Heisman Backs National Leadership Academy for High School Team Captains
Dan Reed, chair of the Heisman Foundation, announced the Aspen Institute’s Captains Leadership Academy as a national effort to turn high school sports captains into broader civic leaders. Reed said Heisman is making the largest single grant in its history as founding partner, arguing that students already chosen to lead teams can be trained, mentored and supported to lead in schools and communities. Pete Weber of the Aspen Institute placed the academy within a wider push to expand youth leadership development, with IMG Academy also named as a partner.
Heisman is backing a national academy for high school captains
Dan Reed announced the Aspen Institute’s Captains Leadership Academy as a national initiative to develop high school team captains into civic leaders. The Heisman Foundation is the founding partner, and Reed said the academy is receiving the largest single grant in Heisman history.
The premise is that captains are already being selected for leadership. Reed put the scale at nearly 8 million students playing high school sports in the United States, across roughly 300,000 teams. Each team, he said, has captains chosen for leadership qualities they already show with teammates and in competition. The academy is built around a question he posed directly:
What if they were captains for more than just their team?
The aim is to extend that influence beyond competition, into schools, communities, and broader civic life. Reed described the academy as an effort to “unleash the full human potential” of young people whose leadership is already visible in sport, and to help them apply that influence beyond the playing field. He tied the effort to a civic purpose: developing leaders who can help society grapple with complex issues “together, just like a team.”
Heisman’s role is not limited to funding. Reed said the organization will lend its name to the effort. Beginning in 2027, Heisman will recognize a select group of the academy’s most exceptional participants through a new Heisman High School Platform. Reed described this as a way to welcome young leaders into the “Heisman family” and recognize what they accomplish both on and off the field.
The academy’s model combines training, mentorship, tools, and local projects
The Captains Leadership Academy will provide four kinds of support: leadership training, mentorship, digital leadership tools, and community-based projects. The community-project component is the academy’s clearest link between leadership development and local action: participants are expected to build skills while pursuing “meaningful impact” in their communities.
The announcement emphasized the academy’s model and partners more than operational detail. Its stated design is broad but concrete: identify high school team captains, train and mentor them, equip them with digital leadership resources, and connect their development to projects in their own communities.
The institutional framing was explicit on screen. A program graphic identified the Captains Leadership Academy as an Aspen Institute initiative “in partnership with Heisman Foundation & IMG Academy.” Reed called Heisman the founding partner. Pete Weber later connected the academy to the Aspen Institute’s Center for Rising Generations and named IMG Academy’s Brent Richard as part of the team being assembled around the effort.
Heisman is positioning the program as youth development, not just athletic recognition
Reed distinguished the public familiarity of the Heisman Trophy and its winners from the work of the Heisman Foundation. The foundation, he said, aims to harness the power of the trophy and Heisman winners to drive youth development through sports and education in underserved communities.
According to Reed, the foundation has given more than $30 million toward that cause over roughly the past decade. The Captains Leadership Academy, he said, represents both the foundation’s largest single grant and “a real opportunity to drive impact.” He said Heisman is prepared to “fully lean in” to maximize that impact.
That framing matters because the academy was not presented as an awards program for already exceptional athletes. Reed’s emphasis was on captains as young people with demonstrated leadership capacity, and on sports as a channel for developing civic leadership. The 2027 Heisman High School Platform adds recognition, but the academy’s core claim is developmental: sports can be used to train young leaders for work beyond sport.
Aspen places the academy inside a broader youth-leadership agenda
Pete Weber, Vice President for the Center for Rising Generations at the Aspen Institute, placed the academy within the center’s broader commitment to making leadership-development opportunities available to young people across the country. Weber said he was immediately excited when Tom brought him the idea of a leadership academy for young athletes, and that he was “blown away” by the team being assembled around it.
Weber specifically named Brent Richard from IMG Academy, saying Richard brings deep experience working with young people that will contribute to the Leadership Academy. He also pointed back to Heisman’s role through Reed, then invited Jeff Price from Heisman to the stage to introduce young people who, in Weber’s words, “embody the spirit of what the Captains Leadership Academy will achieve.”
The academy sits at the intersection of three institutional roles: Aspen’s interest in expanding youth leadership development, Heisman’s founding grant and name recognition, and IMG Academy’s experience working with young athletes. The common claim is plain: high school captains are already chosen for demonstrated leadership, and the academy is meant to help them use that leadership in schools, communities, and civic life.