoppable dreams of USMNT prodigy Ricardo Pepi (ESPN)
3. Born in Bronx, raised in Italy & England, Musah embraces US (Yahoo Sports)
4. For Olympic Gold Medalist Tamyra Mensah-Stock, Faith, Family And Wrestling Are Her Foundation (First and Pen)
5. DAZN and Common Goal United in Multi-Year Global Partnership (DAZN)
6. Nadhira Alharthy: Omani climber wants to ‘die empty’ in her quest to share knowledge (CNN)
7. Asisat Oshoala: How a grandmother’s belief gave birth to an African soccer superstar (CNN)
8. The Environment Affects Baseball. These Players Want to Help. (New York Times)
9. Iñaki Williams: ‘My parents crossed the desert barefoot to get to Spain’ (The Guardian)
10. A Surprise Sports Hero Broadens Italy’s Image of Itself (New York Times)


10+
Freedom, friends, football and Frankie (Homeless World Cup)
https://homelessworldcup.org/freedom-friends-football-and-frankie/
Catching Up with Courageous Use of Sport Winner Ayman from Australia (Beyond Sport)
http://www.beyondsport.org/articles/catching-up-with-courageous-use-of-sport-winner-ayman-from-australia/
Sportel Awards: The Peace and Sport Documentary Prize goes to “Luchadoras”! (Peace and Sport)
https://www.peace-sport.org/news/peace-and-sport-documentary-prize-goes-to-luchadoras-at-the-sportel-awards-ceremony/
Reshaping Sport and Development (Join the Campaign) (Sport and Dev)
https://www.sportanddev.org/en/article/news/reshaping-sport-and-development
Dream chasing: Enjoying the pursuit (Katie Uhlaender) (NAYS)
https://www.nays.org/sklive/features/dream-chasing-enjoying-the-pursuit/


We present again our “Featured Video” offering(s). With the explosion of video content out there highlighting the good in sport, we want to showcase such content for your enjoyment and learning. This will be an ongoing effort. And now we add podcasts!

Watch: The NBA celebrates 75 years with an epic new ad of stars and legends (Fast Company)
https://youtu.be/t1vaembXXRE
Leadership Strategy with Lisa Feigenbaum, EVP and CSO for the Dallas Wings and Panther City Lacrosse (Apple Podcasts)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leadership-strategy-with-lisa-feigenbaum-evp-and-cso/id1523360981?i=1000536735001


Introduction
I am guessing that some of us have said before, while watching our favorite teams lose or underperform (the norm for me), “I wish they would put me in charge,” or “Let me pick the players and put a team together.” It’s normal. We want to see our favorites do well, and as sports fans who have spent MANY hours watching, reading and talking about, and just stressing about the teams, we feel we have the right to have a say in what happens. But how many, really, would “walk the walk” and put in the effort to affect change with no guarantee that anyone would pay attention or care, let alone pay us?

The first story this week is the first of its kind for me with Sports Doing Good. Over 5,000 stories and I never came across this plotline. That is, super fan of a team, frustrated with the team’s lack of success, spends years, unpaid, tracking down players who may be able to help his beloved team, in this case, the men’s national soccer team of El Salvador. And this super fan, Hugo Alvarado, does not find 1 or 2 players, he finds 8 who are currently playing on the national team. And guess what, he was just hired by the football federation as a scout. Just awesome. I wish Hugo and the guys from El Salvador best of luck in World Cup qualifying.

And speaking of World Cup qualifying, the U.S. men’s national team is also going through that arduous process. And after not qualifying for the last Cup, there is great pressure to change the outcome this time. So, what has the team decided to? Well, it is relying on a group of young stars who have U.S. fans more excited than ever before about the future of the team, not just in 2022, but for years after. All the players have great stories, but we highlight two this week, for Ricardo Pepi and Yunus Musah. I hope you enjoy their stories and the others that I present this week.

If you think others would like to receive the newsletter, please feel free to forward it on or have them contact us directly at sab@sportsdoinggood.com. (If you do not want to receive the newsletter anymore you can use the Unsubscribe button at the end of the email).

So, enjoy. And have a good week.

El Salvador: Meet fan who googled players to improve side – and was rewarded with full-time job (BBC Sport)
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/58820062

The unstoppable dreams of USMNT prodigy Ricardo Pepi (ESPN)
https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-states-usa/story/4491888/the-unstoppable-dreams-of-usmnt-prodigy-ricardo-pepi

Born in Bronx, raised in Italy & England, Musah embraces US (Yahoo Sports)
https://sports.yahoo.com/born-bronx-raised-italy-england-221202358.html

For Olympic Gold Medalist Tamyra Mensah-Stock, Faith, Family And Wrestling Are Her Foundation (First and Pen)
https://firstandpen.com/for-olympic-gold-medalist-tamyra-mensah-stock-faith-family-and-wrestling-are-her-foundation/

DAZN and Common Goal United in Multi-Year Global Partnership (DAZN)
https://dazngroup.com/dazn-unites-with-common-goal/

Nadhira Alharthy: Omani climber wants to ‘die empty’ in her quest to share knowledge (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/16/sport/nadhira-alharthy-profile-cmd-spt-intl/index.html

Asisat Oshoala: How a grandmother’s belief gave birth to an African soccer superstar (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/05/football/asisat-oshoala-football-barcelona-nigeria-womens-champions-league-cmd-spt-intl/index.html

The Environment Affects Baseball. These Players Want to Help. (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/sports/mlb-climate-change-players-for-the-planet.html

Iñaki Williams: ‘My parents crossed the desert barefoot to get to Spain’ (The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/oct/06/inaki-williams-my-parents-crossed-the-desert-barefoot-to-get-to-spain

A Surprise Sports Hero Broadens Italy’s Image of Itself (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/world/europe/lamont-jacobs-italy-sprinter.html


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Our goal is to have Sports Doing Good be a portal housing original content and excerpts from and links to the increasing number of articles, websites, video, and other media that showcase the good in sports and society. We aim to celebrate those concepts, activities, events, and individuals by highlighting them for a wider audience. Much of the news today, whether sports- related or not, is incredibly negative and increasingly polarizing, biased, and quite annoying. We are trying to refocus some of the discussion on the good, with a focus on sports.

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Contact Information
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Sarbjit “Sab” Singh
sab@sportsdoinggood.com
516-287-7141
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