Future50 is a leadership and character-development program for young athletes that was started by Denise Schilte-Brown, Head Women's Soccer Coach at the University of South Florida. The mission of Future50 is to prepare today’s youth to be tomorrow's powerful leaders. This program is nothing if not an extension of Denise's passion for coaching soccer.

 

Before she became a coach, Denise Schilte-Brown played Division I collegiate soccer and later had the opportunity to play professionally in Germany. During the past 18 years as a coach, she has been blessed to work daily with amazing young collegiate athletes and challenges them to push their limits on the field, in the classroom, and in daily life.

 

The inception of Future50 began when Coach Schilte-Brown  realized that her highly intelligent, physically strong, and beautiful female athletes carried a lot of self-doubt in their abilities to lead others, engage in a group and deal with conflict.  Knowing how imperative it was to help them develop as leaders, she recognized the potential for personal growth in her athletes and realized that the collegiate players were in the perfect position to be role models to younger children.

 

In order, to facilitate the players’ success on and off the field, she initiated a leadership workshop geared just for females and introduced her USF team to successful, powerful, female role models in the University and local community. These role models exhibited unique talents in leadership, as well as, the ability to be rise as a powerful female leaders in a group setting. During the next season, Coach Schilte-Brown, as well as others, saw the effect that the leadership workshops had those players as the USF Women's Soccer Team set school records on and off the field and the athletes were seen as assertive and engaged females in the University. In addition to athletic success, it was rewarding to see that these same players had exemplified the principles of leadership that was being taught to them to the younger children who looked upon them as role models. Since then, this program has evolved into what is now called Future50.

 

With the help of Lindsey Krakower, who has a shared passion and love for the program, Future50 has been powerful in the lives of many young girls.  Each 12 week session admits 50 young, future leaders in to the program where the engage in a combination of educational leadership teachings with fun exercises that highlight each session’s concept. Aspiring young leaders will learn these concepts in small groups of 7 or less guided by an instructor, who is a good communicator and role model. Each leadership workshop ends with fieldwork so that young athletes can improve in the sport they love. Future50 believes that success is just as important on the field as off the field. 

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