Playing for a higher goal

Preston Tran drives toward the basket during a recent Central Virginia Homeschool Athletic Association game. "Homeschooled kids are probably the most involved kids you will ever meet," says Daryl Evelyn, and he should know. The New Jersey native and his wife have been homeschooling their two sons from the very beginning. You'll find homeschooled kids at museums, in government offices, on field trips. "They're always doing something," said Evelyn.

So it stands to reason homeschoolers would want to be as involved in youth sports as other young people their age. Because of the Central Virginia Homeschool Athletic Association (CVHAA), they can be.

CVHAA's mission statement talks about encouraging "the development of God-given athletic and leadership abilities in homeschooled youth." The league offers competitive play for 'tweens and teens interested in soccer, basketball, football and softball at the middle, JV and varsity levels. CVHAA teams play other groups of homeschooled students as well as teams from the area's Christian schools. Many of the league's members live in Chesterfield.

A Patriots team player reaches for the ball. The CVHAA plays teams all over metro Richmond and the Tri-Cities area. CVHAA started in 1992. Back then, says Shane Fernandez, athletic director, basketball coach and league vice president, the league functioned like a physical education class for homeschoolers. "It was a place for kids to get together and play some sports." But as homeschooling grew in the area, so did the league. Now, there's structure and competition with starting lineups, second strings and more.

Players and parents alike agree on the benefits of CVHAA league play.

Lauren Stotesberry, a 10th-grader, has been homeschooled since the second-grade. She plays soccer and basketball for the CVHAA Patriots. Playing for CVHAA is just about the same as playing for a public school league.

"We don't spend the whole day with each other," she says of her teammates. "And we don't practice every day like they do." Lauren says the scheduling of practices allows her off-court time to spend with her friends from the team. "I like that."

Fifteen-year-old Travis Hathaway, also a 10th-grader, spent 10 years at West End Christian School, where he competed against the CVHAA Patriots. He found switching to CVHAA "a lot easier than I thought it would be. Everyone is very nice and easy to get along with. I have gone a lot farther with CVHAA than I had at my former team." Like Lauren, Travis values the friendships he has made among his teammates.

Vanessa Fernandez, Shane Fernandez's wife and a member of the league's Advisory Board, values the league's role in fostering relationships between the children and their teammates, the coaches and the players, and the other families. "This is something we can do as a family," she says.

CVHAA expects to grow, both in intensity and size.

"We are becoming a very competitive league. Homeschooling leagues in general are stepping it up," says Evelyn. He points to recent award-winning athletes like Tim Tebow, 2007 Heismann trophy winner, and Miami Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor - both of whom got their start in homeschooling - as evidence that homeschooled students can compete successfully at the college level. Fernandez concurs. "It's not just about fun," he says. "They're also getting life skills and setting goals."

Fernandez has seen a dramatic increase in the number of homeschoolers in Chesterfield in recent years. Twenty-five percent of the kids who joined the program this year just started homeschooling, he says, and he expects that number to continue to grow, in part as a result of the expansion of Fort Lee.

One thing is missing at CVHAA games. The league doesn't have cheerleaders. That's okay as far as Lauren Stotesberry is concerned.

"Our moms are our cheerleaders," she says.