The Chicago Training Center (CTC)
Since 2007, CTC has been helping Chicago’s inner-city youth realize their full potential through the sport of competitive rowing. CTC engages boys and girls from Chicago’s toughest neighborhoods, where poverty and violence are all too common, where schools experience high rates of academic failure, and where few opportunities exist for positive out-of-school-time activities.
CTC’s free, year-round training and racing programs—led by an accomplished volunteer coaching staff of former national crew medalists and alumni of the Boston College, University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Harvard, and Oxford rowing teams—serve young people of all athletic abilities, providing participants with safe and structured activities for up to 12 hours a week, afterschool as well as on weekends.
CTC supplements its athletic programming with mentoring, fitness/nutrition education, team-building activities, and postsecondary guidance, designed to motivate at-risk teens to become physically fit, build confidence and self-esteem, persist in school, and broaden their academic and personal horizons.
Over the past three years, 100% of all high school seniors participating in CTC have gone on to attend college—many becoming the first in their families to pursue higher education. Six CTC members have also been named World Sport Chicago Scholars.