Gould to receive community award for urban partnership

February 7, 2013
Daniel Gould, director of MSU's Institute for the Study of Youth Sports, and Daniel Varner and Tim Richey of Think Detroit Police Athletic League. Photo by Derrick Turner, Communications & Brand Strategy.

Daniel Gould, director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports (ISYS), and Daniel Varner and Tim Richey of Think Detroit Police Athletic League. Photo by Derrick Turner/Communications and Brand Strategy.

Each year, community partners are selected to receive the Outreach Scholarship Community Partnership award at the MSU Awards Convocation. Among this year’s recipients is Dan Gould, director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports (ISYS).

Gould, professor of kinesiology, and community partners Daniel Varner and Tim Richey of Think Detroit Police Athletic League (TDP), will be presented with the award at the all-university awards ceremony at MSU’s Wharton Center on Feb. 12 at 3:30 p.m.

TDP is a nonprofit organization in Detroit whose mission is to build character in youths through athletic, academic and leadership development programs. Both are passionately committed to improving the lives of vulnerable children in Detroit and are devoted to this mission.

The mutually-beneficial partnership has paid off in dividends for Gould and the ISYS staff; TDP has supplied research information to grow ISYS’s knowledge base, while ISYS has provided research-based expertise to the the TDP organization.

In addition, Gould and his staff worked to develop TDP’s coaching education initiatives, and both organizations are now working on a mentoring component of the program. TDP’s sports programs, its largest function, annually serve 11,000 youth between the ages of four and nineteen with activities like basketball and cheerleading, to name a few.

Gould has served as a consultant to the U.S. Olympic Committee, the United States Tennis Association and athletes of all skill levels and ages. His area of expertise is mental training for athletic competition and sport psychology.

Varner, CEO of Excellent Schools Detroit (former CEO of TDP), and Richey, current CEO of TDP, are passionately committed to improving the lives of vulnerable children in Detroit are devoted to serving this cause.