Sierra Watson is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication student assigned to cover Mountain Ridge High School for AZPreps365.com 

Sports aren’t always just about what happens on the field; it also gives athletes the opportunity to give back and connect with the community. For Mountain Ridge High School student-athletes, giving back has turned into a passion. 

On Fridays during the school year, Mountain Ridge Flag Football players Peyton Yankovich, Sophia Villalovos and Cameron Mailloux visit Mountain Ridge feeder schools like Copper Creek Elementary School and read to third-grade students to excite them about attending Mountain Ridge before they go there.

The girls want to show them what they have to look forward to when they become a Mountain Lion in the future and make an impact on their lives in the classroom. Elementary reading scores have steadily declined over the past decade, and middle school and high school are no different, according to the National Report Card.     

The relationships the girls make with the kids is their favorite part, Villalovos said.

“Eventually, they learn your name, and they’ll ask you personal questions, and you just start to make a connection with them,” Villalovos said.  

The girls love being able to inspire the third graders, Yankovich said. 

“The third time we went there, they remembered all of our names, and we brought in a few new people, and they only wanted us to read to them,” Mailloux said. 

The program started when the school’s tackle football team sent a few of its players to elementary schools, and the girls decided that this year, they wanted to bring a female presence into the program, Yankovich said. 

“It’s cool to be able to spend our senior year together and make an impact on future generations,” Mailloux said. 

Mountain Ridge is the only school in the district to participate in a program like this, Villalovos said. This is the first year the flag football girls have participated in this program, and they hope to continue it with the seniors next year. 

“It’d be super cool to pass the baton as we go and keep this going for years and years,” Villalovos said. 

While their main goal is to teach the kids, they also focus on having fun, making the kids laugh and creating fun memories with them, Villalovos said.

“After every single session we go, they all come up to us and give us a hug and it’s the sweetest thing ever,” Yankovich said. 

From a program perspective, the head flag football coach Whitney Warmus wants to use the reading program as an opportunity to give the younger students something to look forward to when they go to Mountain Ridge, as well as the opportunity for her players to make an impact on the community. 

“It’s important to be there to show them what to get excited about going into high school,” Warmus said. “It goes both ways; for the girls, it’s a good feeling to give back.” 

Mountain Ridge has been getting more involved in the elementary schools outside of this program as well, Mountain Ridge athletic director and assistant principal Jeremy Hendrix said.

The Mountain Lions are bringing some of their athletes to Westwing, another Mountain Ridge feeder school, in March for an assembly for the first time. 

“Our football team is really big into getting out into the community," Hendrix said, "But we’re trying to get everyone else involved, too."