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Students Find Hope, Confidence and Futures from Sports

Amie Stearns on February 25, 2025

Students Find Hope, Confidence and Futures from Sports

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation’s grantee, Fields & Futures Foundation, builds and maintains sports fields and facilities that allow Oklahoma City Public School students to thrive in the classroom and sports.

Playing soccer, running track or cheering at a competition has always been about more than wins and losses, personal records and school titles. Students gain confidence, resilience and hope for their futures . When enough students begin to believe in themselves and their teammates, they can change their community for the better.

Tim McLaughlin met Keith Sinor, athletic director at Oklahoma City Public Schools, during a bus tour of OKCPS facilities  in 2011. McLaughlin, an athlete, sports fan and Oklahoma City-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, was shocked at the state of the athletic fields and committed to doing something to help.

By 2012, Sinor and OKCPS partnered with McLaughlin’s Fields & Futures Foundation  to renovate the sports facilities at one school in the district. Today, more than a decade after the partnership began, every school campus at OKCPS has benefitted from the partnership with Fields and Futures. As a result, the district reports a record 28% of students participate  in athletics, double the amount from 2012. What’s more impressive are the benefits administrators are seeing in the classroom as a result.

renovated baseball stadium

Building Fields and Futures

Fields & Futures Foundation kicked off their work in 2012 with a sport’s complex renovation at Jefferson Middle School. The plan was initially to renovate the football and soccer fields. But quickly McLaughlin got permission to also tackle the baseball and softball fields, too.

It wasn’t long after the construction was completed that Sinor called McLaughlin out of breath and elated. The school, and surrounding streets, ran out of parking during a multi-game sporting event. Better fields lured students to participate in teams, and the community showed up on game day to support them.

The project went so well, the partnership expanded – slowly – to other campuses. At first, construction of new fields at a school happened once a year. But momentum built, and by 2024 , Fields & Futures completed the renovation phase of its mission. In total, the organization transformed 71 sports complexes across 19 school campuses.

In tandem with renovating fields, McLaughlin and the Fields & Futures team realized they couldn’t just construct new fields and facilities and walk away. McLaughlin and his board felt they had a duty to maintain the fields and buildings to ensure they didn’t become a burden on OKCPS or fall into disrepair.

“If we’re going to build it, we’re going to maintain it,” McLaughlin said to board members and donors. After a decade of focusing on funding construction of new fields, Fields & Futures turned its attention to fulfilling their field maintenance endowment.

“This is where the Noble Foundation has been so critical to this story,” said Dot Rhyne, former marketing director at Fields and Futures,  of the Noble Foundation’s grants toward satisfying Fields & Future’s endowment.

Noble Foundation, moved by the long-term stewardship of the facilities and the positive impact the fields have on students’  lives, awarded Fields & Futures Foundation three grants totaling $125,000 to help them meet their $10 million endowment goal.

“The Noble Foundation is proud to support Fields & Futures in their mission to provide lasting opportunities for Oklahoma City students,” says Stacy Newman, director of philanthropy at the Noble Foundation. “Investing in these athletic fields is more than just building spaces to play—it’s about fostering resilience, confidence, and hope in young athletes who will carry these lessons far beyond the game.”

students cheering

A Team for Every Student

Team sports, while a wonderful asset to teach soft skills to students, can also be an intimidating place for a student who doesn’t see themselves as an athlete. Mandi Dotson has experienced that kind of resistance when recruiting students to join cheerleading.

Dotson is the operations manager at Fields and Futures Foundation, and, more recently, the director of cheer. She stepped into the latter role in 2015 after finding out cheer hadn’t before been considered a school-sponsored sport at OKCPS.

“I got a meeting with the athletic director immediately,” says Dotson. “He confirmed, cheer’s never been under the umbrella of athletics in the district.”

Dotson made her case, and without hesitation, OKCPS agreed – cheer should be a funded athletic program. That decision opened up an opportunity for more students to find a home on a sports team.

“Coming in blind [to cheerleading] is ok. Students don’t have to be the best athletes to come cheer at Oklahoma City Public Schools,” says Dotson. “This is open for everyone, to all types of kids, men and women.”

Her openness to all students, regardless of their previous experience with the sport, is what helps draw students out for tryouts. In the first year of the cheer program at OKCPS, Dotson organized a single-day cheer camp to introduce students to the world of cheerleading. In the first year, 150 students attended. Last year, in 2024, Dotson expanded the camp to three days and hosted 330 student athletes. In her eyes, those are students who didn’t previously fit into an existing OKCPS sport.

“Our mission has always been to inspire kids to play sports,” explains Dotson of Fields and Future’s focus. “Cheerleading became another avenue to get more kids on more teams. And it’s been huge! I mean 330 kids weren’t on a team because there was no cheerleading before.”

Cheer is now one of the biggest sports in the district, and it’s impacting students in tangible ways. Including inspiring them to attend college through athletic scholarships.

This past December, Fields & Futures partnered with Impact Xtreme, an Oklahoma City-based youth cheer squad, to host their first cheerleading combine, an event where students can showcase their talents in front of college recruiters and coaches. Those in the audience included staff from nearby institutions like University of Central Oklahoma, Oklahoma Wesylan University, Southwestern Christian University, Oklahoma Baptist University, Southern Nazarene and Oklahoma’s only historically black college and university (HBCU), Langston University.

“Every single OKCPS kid who showed up left with some kind of scholarship offer. There were 40 athletes, and all of them got an offer to cheer at the college level,” recalls Dotson. “These are these are kids that didn’t know [attending college] was even a possibility.”

cheer coach with students

Investing in Athletes and Academics

Using sport as an avenue to better support and inspire historically underserved youth is not a new concept to David McLeod. He’s a former youth athlete and current Interim Director of the School of Social Work at Oklahoma University. He’s also working with Fields and Futures to help tell the story of OKPCS student athletics through data.

McLeod is a psychopathologist by degree and has spent his career as a researcher, educator and a mental health professional studying mental illness and distress and the conditions that can result from them.

As part of the collaboration with OKCPS, Fields and Futures Foundation wanted a way to quantify the impact athletics had on students. Administrators at OKCPS shared more than 21,000 records with McLeod. The data is aggregated, and represents students in grades 5 through 12, both athletes and non-athletes.

Among the numbers and statistics, McLeod found evidence to reflect the truth McLaughlin knew from the start: there is a strong connection between sports participation, academic success and long-term wellness outcomes.

McLeod says OKCPS student-athletes perform better in the classroom and achieve better outcomes after graduation than their non-athlete peers. In a district struggling with chronic absenteeism, student-athletes attend 22 more days of school per year than their peers. Which he says may contribute to their 8% higher grade point averages.

“A D-grade keeps them off the team until they can get their grade back up,” explains former marketing director, Dot Rhyne.  “Coaches in the early years were excited because they finally had enough kids out for the team that they had to establish  academic standards and bench kids who needed to focus their energy on class work.”

OKCPS student-athletes are also more likely to enroll in honors or advanced placement classes and participate in concurrent college courses. Graduation rates among student-athletes also tend to be higher nationally. McLeod found that OKCPS student-athletes graduate 90% of the time, a significant uptick from the 65 to 70% average for non-student athletes.

To take his research further, McLeod coupled the OKCPS student record data with focus groups and conversations with students. He’s been able to link sports participation with long-term, beneficial outcomes for students.

“We know we have high-trauma kids, urban core kids. A lot of them have jobs, family responsibilities, transportation challenges. They have all kinds of stuff going on. But in that large data set, we saw statistically significant findings that these student-athletes  have a higher resilience to adversity.”

The data suggests OKCPS student-athletes are 20% more resilient than their peers when it comes to handling personal and academic challenges. They’re also less likely to experience emotional problems – more so among female students, which McLeod attributes to the relationships students build with their teammates.

“One of the things that our brains will do, especially in adolescent brains, is think about the consequences for their teammates before they think about consequences for themselves. So, when they have those team bonds  and people that are depending on them, we’ve created a sense of surrogate family.”

Compared to their peers, and national averages, the student-athletes at OKCPS worry less, show less anger and nervousness, and are less distracted. The data set also showed a link between participation in sports and an increase in positive behavioral choices.

Student-athletes have a support network – teammates and a coach they can rely on. Friends they trust and a trusted adult who isn’t a parent or primary caretaker are two valuable benevolent childhood experiences, or BCEs. Evidence shows that BCEs are associated with lower trauma-related symptoms and can be capable of counteracting negative impacts of childhood trauma.

According to the OKCPS data, participation in sports provides many benevolent experiences for students.

“The average student-athlete that we surveyed reported a 9 out of 10 BCEs that they’ve personally experienced through sport participation,” says McLeod. Adding other factors that sports bring to students, such as  a predictable daily routine, enjoying school and opportunities to engage in play.

McLeod emphasized how important those findings are for students, suggesting the positive effects can last  students into adulthood. But he is most excited about what the students said when asked about their hope.

He explained the science behind hope – it’s not simply a wish. Hope is to believe that tomorrow can be better, and an individual feels they have a path to get there.

“Increasing belief and personal agency are an important part, but also increasing direct, tangible, realistic ways to get it done,” McLeod said. “We found that kids who participate in sports tend to have higher levels of hope. We know that hope is a great predictor of wellness and life success as well.” Those who participated in sports in school, or as adults, can relate to the beneficial experiences. But for students in the urban center of Oklahoma City, sports can be life changing. Fields and Futures Foundation knew they needed to take action. Their founders understood the importance of sports for youth. What they may not have known at the time is the tremendous benefits their fields and facilities provide for students off-campus.

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A Safe Space for Kids and Teens in Rural Oklahoma

Amie Stearns on September 3, 2024

A Safe Space for Kids and Teens in Rural Oklahoma

Most rural parts of the United States lack sufficient services for homeless or at-risk youth. Shelters focused especially on youth intervention are rare but not non-existent in rural Oklahoma. Community Youth Services of Southern Oklahoma (CYS) offers rural youth more than a safe space to sleep: they offer healing, hope, and humanity to kids and teens in need.  

An environment that creates a feeling of safety for kids who have experienced trauma is often tough to come by for rural youth. Kids with trauma may have fears which cannot be reasoned away, meaning caregivers must provide physical safety as well as emotional safety. Kaylyn Weldon-Gary uses the term “felt safety” to define the space her team creates for the youth at CYS.

Weldon-Gary is the executive director at CYS and a mental health counselor certified in several therapy interventions focused on youth. She’s passionate about helping teens with a history of trauma overcome their experiences. 

“When I started as clinical director in 2017, the program was very small,” explains Weldon-Gary. “The way we began to expand our service was through grant writing to access staff training in research-driven interventions. Before that, most of these interventions were unavailable to teens in southern Oklahoma.” 

Through grants, Weldon-Gary gave her clinical staff access to training on research-backed interventions like Trust-Based Relational Intervention, often shortened to TBRI. It’s an intervention that focuses on three pillars: developing physical and environmental safety, establishing healing relationships, and teaching self-management and coping skills. This intervention helps both the caregiver and child learn healthy ways of interacting, so both can play a role in the healing process.  

Since equipping her team with these educational resources, Weldon-Gary has seen an improvement in the behavioral outcomes of the children living in the residential shelter. They’ve also seen an uptick in referrals for both their residential program and their counseling services. 

To put data to it, Weldon-Gary says the agency saw a dramatic increase in the number of kids living at CYS since November 2023. They also saw an increase in other services. “I was trying to run some rough numbers the other day, it was coming out as close to 800 kids we’ve helped between counseling, the clothing closet, school supplies closet and our food pantry. We impact hundreds of families each year.” 

It’s estimated that urban and rural youth experience homelessness in similar numbers, yet rural youth have access to fewer shelters and services than children who live in urban areas. While accurately assessing the number of homeless youth in Oklahoma remains challenging, it is evident that there are youth in Southern Oklahoma facing homelessness. CYS has observed a growing demand and remains committed to providing shelter daily to those in need 

To continue bringing these valuable services to southern Oklahoma, Weldon-Gary knew their facility needed to expand, both in size and scope. In 2019, just months before the COVID pandemic, the agency soft-launched a campaign that would double the size of their residential facility, expand space for counseling sessions and include a dedicated learning center for parenting classes and It’s My Life juvenile intervention sessions.

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation supports CYS’s mission and contributed to their capital campaign to build a brand-new facility in Ardmore. 

“We wanted to support Community Youth Services’ effort to build their new campus, centered on trauma-informed care. CYS serves as a beacon of hope for vulnerable youth in southern Oklahoma,” said Stacy Newman, director of philanthropy of the Noble Foundation. “Together, we can empower these young lives, ensuring they have the resources and sanctuary essential for them to conquer challenges and thrive for generations to come.” 

Weldon-Gary knew they couldn’t let the campaign momentum slow down during COVID; it was a time when CYS needed more space and resources than before. “We went through 2020 writing grants [for the campaign], but we picked up a lot of steam in 2021,” she said. 

The agency broke ground in the fall of 2022 and by Thanksgiving of 2023, Weldon-Gary, her team, and their youth residents moved into the new space. Weldon-Gary’s favorite part of the new 16,000-square-foot-space is the feeling the new waiting room provides for clients and their families. 

When you walk into the building, there’s now a spacious waiting room with a restroom, a corner with toys for when siblings are in tow and wi-fi, Weldon-Gary said. Instead of waiting in their cars, the grownups now enjoy 60 minutes of peace and quiet to scroll, read, or just relax while their child is with a counselor. 

“It’s my favorite thing, which may sound silly, but it makes the whole agency feel more welcoming and more professional,” said Weldon-Gary.

Beyond the waiting room, the clinical offices and residential space expanded, too. On the clinical side, the waiting room leads to a hallway with several counselor offices, now large enough to accommodate a grown up or two, when that’s needed, and a closet space where counselors can store equipment used during specific therapy interventions. 

The residential space received a larger kitchen, larger recreational space, and larger bedrooms. In the old building, the five bedrooms were smaller than two teenage boys could share comfortably and safely.  But that’s all changed. In the new facility, the bedrooms were intentionally built bigger, and the number of rooms doubled from five to ten. 

“Typically, we were capped out at five or six teenagers. But now we’ve doubled the number of rooms we have, from five to ten, and we’ve expanded those rooms so two people, two teenage boys, can comfortably share their room without being in each other’s space,” Weldon-Gray said. They also separated the sleeping area into two wings of five bedrooms each to better serve boys and girls without the challenges that stem from teens living in tight quarters. 

With more space comes more “felt safety,” according to Weldon-Gary. A term she uses frequently, suggesting its importance to the healing process for kids at CYS. Felt safety is the first step kids need to begin building healthy relationships with staff and counselors and navigate their healing journey. 

“We added a fenced-in private backyard for the kids that live here and it’s large enough that they can play football, catch, they can run around, and there’s also a covered patio,” describes Weldon-Gary of the new outdoor recreation space. “There’s a lot of space where our kids can go outside because we know that children with a history of trauma need physical activity to regulate their bodies. They need a lot more physical activity to keep their body feeling healthy and normal and regulated.” 

Weldon-Gary explains that childhood trauma affects how kids adapt to their surroundings. The term “regulated” simply suggests how someone should feel at that moment given their environment. For example, a regulated body about to enter a basketball game would feel energized and have some adrenaline pumping. But at bedtime, your heart rate, blood pressure and respiration should all exhibit calmness.

CYS is leading the way in youth interventions in southern Oklahoma, and other shelters and counseling services are following the path. That’s good news for a community with a growing need for compassionate youth services.  

Weldon-Gary admits the work is emotional, often tears are shed by someone in the building on any given day. The heartache is worth it to Weldon-Gary and her team. “I will say that there are good days and bad days, and the good days far outweigh the bad days.”

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OSU student carries on a family tradition of service

Amie Stearns on May 20, 2024

OSU student carries on a family tradition of service

A poster depicting Emma Grace Moore leaning over a couple dozen cut roses hangs in the hallway of the Oklahoma State University animal science building. It’s a promotional piece for the Sam Noble Foundation Scholarship Program. Emma is the 2022 recipient, and the flowers are just one part of her impressive story.

Even though it may be a bit embarrassing for the college sophomore to see her photo across campus, Emma’s says she feels honored to be chosen. To those who know her well, it’s no surprise at all.

“Emma is an exceptional young woman,” said Stacy Newman, Noble Foundation Director of Philanthropy and long-time family friend of Emma’s. “I’ve known her and her family for many years. Seeing her step out and become a philanthropist at such a young age warms my heart.”

Emma’s never met a challenge she couldn’t solve with hard work and the support of her community. That’s how she rallied support for a FFA Chapter at her high school, organized the Heart of a Champion livestock show, and launched Gracie Jean Floral & Co.

A changemaker finds her footing

As a junior in High School, Emma launched an initiative to add agricultural education and restart an FFA Chapter at her high school. She rallied support and presented it in front of the Plainview School Board.

“I fought for an agricultural program at my school, and I never could get one there. But I think everyone kind of needs some agriculture in their life,” she said. “To know what their food is coming from.”

Luckily, she didn’t stop there. Getting more people involved in the agriculture industry, through education and accessibility, is a passion for Emma. After hearing a story  at a conference, Emma returned to her community with a new idea to get more folks involved in agriculture.

In 2021, Emma petitioned the Carter County Jr. Livestock Board to allow her to host a special livestock show for kids with disabilities. Her petition passed, and Emma set to work planning the first Heart of a Champion livestock show.

“I contacted every agriculture teacher and special education teacher in our area,” Emma recalls. “My first year, I had about 40 students with disabilities, and over 60 4-H and FFA volunteers. It was such a successful first year that the county fair board had to place a cap on the number of students taking part in the show due to lack of space.”

Now that Emma is nearly three hours away, and a full-time college student, she’s finding the show a bit harder to plan. “It’s not like in high school where I could go door to door and get a sponsorship or take the forms to the high schools and to the elementary schools and be like, fill this out,” Emma said. But she’s learning to balance her responsibilities at home with those at school.

Creating good things for others

Being incredibly busy is a blessing. At least that’s how Emma talks about her schedule. When she’s not in class at OSU pursuing her degree in Agricultural Communications and Marketing, she’s planning sorority events, coordinating the third annual Heart of a Champion show, or taking orders for her business, Gracie Jean Floral & Co.

“I always get told, ‘you can’t complain if you put it on yourself,’ and all these things I get to do , I’ve put on myself,” said Emma. “So, I think every day that I even get to do a paper or get to do an event form, or you get an email or get a card from the students from heart of a champion is truly  an answered prayer honestly.”

Emma’s giving heart is hereditary. She’s the daughter of a woman who doesn’t say no to anything. “She will say yes until she’s blue in the face. That woman is the most giving person I know,” said Emma of her mother.

Likewise, she grew up watching her father, a pharmacist, go out of his way to support local youth programs, and make sure customers got the right medicine when they needed it. “We’d get a call at midnight, ‘Hey, I forgot my medications,’ and he’s driving up there to help,” said Emma.

It’s her family legacy of giving back to the community that helped her see the potential in her life to create something good for others.

“The joy on the kid’s faces at Heart of a Champion, that’s something. At the end of the day, I literally sit at the top and just cry happy tears because these kids are genuinely just so happy to be here.”

Emma’s giving heart, and her love of a challenge led her into the show ring in high school. That first foray in agriculture as a high school sophomore led Emma down a path to a future she never imagined for herself.

New possibilities and challenges

A career in agriculture wasn’t something Emma thought about much growing up. Despite being the granddaughter of a fourth-generation Oklahoma rancher, Emma grew up mostly away from the family ranch, spending her free time pursuing cheerleading and dance. It wasn’t until high school that Emma’s dad showed her a photo of a steer and asked her if she wanted to show one.

Emma recalls her reaction, “I was like, ‘yeah, it’s a fluffy cow.’” A week later, Emma’s first show steer was grazing in her backyard. And with it, a new host of chores and responsibilities to fit into her already busy schedule.

On top of a full academic schedule – including concurrent college credit courses – and her after school cheer and dance, Emma blocked out time to care for and train her new show steer. An endeavor that led her to fall in love with her family’s legacy in agriculture and consider her own future within the industry.

Emma’s grateful to have found an industry that supports her and keeps her focused when life gets hectic. Emma hopes more people are afforded the opportunity to see and understand the agriculture industry the way she has.

“Within every heart lies the power to champion change,” said Stacy Newman. “Through compassion and action, Emma Moore has created the Heart of Champions, creating an event where every child, regardless of ability, can shine.”

Emma’s already planning the next Heart of a Champion livestock show and making plans to ramp up her floral business. For Emma, the Sam Noble Scholarship has given her freedom to pursue her passion projects.

“It’s helped me kind of maintain a little business on the side, Gracie Jean  Floral & Co,” Emma said with a smile and a touch of surprise. “I’ve already started taking floral orders for a dance recital in May. So as soon as school’s out I can go do that. The Sam Noble scholarship kind of just backs me up in those ways. I get to continue and do the things that I love and make me happy, as well as being a full-time student.”

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