“SportsCombine not only provides Fairfax County Youth Football (FCYFL) and its 6,000 families with a fun and an informative place to find all League, team and athlete information, it was a critical link in our communication during the recent sniper crisis,” said Mark Meana, Director of FCYFL. 

"Creating a SportsCombine Community provides a powerful forum to deliver valuable messages to the kids,” said Charles Mann.

New enhancements brought by Green, Monk, Mann and Brant, include, but are not limited to, initiatives such as: scholarship programs, daily messages that are delivered by respected athletes and personalities, team competition for non-sports related endeavors like academics, volunteerism, and physical fitness, and an NCAA road map that provide families with all the information they need as they plan their child’s college sports career. “When kids come online to see their game results and personal statistics they need to know that success is as much about education and life as it is athletic achievement,” stated Art Monk.

The DigitalSports management team, along with Board Members Tom McMillen (former Olympian, All American Basketball player, and Congressman) and Gene Corrigan (former ACC Commissioner and Athletic Director for UVA and Notre Dame), developed the DigitalSports franchise model to expand nationally.  In addition, its Hometown Hero Program provides professional athletes and sports personalities with the opportunity to create a self-named SportsCombine community and scholarship program in their “hometown” or “adopted hometown”. 

“If you want to affect kids, you have to go where the kids are.  When you combine the fascination of the Internet, the excitement of high school and youth sports, and a cool concept like SportsCombine, you have the opportunity to communicate with tens of thousands of kids and their parents on a weekly basis and make a difference,” said recently retired Redskin Darrell Green.

“The one thing many athletes and personalities have in common is a desire to have some positive impact on the youth of their hometown or adopted hometown.  Creating a SportsCombine Community with their name on it not only puts them in the center of high school and youth sports in their area, but it also provides them with the opportunity to give back to that community with scholarship programs, a state of the art tracking system, as well as a powerful forum to deliver valuable messages to the kids,” said Charles Mann. Once a community has been established, DigitalSports, in concert with the local Hometown Hero, will sell the market area to an individual who will run the local SportsCombine franchise as a business.  Franchisees can sell digital products to schools, teams and athletes as well as sponsorships that offer local businesses the opportunity to sponsor their favorite schools and youth organizations while providing funding for the Hometown Hero Scholarship Program.

A portion of the franchise fee also goes to support the Hometown Heroes scholarship fund.  The franchise mechanism allows for a win-win partnership between someone who has local contacts with his or her sports community and a professional athlete or sports personality who wishes to reenter the community or remain in the community in a more hands on way.

Tim Brant, from ABC Sports, adds “We will continue to reach out to our friends nationwide, such as James Brown from FOX Sports and DeMatha’s legendary basketball coach Morgan Wootten, to involve them in this program because we believe that by creating these communities we can have an impact on the lives of young athletes and change the face of sports in this country”.

Digital Sports CEO Jim Martell	Kevin Warhurst of Merrifield Garden Center with Charles Mann

“We are thrilled to have attracted high quality individuals to help improve and expand the SportsCombine network.  The measure of our success will be our ability to recruit, train and monitor exceptional Hometown Heroes and their Franchisee partners.  When we succeed, the true winners will be not only the recipients of the scholarship funds, but more importantly, the millions of youth and high school athletes that come to the site to see themselves and leave the site inspired to become better people”, said CEO Jim Martell.  

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  Note: Tim Brant is a local sports personality who attended St. Johns, played football at the University of Maryland, and was with the Redskins (long enough to get a cup of coffee).  Tim has extensive broadcasting experience including 14 years as the morning anchor for WMAL, broadcasting the Olympics and is currently with ABC sports providing color commentary for football and ACC basketball.  Tim recently acquired the Hometown Hero Scholarship Program for Montgomery County, his “hometown”.

SportsCombine, Inc. operates a centralized interactive database for high school and youth teams to report game activities.  It organizes data, which allows users to compare team and league standings as well as team and individual league leaders.  In addition, the site hosts team, school and organization WebPages, photo galleries, schedules, rosters, tournament information and digital athlete profiles.  Digital Sports owns the national licensing rights to SportsCombine.