Empowering Trauma and Addiction-Impacted Youth through
Sports, Soft Skills and Service
The Mission of Courage and Grit (501c3) is to use sports, science and the arts in natural holistic settings to activate EQ and Heart-Centered Leadership skills within teens whose families have been ravaged by trauma and addiction, most notably Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing and First Nations youth.
The students of Courage and Grit will have the opportunity to be coached by world class athletes, artists and engineers to actualize their Emotion Intelligence (EQ) and Soft Skills at our hot springs location in South Oregon, with other projects developing in Utah, Idaho and Montana.
On top of EQ/Leadership skills, the youth will also have the options to learn hospitality, business and community development skills as well as the environmentally sustainable skills of hydroponic farming and geothermal engineering.
A requirement to remain in the program is to help us coach special or other-needs kids, and/or engage in environmental stewardship as a form of giving back. This will teach our students the power of service and gratitude, which are foundations for their future success as leaders in their own communities.
Nominated students must either have a family member in one of our affiliate Addiction Recovery programs or have a letter of recommendation from a mentor, teacher or leader in their community who believes said student has the potential, heart and desire to be a leader, and simply needs the opportunity to learn and grow.
Founder Lance Allred
Courage & Grit 501(c)3 was founded by Lance Allred, the first legally-deaf player in NBA History.
Lance was born legally deaf, with 80 percent hearing loss, into a fringe polygamist commune in the rural Bitterroot Valley of Montana, where he and his family lived until managing to escape when Lance was 13. With his characteristic courage and grit, he eventually overcame tremendous odds and obstacles to join the Cleveland Cavaliers, making the NBA at the age of 27, where the average age of a league rookie is 20. Unable to play with his hearing aids in, one of Lance’s driving motivators to never give up on his dream of playing in the NBA was that he knew he would earn a platform for so many other marginalized voices.
Lance is a sought-after speaker, leadership consultant and best-selling author, and now travels the world speaking to corporations, schools and nonprofits on Leadership, Perseverance and Grit, while bringing his curriculum to use through Courage & Grit 501(c)3. His TEDx talk “What is your polygamy?” has been viewed more than 4.5 million times.
When Lance was a teen, one of his older siblings struggled with addiction, which is why cares about giving the entire family an holistic impact.