Louisa resident helps children develop a love of sports

Fritz Knapp and Steve McNamee were athletes as students at the College of William and Mary. On a recent Saturday afternoon, their competitive instincts came out during a game of basketball with three children -- Brandon Mom, 13, and his sisters Kapre, 12, and Cierra, 10 -- at McNamee's home in Henrico County.

"Cover your brother," McNamee called to the girls repeatedly with playful bravado. "Cover him like a cheap suit."

But for the former college athletes, the point of the game was not competition -- Brandon teamed with Knapp against McNamee and the girls -- but a sheer love of encouraging children to play in the natural light and fresh air of the outdoors.

When Knapp was growing up in New York, he learned a love of Christian faith and of playing sports in the open air. Knapp has expressed his lifelong passion for sports and the life lessons they teach in "The Book of Sports Virtues," published in 2008 by Chicago-based ACTA Publications.

Knapp, a resident of Louisa and a lacrosse and wrestling coach at Fork Union Military Academy, credits his late father, Frederick, for his love of sports.

"He wasn't just going to go to church on Sunday and [leave] his convictions with the church," Knapp said. "My dad loved good sportsmanship. He would point out sportsmen. He liked the guy who, when he struck out, put his bat down on the field and wouldn't throw it anywhere."

Knapp's book matches athletes and coaches to 15 virtues, including appreciation (baseball player Lou Gehrig), humility (Olympic runner Eric Liddell), persistence (tennis player Althea Gibson), determination (dog-sled racer Susan Butcher) and integrity (tennis player Arthur Ashe).

Knapp is taking his commitment to sports a step further by devoting 20 percent of his author's royalty to the Blue Sky Fund, a program he founded in 2003. It helps children from Richmond attend summer camp and offers after-school and weekend outdoors education.

Blue Sky is an incorporated nonprofit led by an executive director, Lawson Wijesooriya, and other part-time staff. Wijesooriya and Callie Gobble, assistant program director, said they hope to turn their two jobs into full-time work by January.

Knapp said Blue Sky Fund has sent more than 500 disadvantaged children to area camps since its founding. He now leaves program decisions to Wijesooriya and a board of directors.

Knapp is concerned that American children do not play in the outdoors as freely and as frequently as they did in previous decades. In many Richmond neighborhoods, he said, buses transport children to after-school programs based in gymnasiums or other buildings.

"We siphon off a certain percentage of those kids," he said, adding that the program strives for a student-to-adult ratio of five or six to one.

"We want to expose kids to the beauty of nature and the beauty of the Creator of that nature," Knapp said.

Wijesooriya sounded a similar theme. "Depending on our partners, we have a program that is more about God -- or not," she said. "We believe it's good for kids to be outside. It's an inherent good. But it's also good when we can help kids fall in love with their Creator."

Partners include the Peter Paul Development Center, an outreach effort of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, and Elijah House Academy, a private Christian school in South Richmond. Blue Sky also works with the Boys and Girls Club of Richmond, the Salvation Army, Strategies to Elevate People and Church Hill Activities and Tutoring.

In the early life of Blue Sky Fund, many of the children came to Knapp's attention through his friend McNamee, who teaches fifth grade at Swansboro Elementary School in Richmond.

Like Knapp, McNamee loves sports; his football career at the College of William and Mary won him a place in the school's hall of fame.

Because of their friendship with McNamee, the Mom siblings are among the children who have been sent to camp by the Blue Sky Fund.

Brandon Mom, 13, has attended Westview on the James, a Methodist camp in Goochland County, through the help of Blue Sky Fund.

"Westview on the James is a great place to learn about Jesus," Brandon wrote in a card of appreciation to Knapp. "It gives you so many opportunities . . . to play and learn about Him. I have had the most fun in my life when I go to Westview."