In the midst of the Covid pandemic, Davian Waite found himself stuck and, as he puts it, “consuming.” Weighing 270 pounds and counting, he wasn’t contemplating calories so much as life, and where it might take him, or any seemingly-purposeless pandemic teen, if anywhere.

“I got fat, and needed to get into shape,” he admits.

Waite also wasn’t applying himself academically. Then, at George Washington High School, he connected with a caring teacher and coach, a father who lost a suburban son to a drug overdose and became “like an uncle.” He introduced Waite to Beat the Streets (BTS) Philadelphia, a youth wrestling, mentoring and social justice program. Soon, an insecure, distrustful city kid began blossoming into his full potential.

“I tried football, but didn’t feel I belonged,” Waite says. “With wrestling, I felt a connection.”

Waite, now 20, won the Public League heavyweight wrestling title as a senior in 2022, advanced through the postseason and finished a step shy of qualifying for the state tournament. More importantly, he subsequently enrolled in a competitive HVAC associates degree program at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster. He’ll graduate May 19 and is expected to gain full-time employment. More immediately, he’s finishing his second year of collegiate wrestling in the 184-pound class, completing a near 100-pound physical transformation.

“Wrestling is a fun sport, but more importantly it’s about character development,” he says. “You don’t have to be a state champ or an Olympic champ, but you do have to be a good person in the community, maybe even a leader, or just someone who has grit and can be courageous, responsible and accountable.”

On — and off — the mat mentoring

BTS Philly, which began in 2008, is thriving as sports and mentoring have never been more important. BTS, whose national headquarters for 11 grassroots chapters is also in Philadelphia, combines 100-percent free wrestling instruction, on-and-off-the-mat mentoring and academic tutoring as the salvo for “positively altering life’s trajectory.”

BTS National collectively serves over 10,000 youth each year, and has invested over $43 million into under-resourced youth and communities. BTS Philly Executive Director Jim Mangan will become the national executive director effective March 2.

“For some, being 18 and alive is the success story,” Mangan says the same morning that Noah Scurry, a 17-year-old Samuel Fels High basketball player with the school’s highest SAT score, was shot and killed behind his Feltonville home while getting into a school-bound car with his mother. “That’s who BTS is for.”

Wrestling’s important, says Mangan, who graduated from Frankford High and lives in West Philly, but it’s not a be-all, end-all. “Defeat the statistics,” he preaches. “Don’t be a high school dropout. Don’t be a teenage father. Don’t be a juvie. Don’t be a drain on society. On the mat, work hard. Be a team player. Be accountable. Delay gratification.”

“BTS gave me a purpose. If I adapted and did well in wrestling, it made me think, What else can I do? I’m very grateful.” — Davian Waite

Immediate interest in BTS is soaring in conjunction with the coming NCAA Division I Men’s Wrestling Tournament March 20-22 at the Wells Fargo Center. As part of an NCAA-sponsored free Fan Fest celebration expected to attract wrestling royalty and 30,000 loyal fans at Lincoln Financial Field, BTS expects to announce and celebrate its successful match of city tech and real estate mogul Ira Lubert’s $1 million financial pledge well ahead of its original five-year deadline. “Ira’s gift is transformative, our largest ever,” Mangan says. “It brings us to the forefront.”

The Philly BTS chapter was largely founded by local collegiate wrestlers, Clinton and Brett Matter, University of Pennsylvania grads and brothers, whose father, Andy, was an early 1970s two-time NCAA wrestling champion at Penn State after his days at Upper Darby High. (Clint continues to chair the BTS Philly and BTS National boards.) Andy roomed with Lubert, then the Nittany Lions’ heavyweight (and now a major donor to PSU’s perennial national champion wrestling team). (Lubert, who is also a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, skirts public attention or comment for his multiple philanthropic efforts, including for this story.)

The capital campaign funds are earmarked for building a larger BTS wrestling-academic mentorship facility at a future site, but likely still in University City, home to its current 8,000-square-foot mentoring-tutoring hub at 37th and Market streets. It’s a neighborhood Mangan says is flooded with hope, inspired by its castles of education and medicine. “Atmosphere matters,” he says.

Working with a $1.2 million annual budget split equally between wrestling and mentoring, some 200 students (grades 9-12) enroll annually in three seasonal 12-week sessions. Spring is the peak season (March 24 through May 19). BTS pairs a full-time staff with degrees in education with peer academic mentors, primarily Penn and Drexel wrestlers. The focus includes goal-setting, test prep, post-grad college, trade school or workforce planning, and the financial aid application process. It’s also just a safe haven, with Performance Meal Prep meals waiting in the fridge.

BTS also aims to help eighth-graders select appropriate high schools by hosting Philadelphia Youth Wrestling Day, a high school selection fair. This year, 25 schools committed to booths on February 16 at St. Joe’s Prep.

Wrestling is growing in Philly

BTS wrestling programs in Philadelphia engages nearly 1,200 participants ages 5 and up each year (12 percent of them girls in line with the emergence of women’s wrestling), spread among 28 city programs, in 23 locations — 14 high schools, four middle schools,four K-8 and one high-school community-based program.

Dan Altomare, BTS Philly’s director of program operations, grew up in the wrestling-rich Central Bucks Wrestling Association (CBWA) before becoming a Temple University sports and recreation management major and BTS intern. He says it’s valid to wonder which comes first — the sport or the social mission. The focus, he says, remains mentoring. BTS didn’t even roll out wrestling mats at 37th and Market until 2020.

“We’re as excited to see a kid lose 40 pounds in a season as much as if he or she wins matches or gets on a college coach’s watchlist,” says Altomare, who lives in Port Richmond. “Walking down an aisle at graduation in Philadelphia is a championship feat, and the kids who get through our program have a 100-percent on-time graduation rate, so every kid is a champion.”

Jim Lynch, the executive director of athletics in the School District of Philadelphia and the president of the Philadelphia Public League, calls the district’s partnership with BTS “the most unique and collaborative we have” because its “wrap-around services support our kids.”

“BTS is definitely more than just a wrestling program,” he says.

“Walking down an aisle at graduation in Philadelphia is a championship feat, and the kids who get through our program have a 100-percent on-time graduation rate, so every kid is a champion.” — BTS’s Dan Altomare

Though Philly schools are better known for their basketball teams, wrestling has been available for years. BTS has helped the district expand the sport, even helping recruit, train and pay assistant coaches, and fund equipment and transport to competitions outside the city. Six high school teams now have 40-plus wrestlers. This year, the first defined girls’ team emerged at Mariana Bracetti Academy (MBA).

It’s not an easy road. Too many promises go unfulfilled in the city of brotherly love. But BTS success stories abound. At 13, Waite, who calls the Northeast home, fled the crime-infested, gang-ridden Jamaican islands that took family members’ lives during his youth. He arrived, undocumented, in a similar Philadelphia, where a strict mother and a fear of deportation kept him safe, detached and trouble-free. (He has since become a citizen, which he says “made me whole.” Still, his life was heading south — until he found BTS.

“BTS gave me a purpose,” he says. “If I adapted and did well in wrestling, it made me think, What else can I do? I’m very grateful.”

With his transformation at BTS, Harold Anderson, once a West Philly kid failing to arrive on time at Belmont Charter because he was taking care of younger siblings landed at William Penn Charter, then the Wharton School at Penn and now a job in corporate social responsibility in the media world.

Aboubakare Diaby, a BTS alum and now mentor, is a Central High School grad finishing his senior year wrestling at Drexel, where he’s on a Liberty Scholarship. His younger brothers, also immigrants from Mali in West Africa, are following in his footsteps.

“We kind of have a story for every outcome,” Altomare says.

Among the girls, there’s MBA’s Ortiz sisters. In 2020, Tatyana became East Stroudsburg University’s first women’s All-American wrestler. Julissa, a high school junior, began wrestling with BTS and its PAL Wrestling Club at 6 years old. Since, she’s become a 2023 Fargo All-American and a 2024 PIAA state finalist. She’s looking to climb to the top of the podium in Hershey this March.

About the name Beat the Streets, Waite says: “What I hear is beating laziness. Being undisciplined at first, then beating the actual streets. Being scared, then trying new things until a comfort level kicks in, goals are accomplished — and all that other stuff.”

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