CHAMP awards honor Charleston youth who overcome hardships, adversity

CHAMP awards honor Charleston youth who overcome hardships, adversity

By David Cloninger, The Post and Courier, deloninger@postandcourier.com

COLUMBIA - As a basketball coach for 21 years, Greg Blatt was always trying to create champions. It started in the living rooms on recruiting visits and carried to the sidelines.

He's been out of the game for close to three decades. But he never forgot the task with which he was charged, and has never stopped trying to carry it out.

That's where the CHAMP awards were born.

"I always had this lingering drive to do something special to help kids. At that age and stage of my life, you learn your strengths and weaknesses. What can I come up with at this point?," said Blatt, a former head coach at Presbyterian and Western Carolina who also was an assistant at South Carolina, College of Charleston. The Citadel and Jacksonville. "Our mission is to teach at-risk youth the importance of education and character, and we did."

In its second year of the CHAMP awards in Charleston (and after 16 years in Greenville), the program honors rising 9th-graders and high- school seniors for overcoming adversity, performing community service. displaying excellent academic effort and showcasing exemplary character throughout.

It was that characteristic, to persevere through harsh circumstances, that Blatt saw in uncountable households as a basketball coach, and resonated so powerfully that he wanted to do anything he could to reward the youth that perhaps don't get the athletic and academic recognition that their peers do.

Greg Blatt created his Coaches For Character program nearly two decades ago. 

"You can't put any value on the award itself." Blatt said. "That medallion, the years of tough times, struggles, yet overcoming those struggles and achievement, to most of these kids, that's the most important thing at all."

A'ja Wilson speaks

The prize is simple-a large brass medal on a blue ribbon, with an embossed CHAMP awards bag filled with gifts such as a new pair of sneakers, an external speaker for computer/stereo use and an engraved picture frame of the recipient and the keynote ad dresser. This year's keynote speech will come from two-time WNBA MVP Aja Wilson, and the ceremony honoring several dozen CHAMP award winners will be held on April 4 at Charleston's Gaillard Auditorium.

But the impact? That lasts forever.

"I think it's very vital because of the fact that a lot of us have great achievements that go unno- ticed," said Deja Commodore, a 2022 winner at Early College High who just completed her first semester at Claflin. "The CHAMP awards are a great opportunity for them to get noticed and know that their good work is also being appreciated."

Blatt began the program through his non-profit, Coaches For Character, in Greenville. The program was always tailored for at-risk youth that perhaps don't get the positive reinforcement that he saw was so vital to a child's development, and

Left: Stratford High freshman Devyn Perry feels his CHAMP award allowed him to be himseagan Righe Sisters Selena A, and Sun Owens were CHAMP recipients in 2022 F/David Cloninger

The first few years of gathering funds, recruiting sponsors and gaining notice weren't easy.

Yet it grew and became extremely popular. Then called the ACE awards, Blatt's initiative grew to include chartered bus trips with meals to and from the event for the winners (Big Bus Alliance) and a regional following.

Family called. Blatt's two grown daughters are in Charleston. He wanted to be closer to them and his grandchildren.

It was no problem for him to move, but he didn't want to just leave the program. There was no doubt he would try to bring it to the Lowcountry... but he also knew the amount of work it would take, especially coming off COVID, and that it would be even more difficult to get the money and interest that he had in Greenville.

"What else would I do? Roots and friends and family is what life is all about. I would drive family and friends crazy if I didn't have this," Blatt said. "It never crossed my mind that I wouldn't try my hardest to get it going in Charleston."

Student impact

COACHES FOR CHARACTER CHAMP 2022

This year's CHAMP medallion. File/David Cloninger

Sunni Owens sailed through her first semester at Wofford. Her sister Selena Owens entered West Ashley High in the fall.

Each had no idea what the CHAMP award was, much less that they had won it, until they were told.

"We'd seen posters in the school that were put up, but we didn't know what they were about," Selena said. "You feel like you're pushed under the radar, nobody's paying attention to you. Having an award like this shows your efforts weren't ignored."

There's Devyn Perry, a freshman at Stratford High who lost his brother at the beginning of his eighth-grade year. The CHAMP award re-discovered his smile.

"I met a lot of people that really helped me feel alive again," Perry said. "After a while, I got warmed up to people and got re-used to being social."

Jayden Gilliard at James Island Charter plays the trumpet and worked as an engineer for her middle school's TV news program. Like others, she was shocked to find out that she was now a CHAMP.

"When they pulled me aside and told me I won, I was like, "Oh! OK," she said.

As a freshman across the country at Southern Cal, Tripp Carrington was sometimes homesick. He drew on the hurdles he cleared as a latchkey kid in Charleston.

"It didn't take me long to adjust, and realize no matter where you go, if you put yourself out there, you're going to meet people and make some friends," he said. "Receiving that news (of the CHAMP award) made my day."

Their stories are a handful of hundreds that Blatt's creation has written. The hope is to have the Charleston CHAMPS someday rival the Greenville ACEs.

"Growing up in Barnwell, there were a lot of folks, a lot of kids that didn't get what they deserved. During my coaching years, I went into so many homes with kids struggling, that didn't have much at all, Blatt said. "This lets those kids know that they're the center of attention.

"They're what I call unsung heroes."