Members of Creek’s Future Business Leaders of America club (FBLA) have partnered with a local sports psychology organization Thru the Game (TTG), to create a game that helps with athletes’ mental health and promotes team bonding.
11 student interns are actively working on this project. It’s led by three juniors, Zachary Gao, Raina Ames, and Mindi Parkhouse-Song, who are accompanied by eight interns.
The interns volunteered to work with TTG by filling out a form, and Gao, Raina Ames, and Parkhouse-Song chose which staffers to include based on who they thought was best fit for the opportunity.
All members are also athletes, including sports like volleyball, cross country, swimming, and tennis. They are able to use their experience to add more emotion and care to the game.
“That’s how we could connect with our team more and make it more personal when making the game,” Raina Ames said.
The game the interns are creating is designed as an advent calendar that gives players a new challenge each day. Each challenge is a mental exercise for the whole team, focusing on trust, vulnerability, community, and mental stability.
The prototype for this game will hopefully be out in mid-April, when they will begin testing the product with various sports teams around Colorado.
Since the game is predominantly designed for college teams rather than high school teams, FBLA will work with different Colorado colleges to test the product and ensure that it serves its designed purpose.
Such a designed purpose is reviewed by a TTG group of licensed therapists with sports backgrounds whose mission is to help athletes with their mental health. So far, TTG has worked with over 1,000 athletes and has partnered with over 40 programs, all in the hopes of bettering athletes’ mental and emotional health..
TTG has already had direct connections with Creek, as they have been working with the boys’ soccer team for the past three seasons. Owner and founder Kathryn Ames (no relation to Raina Ames) was a girls’ lacrosse coach for Creek, there when they won their first state title back in 1997.
FBLA’s business partnership event encourages members to reach out and find partnerships with local businesses. Since TTG had already worked with Creek in the past, Raina Ames took the opportunity to reach out to them and see if they would be interested in a partnership.
The offer did pique the company’s interest.
However, for TTG, this partnership is so much more than just a group project; it’s a chance to create an affordable and effective game that could benefit athletes. This also serves as a way for TTG to grow its influence.
“TTG partnered with FBLA in hopes of building a product to further enhance our education and outreach,” Kathryn Ames said.
In the development stage, the team splits into two groups, one for marketing and the other for game design. Marketing works on creating the ideas and effects of the game, deciding on how to specifically help the teams. They work more directly with TTG than with game design, which works on creating the actual product based on marketing ideas.
“The work is pretty evenly divided and a lot of the time we’ll work as a team to come up with new ideas and also new board game designs, and towards the end of the club, we’ll all share out and put our ideas together to create something,” according to junior intern Faye Huang.
This partnership is not only hoping to be beneficial for student athletes around Colorado but is also hoping to be beneficial for FBLA students who are managing to gain valuable experience through this. This exposure to more teamwork will add to their understanding of the business experience.
“Collaborating with Thru the Game gives me a lot of new leadership and collaboration skills that I can use in the future when I’m working with teams or a future job,” freshman intern Tatum MacKinnon said, who plays volleyball.
The goal TTG and interns are hoping to move towards includes supporting their peers, sports teams around Colorado but also themselves.
“The FBLA kids have been outstanding,” Kathryn Ames said. “They are brilliant, creative, and committed to their work.”
