Richfield High Applies for Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports Grant

Editor's Note: The following is a press release from Liberty Mutual.

For six schools and their sports teams demonstrating their commitment to responsibility on and off the field, Liberty Mutual will soon make a very memorable contribution, in the amount of a $5,000 Responsible Sports Community Grant. hopes to be one of them.

Liberty Mutual’s Responsible Sports program is an ongoing effort championing and celebrating responsibility in youth sports. This community-based program offers meaningful, easy-to-use educational resources for youth sports parents and coaches, including access to on-the-field game and practice preparation tools, as well as self-paced online coursework filled with learning tools, videos, and topics addressing youth sports issues.

“The Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports program targets many of the issues we see happening at youth sporting events by shining a positive light on what it means to be a responsible coach and a responsible sports-parent. Beyond that, Liberty Mutual is making a significant financial contribution to support the efforts of local organizations like Richfield [Public] Schools,” said Greg Gordon senior vice president of Consumer Marketing at Liberty Mutual.

The Responsible Sports program comes at a crucial time for communities and schools like Richfield. Like other communities across the U.S., school sports programs are under pressure from slashed education budgets, increasing numbers of participants, and mounting program management and administration costs. The Responsible Sports program provides access to valuable resources and assets that can ensure our school sports programs thrive even under challenging circumstances.

“When I was researching opportunities for education around sportsmanship and responsible behavior, I found the Liberty Mutual program to not only is a program of substance and quality, it was also extremely user-friendly.” said Todd Olson, Richfield's athletic director. “When we learned that Liberty Mutual’s Rick Allen would help promote the program, I knew it was a good fit. Rick has supported Richfield athletics at the school and community levels for many years."

“I feel this educational out-reach program will serve as a tremendous boost and reinforce the values of sportsmanship and responsible behavior that are already embedded in the youth and high school sports community in Richfield.” Olson added. “If our participation and involvement get to the point where we as a community could qualify for grant opportunities this would be viewed as an added benefit to our involvement with Responsible Sports and Liberty Mutual.”

Richfield is registered for the Responsible Sports program. They are encouraging individual community members to complete one of the self-paced online courses (Responsible Coaching and/or Responsible Sport Parenting) and take a 10-question review quiz. Every completed quiz is worth one point. The organizations that earn the most points by May 31 will be one of six school athletic programs to earn a $5,000 Responsible Sports Community Grant. The more people each registered organization gets to complete the courses, the greater its chances of winning.

Complete details on the grants as well as the qualifying self-paced courses are available through the official program website at ResponsibleSports.com.