H.I.T.S. Youth Program Spotlight: Madison Elementary School

While many view tennis as a great sport for exercise, its benefits reach far beyond health. And that could not be more true for Madison Elementary School in Fresno, CA.

For the past seven years, Madison Elementary School has been offering USTA NorCal’s H.I.T.S. programming as a pathway to expose their students to tennis, a sport they typically might never have access to, and promote their personal development both on and off the court.

Jodie Velasquez is Madison’s afterschool program director and has been running afterschool programs for 23 years. She was originally drawn to the H.I.T.S. programming, which focuses on teaching kids both tennis fundamentals and life enrichment skills, for its emphasis on life lessons and the many opportunities a new sport could open for her kids that come from lower-income homes.

“The H.I.T.S. programming really brings together character building, social-emotional skills, and physical activity into one package,” Velasquez said. “I like that the curriculum is not just about winning, but good sportsmanship and life skills that the kids can carry with them off the court.”

Currently, the elementary school runs classes on the basketball court for kindergarten through sixth grade, with about 20 kids per class twice a week. At each class, the kids split their time learning tennis fundamentals and completing the schoolwork portion that teaches larger life lessons. 

After participating in the H.I.T.S. program since the program’s inception, Madison Elementary School and Velasquez have a good long-term strategy to keep the students engaged by offering the H.I.T.S. curriculum in the first semester of the year to introduce the sport and then follow that up with H.I.T.S. 2 in the second semester for the kids to build upon their skills.

In addition to the building blocks the two courses provide, Velasquez said one of the things that makes the program successful and why she continues it year after year is the support she gets from USTA NorCal and H.I.T.S. manager Christy Perez.

“We get a grant every year, which helps us continue the programming, but it’s really the resources and support from Christy that helps,” she noted. “We get training every year and she walks through the curriculum, the fundamentals, and she goes through the workbook with us to help us learn how to teach it to the kids.”

In addition to the classes throughout the week, USTA NorCal helps the school do two big H.I.T.S. events each year and has also worked with them in the past to have the kids attend a top tennis event outside of their local community.

In 2019, USTA NorCal helped Madison Elementary School attend the pro event Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic for its annual kid’s day, participate in games, meet a pro with a Q&A, and watch high-level tennis matches.

“The kids loved the whole experience. They had never been on a real court before,” Velazquez shared. “It was great because they came away realizing others were just like them. They saw that these are normal people who play tennis for a living and that is something they could also potentially do.”  

And as a sport that is not normally readily available for the Madison Elementary School students, Velasquez believes this is such a valuable lesson for the kids to understand and that their exposure to tennis through the afterschool program can potentially give them an opportunity for a future scholarship or help them in other ways as they move forward in life.

“Tennis and the H.I.T.S. program gives them a real training and understanding on the fundamentals of the sport, so when they get to a higher school level, they are not afraid to go try out for the tennis team in high school because they’re afraid they aren’t at the same skill level,” Velasquez added. “This first exposure gives them confidence and a level playing field for the kids who have had private lessons or play at clubs.”

But what makes the program all worth it is that the kids love it and constantly look forward to their tennis lessons.

“You can see how much fun they have and what a positive impact tennis makes on their lives,” Velasquez said. “They all start at the same level and see that it is okay if they make mistakes and then can learn from them.” 

And that is what truly makes the H.I.T.S. program shine. 

“They learn to succeed at something after starting at zero, and it makes them brave enough to push themselves and try other things,” she added. “This is so important to me because these kids and families are my neighbors and our future community members, so I want them to know they make a difference and can achieve many things.”