Empowering the next generation of champions

Whether it’s TACKLE or FLAG FOOTBALL or WRESTLING or CHEER, the Harlem Jets create a safe, structured and inclusive environment where student athletes of all skill levels and backgrounds can thrive.

The fastest-growing sports in the USA today are rapidly re-shaping the state of play in communities across the nation. We know that shifts in lifestyle, school participation, cultural visibility, and accessibility are changing what young people choose to play—and will continue to drive the sports offered by the Harlem Jets, sports which are inclusive, affordable, flexible and easy to organize at the community level.

2026 Flag Football

Harlem’s youth and parent groups might not know all the Flag rules yet, but they do know there’s something very special about the game—and about the Harlem Jets’ leadership and ability to build league-winning teams.

Flag football is one of the biggest athletic movements in the world today, especially for Harlem’s young women and girls. The Harlem Jets have been invited to help organize a new NYC Flag league for girls and boys this year—and so we’ve started building 12 new Flag teams for the Harlem Jets, 6 all-girl teams and 6 co-ed, one for each age division. Learn more or register here.

Our Model

By the Numbers

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The government says kids should spend at least 60 minutes per day engaging in physical activity, yet Harlem’s boys (24%) and girls (15%) fall very short of this goal. Jets players far exceed it.
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The percentage of Harlem Jets parents who attend their children’s practice and volunteer at Program events
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The annual growth rate of Latino youth participating in community sports since 2019—twice the national rate of non-Latino youth as measured by the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program.

Our Goals

Use sports as an academic tool to encourage students to graduate from high school and access a post-secondary education.

Provide positive and engaging exposure to different sports and help students acquire the discipline needed to win and to see challenge as opportunity.

Offer learning off the field in co-led community workshops on leadership, SEL, health, financial literacy and high school + college prep

Our Program Services

Coaching and Mentoring

We Jets are passionate about our success in sports but equally value the life lessons our student athletes learn through practice and competition. Strong character, teamwork, ambition, and integrity are equally as important as ability. So is our commitment to ensuring our Programs are fun for our kids, and rewarding.

Our commitment to safe and high-quality coaching, dedicated mentorship and academic development has also helped us to land many of our students in prestigious high schools, such as Iona Prep and Cardinal Hayes — and at colleges and universities including Columbia, Duke, Oregon, Penn State, Purdue and Rutgers, among others. Five of our former Jets players now play for the NFL and two of our wrestling alums are preparing for the 2028 Olympics.

Jets Success Workshops-NEW!

This series of interactive workshops is held throughout the year and is uniquely designed to help our 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade Jets excel at school, in sports, and in life. We’re co-leading these with educators from Harlem’s Educational Activities Foundation (HEAF).

Our free offerings include fun sessions on:

Social Emotional Learning (SEL): How to identify stress, name emotions and manage them to achieve better social, athletic and academic outcomes

High school + college readiness: How middle school choices can influence a student’s pathway to high school and beyond. A significant number of our Jets’ high-achievers are admitted to private high schools, including the highly rated Iona college prep school in New Rochelle and Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx.

Leadership: How to serve others, communicate more effectively, lead by example, take initiative, and better manage time, money, and attention to advance short and long-term goals.

Teamwork and Resilience: Lessons in collaboration, accountability, and problem-solving—and how to succeed in a team and adapt to setbacks by reframing challenges as opportunities.

Safety and Transportation

All of our coaches receive rigorous training in youth sports and coaching and all are fully certified in CPR, First Aid and concussion management, treatment and injury avoidance protocols.

We also own and operate a small fleet of buses, offering our kids and their parents safe, secure, and affordable on-time transportation to and from the Harlem Jets’ away games and some local and regional practice games, matches, and meets. We also bus participants to and from our annual 3-day summer camp held each August at Camp Green Lane in rural Pennsylvania.

Make a Difference For Our Kids

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