What young man doesn't want to grow up to be a star athlete — scoring the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl, hitting a home run in the World Series or sinking a last-second three-pointer to clinch the NBA championship?

The only problem is in the numbers. For every one sports hero, there are hundreds of thousands of wannabes.

LEITA COWART/Special (ENLARGE)

Through their involvement with 100 Black Men of Atlanta, John T. Grant Jr., CEO (left), and Ray Singer, director of programs, hope to inspire young people to emulate successful men in the community.

But 100 Black Men of Atlanta, through the organization's Project Success programs, starts young people on a path to fields that are fulfilling and that can be just as financially rewarding as professional sports.

For 21 years, the organization has started shaping fourth-graders from families in which no one has gone to college. It continues working with them, tutoring them and providing them with mentors through middle and high schools and on through college graduation.

The goal, said programs director Ray Singer, is "productive working citizens," who follow the examples of men they see in law, finance, medicine, politics and business.

"What they see is what they can be," said Terrell Slayton, founder and managing partner of the Slayton Group, a business consulting, lobbying and public affairs organization. Slayton, a former Georgia assistant secretary of state, also is the current chairman of 100 Black Men of Atlanta.

He pointed to the example of a woman who was one of the first students he mentored. She went on to earn a bachelor's degree from Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans and a master's degree in computer science from Georgia State University. She's now an independent information technology specialist.

"She decided she wanted to build her own business," Slayton said.

Students in the various programs that are part of Project Success attend additional classes twice a month in Saturday School, or they can meet with tutors and mentors to improve their academic performance, shadow their mentors through a day in business, or participate in new experiences that expose them to the world beyond their communities.

Students are assigned to mentors from 100 Black Men of Atlanta who are in various occupations.

Students and their mentors attend diverse cultural events — including ballet performances, plays and the circus — and gala fund-raising dinners. They create robots for competitions; attend sporting events, including 100 Black Men's own 100 Golf Classic; and have taken field trips to New York City to see firsthand the operations of Merrill Lynch's headquarters and to visit the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

"They connect with someone," Singer said. "More than the scholarship they get when they graduate from high school, the relationship lasts the rest of their lives."

John T. Grant Jr., chief executive officer of 100 Black Men of Atlanta, noted that program participants who are still in college volunteer with the organization, showing high school students what it's like to attend college.

"The best people to relate to them are people who are doing it," he said. "They learn how to be effective college students."

The range of Project Success activities "is designed to open the doors of opportunity," Grant said.

The robotics team, for example, is a way to encourage an interest in science and technology, Slayton said. The participants "get it. They want to be engineers and scientists."

The message is that "you can achieve anything in life if you work at it," Singer said. "We not only tell them; we show them."

There's more than just help with homework. Students also get help for postsecondary work through SAT test preparation and health, job and college fairs.

Admission to the scholarship program is limited to 224 students — boys and girls — from specific Atlanta Public Schools.

The organization works with school principals and counselors to identify candidates who could benefit from the program, and students are selected through an applications process.

Participants' parents must commit to volunteer hours with the organization. The reward is a scholarship that can be used at a two- or four-year college or at a specialty training program, such as a culinary school.

The organization said that, through 2008, it will have spent $16 million "to provide mentoring, academic support and scholarships to 112 fourth-graders . . . as well as 112 ninth-graders or '100 Scholars.' "

The program can make a big difference for students. Singer pointed to one student who was accepted for admission to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

"He understands the importance of hard work and commitment," he said.

With support from 100 Black Men of Atlanta, some students even have continued through to graduate from college while caring for their younger siblings after their parents' deaths.

Project Success includes several programs that are open to students outside the scholarship program, Grant said. For example, the organization's Resource Center, which offers tutoring assistance, is open to any student in Atlanta Public Schools, he said.

Through job fairs, individual members' participation and corporate sponsorship of events, "companies . . . invest in what we do," Grant said. "We are all in business. We have a product; investors are looking for a return on investment. Our product happens to be the young people we've developed.

"A diamond is a rock until it's cut and polished. We have young people who are precious stones still in the form of rocks. We take that raw material and create a precious stone — an educated, employable person with a range of experiences and confidence to be around leaders and to be leaders."

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