OUR STORY

BUILT ONE REP AT A TIME.

Fifteen years of coaching gritty kids, told straight: the growth, the setbacks, and the people who kept showing up.

BY THE NUMBERS

THE PROOF

These practices were coached in the field for fifteen years before anyone wrote them down. Here's what that looks like in numbers.

15

Years

604

Student-Athletes

187

Coaches

105

High Schools

3

States: Ohio, Georgia, and North Carolina

$700K

In Scholarships Earned

140

Colleges in 30 States

And the team is still together.

The National Team lives on as a closed network.

Members sign in →

WHERE WE’VE BEEN

THE STORY OF HANDSHAKE AMERICA

Growth was never a straight line, and we don't pretend it was. Walk it back with us, from the very beginning to this exact moment.

      Students
      Coaches
      Teammates
    
        800
        600
        400
        200
        0
      
            3
            
            6
            
            19
            
            43
            
            77
            
            127
            
            190
            
            248
            
            317
            
            391
            
            468
            
            511
            
            587
            
            675
            
            773
            
          201120122013201420152016201720182019202020212022202320242025

THE BEGINNING

2011 - 2015

It started as an idea shared between three DSW executives: Doug Probst, Roger Rawlins, and Bill Jordan. A team of professionals coaching gritty high school student-athletes through the life lessons of sports, because a handshake reveals character and people make the difference.

The first coaching session came on February 9, 2012, with three student-athletes from three Columbus-area high schools and John Wooden's Pyramid of Success as the guide. Hank Aaron spent an hour with those first kids and came back the next two years. By 2015, Doug had retired as CFO of DSW to go all-in, Susan Gallogly had been hired as the first Executive Director, Wooden's 17 blocks had been distilled into the Five Practices, and the Handshake Foundation had become Handshake America, a name built for what was coming.

NEW HORIZONS

2016 - 2019

The growth years followed a deliberate map: strengthen the core, add girls, then add cities. Girls joined the Program in 2016 after a full year of study, the Five Practices became the curriculum, and Angela Duckworth's bestselling GRIT validated what Handshake had been coaching since day one.

Atlanta launched in 2017, the first test of whether Handshake could work outside Columbus's home-field network. The stretch had honest costs: fundraising dipped, the Board pulled back once to honor its discipline of funding scholarships before the year started, and a stubborn challenge got named out loud, recruiting female coaches and coaches of color. By 2019, things seemed to be settling in.

THE VOLATILITY PERIOD

2020 - 2025

COVID opened the decade and tested everything. Instead of pausing, the Program pushed through on video calls, modeling the same perseverance it coaches, and came out of the pandemic to its high-water mark, adding Western North Carolina as a third region.

Then the whiplash: COVID fatigue caught up with the schools in 2022, the hardest year on the chart, and a 2024 launch in Charlotte went ahead despite unmet startup requirements and closed within a year, a lesson relearned.

Leadership changed too. Susan Gallogly departed mid-pandemic after taking the organization to a new level, and Jared Weston was hired as President so Doug could shift to Board-level strategy. The last year, 2025, went to strategic planning: an honest look at where the organization had been and where it should go next.

A NEW CHAPTER

2026 & BEYOND

In August 2026, the Handshake Program became the 5P Playbook: an open-source, self-led practice built on the Five Practices of Perseverance, Passion, Positivity, People, and Presence. Anyone can pick it up and run it. No sign-ups, no attendance forms, no staff to wait on. The structure stays. You run the reps.

Voices from the team

Justin Akindele

Student-Athlete, inaugural Class of 2012, Columbus
His advice to every student who picks up the Playbook: "Take everything in with an open mind. Just like your sports coaches, your Handshake America coaches are here to help you reach whatever goals you may have. Listen to them."
Landon Martin

Student-Athlete, Class of 2016, Columbus
"Handshake America has been one of the biggest blessings in my life... Without Handshake I wouldn't be the person I am now."
Connor Stark

Student-Athlete, Class of 2017, Atlanta
His greatest takeaway from the year: "That you can have people care about and mentor you, that you can trust outside of your family, in a genuine way."
Will Troutman

Student-Athlete, Class of 2019, Atlanta
"No other program prepared me for college and truly taught me how to navigate the professional world."
Vaanike Jindal

Student-Athlete, Class of 2022, Columbus
"A true leader continuously strives for self-improvement... Appreciating how far you have come while always pushing to be better is one of my greatest takeaways."
Mason Ellerbe

Coach, Charlotte
On what coaching gave him back: "Without Handshake America, I would have never met these sharp new young friends."
Tina Huether

Coach, Western North Carolina
"This is such a cool organization, and I'm so happy that I was asked to join the team. I am impressed by the kids and look forward to witnessing their growth throughout the year."