SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — As a mechanism to permanently propel inner-city kids away from at-risk circumstances, there’s no sport quite like . . . polo.
Yeah . . . polo.
Our fledgling evidence is provided by the Work To Ride program that sprang from the Chamounix Equestrian Center in Fairmount Park, Pa. The facility, which certainly sounds like some ritzy playground for the well-to-do of Philadelphia, is a modest place that’s become home to the first all-African-American squad to win a national scholastic polo championship.
The Work To Ride team, which won that national title in 2011, recently competed in the Scottsdale Polo Championships at Westworld, where it defeated Harvard to win the Molina Cup. While there, the underprivileged inner-city kids swapped stories and rubbed shoulders with the swells from the Bel Air and The Hamptons polo clubs.
It's a story of perseverance and triumph that has been celebrated by media platforms around the country.
But the program’s triumph is far from isolated on polo.
“It lends a whole new dimension to self-esteem and the feeling of accomplishment,” said Lezlie Hiner, Work To Ride’s founder, coach, confidant, procurer of needed donations and anything else that’s required.
Hiner, a lover of horses who chose a seminal path after arming herself with a psychology degree, is referring to the life-altering premise of rising to exceed expectation.
Accomplishment in Hiner’s eyes isn’t defined by converting sports success into lucrative professional contracts. Even though there are polo professionals, there are no king’s-ransom contracts or product endorsements. Even more sobering — there are no polo scholarships to cover the financial crush of college. The nonprofit Work To Ride program does have its own limited scholarship fund, but rising above the danger and uncertainty on Philly’s toughest streets — and using polo as a means to an end — is more about elevating self-perception.
“What it does do,” Hiner said of polo, “is give the kids something to shoot for. And it gets them thinking about the college path.”
To even reach that path, Work To Ride participants are required to maintain the facility’s stables, care for its horses and — through exposure to its tutoring program — maintain a solid average in school. The academic rating of Work To Ride’s participants, Hiner said, is 25 percent higher than in Philly’s public schools.
In an interview that interrupted her composition of a Christmas-season appeal letter for much-needed funding, Hiner said the kids involved come via word of mouth, the recent publicity boost from winning a championship or through Work To Ride’s outreach program.
According to Hiner, a typical Work To Ride week can mean a 4:30-7 p.m. commitment Wednesday through Friday, an all-day investment on Saturday, and possible polo matches on Sunday.
“When work in the stables is done and the tutoring is done,” Hiner said, “they ride.”
Which brings us to the seemingly confounding variable of Work To Ride’s polo success. The team, which has become good enough to discourage some of its scholastic-level competition and take on college teams (the vanquished include Harvard), didn’t achieve this success overnight.
Hiner started the Work To Ride program in 1994, but she didn’t field her first polo team until five years later. Shortly after she began playing the game, Hiner began the process of teaching its nuances to the inner-city kids.
And it starts with the obvious: riding.
“It’s easier if you know how to ride first,” she said. “And a lot of it — 70 or 80 percent — is the horse. Really learning how to ride any horse that’s given to you is a huge accomplishment. You have to adjust very quickly.”
Compared to what some of the Work To Ride kids faced in their neighborhoods every day, that probably didn’t seem unreasonable. So, before polo was introduced, Hiner’s charges learned the riding basics.
“Some of our kids have been riding most of their lives, too,” she said, explaining how a group of inner-city kids can compete with the well-healed. “You need to get them started early.”
"When I first played, I was scared to death," said Sheree Harris, a female member of the team. "Everybody said once you fall off, you're going to be fine. Once I fell off in that polo game, I wasn't scared anymore."
Daymar Rosser, one of the program’s outstanding polo players, began riding at age 6. His brother Kareem started at 8.
Daymar, who credits his love of polo for keeping him focused in school, is attending Valley Forge Military Academy and hopes to attend the University of Virginia and compete on the polo team. Kareem, who attends Colorado State and plays for its polo team, has referred to the sport as his “passport to the world.”
"Kids where I come from never leave the city," said Kareem, who is the first from his family to graduate high school. "It's been an amazing journey for me and the other kids. I don't know where it's going to take me next, but so far it's been leading me to the right places."
The ticket is paid for, Hiner said, by achieving success where little might be anticipated. Inform the public that a team of inner-city kids has reached a championship level, and the expected sport of record might be basketball or football.
Attaining success in polo doesn’t help buy the Work To Ride’s kids out of where they came from; but it does demonstrate the fallacy in settling for what’s expected.
Beyond that, Work To Ride’s association with a sport usually reserved for the privileged few yields a call to another personal adjustment.
“There’s the empathy factor,” Hiner said, which accompanies the 20 or so kids responsible for the 30-35 equines on the premises at a given time.
“They’re dealing with horses, and that takes a great deal of care. It gives them an opportunity to develop empathy; they’ve had little exposure to empathy, because life is so tough where they live.”
