Our Story

Our story begins with a simple vision and a burning desire to make a difference in our society by using sports to develop quality people and build community. Football (soccer) is our sport of choice because it is our passion, our common language, and our way of life. As an art form, the game provides us a fantastic platform to challenge ourselves, to face the complexity of the human condition, and to unite people of all backgrounds in order to utilize our shared values towards the pursuit of a common goal.

1. First and foremost, The Rising Point was founded in response to social inequality for the purpose of providing chronically marginalized communities with access to quality soccer programming. As we seek to engage and empower young people through athletics, we recognize that our primary task is to engage with the socio-economic realities, including (but certainly not limited to) race and class, that often contribute to keep kids from experiencing the positive developmental opportunities that sports can offer. 

2. We believe that all kids should be able to take part in the world's game regardless of how wealthy their parents are. Additionally, as we increase opportunities for marginalized youth, we are obsessed with raising the standard for how we educate young minds for the pursuit of excellence. This means that we are constantly learning and seeking to improve the quality of our teaching so that we can empower our student-athletes to successfully navigate their world both on and off the field. The result is a learning environment where the experience and development of the student is at the heart of everything we do.

3. Our approach to learning and our training methodology produces good players because it is focused on producing quality people. We are driven by the necessity of nurturing the incredible potential inside every child. To do this we recognize that it takes a village and, as we commit ourselves in this pursuit, we seek to cultivate the very best of the human spirit in order to create the environment for our children to shine. We believe that when we seek to build community while embracing our diversity we are setting an example for the younger generation. On the soccer field, the futsal court, or wherever we are blessed to partake in our craft, when we reinforce the essence of togetherness we are experiencing the best version of ourselves. 

We play to be the authors of our story. We play to discover our collective excellence. We play to build community. For our children and for a better world, we reach higher.    

-Mutanda Kwesele

Founder & Director