New initiative prepares high schoolers for career in the sports industry

By Kai Davis
Contributing Writer

In honoring the legacy of Leah Chase, the Edgar “Dooky” Jr. & Leah Chase Family Foundation will team up with the Arnie D. Fielkow Family Foundation on a new initiative that provides sports career preparation for high school students. The initiative will launch this fall in October 2021, with applications being accepted until August 1, 2021.

The program, titled “Starting Block: A Fielkow-Chase Youth Education Initiative,” will use sports as a way to provide career-path opportunities for high schoolers, while allowing teens to learn more about history, community and heritage.

“By offering students in a majority minority city a program of this caliber, we are leveling the playing field in lowering barriers to positions of influence in the sports industry,” said Edgar “Dooky” Chase III in a statement about the initiative. “We want to expand the range of qualifiers for a young person to have a career in sports far past just their physical ability.”

The program will begin with a cohort of 30 high school students who will be announced in August 2021. Students between grades 9th and 11th at both public and private schools are eligible to apply and the program aims to attract students from the city’s African-American, Latino and Jewish community as participants. The students will learn about the sports industry and how to prepare for a career in this field after college. The program will run 18-months and allow students to learn about the African-American and Latino community’s history and challenges, in addition to Jewish history.

“Through The Starting Black, it is my hope to give other New Orleans area youth the same opportunity and the foundation to live out their own professional dreams,” said Arnie Fielkow, who has worked for nearly 30-years in the sports industry and whose family foundation has supported Jewish community engagement in the Greater New Orleans area.

The program will partner with the Center for Sport at Tulane University, working alongside Dr. Gabe Feldman to design the curriculum. Other cultural organizations across the city, like the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Museum of Southern Jewish Experience, the Anti-Defamation League, among others, will contribute to creating the community-based curriculum for the students. The format will include a mix of in-person and virtual activities that will take place at various venues including Tulane, St. Augustine High School, Touro Synagogue, the Museum of Southern Jewish Experience and other locations. Both family foundations are sponsoring the program in addition to other community partners: the Melinda and Morris Mintz Family, the Major League Baseball New Orleans Youth Academy and Each One Save One.

“This foundation was created in remembrance and celebration of Leah Chase and her lifetime commitment to social equity and positive change,” Chase III said in a statement. “This is definitely something Leah would have loved to see.”

This article originally published in the June 28, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.