Jane Goodall once said, “Young people, when informed and empowered, when they realize that what they do truly makes a difference, can indeed change the world.”
Time and again, it is young people who push the boundaries of what is possible, approaching challenges with fresh eyes and bold ideas that spark lasting change. In sports, Sir Roger Bannister was just 25 when he broke the four-minute mile, and Dick Fosbury was only 16 when he revolutionized the high jump with his now-famous “Fosbury Flop.”
Following in that same spirit of innovation, New Jersey high school junior Zack Dabby has found a new way to make an impact, using the emerging sport of footgolf to raise money for those in need through an event he calls Every Kick Counts.

Every Kick Counts

The drive behind Every Kick Counts came from Dabby’s years working as a “buddy” in his town’s local Challenger Program. Challenger is an organization that pairs high school students with special needs athletes to help them play sports like basketball and soccer. Dabby saw a way to take that format and use it to raise money for New Jersey Youth Soccer’s special needs program, TOPSoccer. The idea was simple: combine the buddy system of Challenger and TOPSoccer with the sport of footgolf and create a golf-outing-style event where athletes of all abilities could participate.

So, what is footgolf? Picture a regulation golf course with a few small changes: a bigger hole, a soccer ball instead of a golf ball, and using your feet instead of clubs. Dabby says his goal for the event was to give everyone the opportunity to build the same kind of bond he has with his Challenger partner, Jack, while having fun and making new friends in the process.

With the idea fleshed out, the next step was finding local sponsors, a venue, volunteers, and participants—a process that took Dabby nearly one hundred hours of work.

“Starting an event is the hardest part, especially because I had never done anything like this before,” Dabby told Greater Than The Game. “I would finish a task, be ready to do something new, and have nowhere to go.”

Although he didn’t always know the next move, he was able to lean on the team he built around him to help put on an amazing event where 50 players, families, and volunteers came together for a great day of footgolf at Bel-Aire Golf Course in Wall Township, NJ.

The Future

With the success of Every Kick Counts, Dabby and his team are looking to expand to other states in the future.
“We have the blueprints, we have the templates for Every Kick Counts. If there are groups across the nation who want to do an event like this, our goal would be to expand nationwide,” Dabby said.

For any young athlete looking to make a difference in their community through events similar to Every Kick Counts, Dabby explains that it’s okay to not know how to get started and encourages them to lean on others around them.
“You just have to learn to accept help. Everyone held my hand through the beginning. I knew nothing. I had to learn what to do,” he told Greater Than The Game. “If you’re trying to create an event like this, you have to accept help to keep going because eventually you’ll learn it and feel so much more connected to your event.”

Takeaway

What can we take away from this event? That no matter who we are or how old we are, we are never too young to make a difference.

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