For more information, visit www.prissytomboy.com. Stay connected via Instagram and Facebook at @prissytomboyathletics, on Twitter at @prissytomboys.
Recently, at a busy Brookhaven breakfast spot, a mother and business owner sipped her morning coffee and talked about her mission to use sports and more specifically — Prissy Tomboy Athletics — to transform the way girls see themselves.
Tracey Pearson said she knew the value of sports in a girl’s life because she experienced it for herself and saw with her own eyes the impact it had on the women who turn out each week for her boot camp.
“I was always outside getting dirty but always in a cute dress, shoes and my hair braided,” Pearson remembered. “My dad called me prissy tomboy.”
Although the girls she was now seeing at her son’s middle school were just as prissy, they weren’t very active except on their cellphones. In fact, she said, they were consumed with how they looked. And if they were active, Pearson said, they were seldom recognized for it.
More often than not, they lacked the self-confidence needed to navigate a constantly changing social landscape.
Last March, the 37-year-old mother of two set out to change that. She launched Prissy Tomboy Athletics to promote athleticism among girls ages 12 to 17 and to give them a place to feel empowered, recognized, and supported through sports.
She started by providing weekly sports clinics — both traditional and nontraditional — free. They included softball, mountain bike riding, stand paddle boarding, dance and yoga.
“I want girls to see that exercise is a way of life and help them develop a love for fitness whether it’s hiking, rock climbing, running or riding a bike,” Pearson said. “You don’t have to play team competitive sports. That’s why we provide the clinics so they’ll try it, find where their passion is and push beyond their comfort zone because that’s when you discover your strength and gain the confidence to push beyond life’s everyday challenges.”
According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, girls who play sports are less likely to be involved in an unintended pregnancy; more likely to get better grades in school and more likely to graduate than girls who do not play sports. In addition, girls and women who play sports have higher levels of confidence and self-esteem and lower levels of depression; and they have a more positive body image and experience higher states of psychological well-being than girls and women who do not play sports.
Pearson, who played competitive sports through college and has spent the past 15 years in the beauty industry, said her self-confidence only began to wane after her mother passed and the challenges of raising a young family began to set in.
“All those challenges and trials, you start to feel defeated,” Pearson said. “In my effort to make everyone else happy, I was losing myself.”
That is until she became a boot camp instructor five years ago and the conversations she was having with women shifted. Instead of women who lacked confidence in themselves, the women in the boot camp were bold and self-assured.
“I saw women being transformed,” Pearson said. “By simply getting outside and competing, their confidence was building. No one gave it to them. They found it all on their own by pushing themselves.”
That in a nutshell is what Prissy Tomboy is all about — giving girls permission to be themselves and then push beyond that.
Pearson hosted her first Adventure Challenge Camp recently at Georgia Tech, where more than 30 girls turned out for a day of activities designed to improve their team-building skills and sportsmanship, all while having fun and building friendships and lifelong skills.
Giving girls an opportunity to engage in outdoor activities builds their self-confidence and feelings of well-being, said Dr. Susan Blank, an addiction psychiatrist at the Atlanta Healing Center in Norcross. Blank was one of the keynote speakers at the daylong Adventure Challenge Camp hosted by Prissy Tomboy.
In just eight hours, Blank said, the camp organizers showed girls a path of personal development previously unknown to them.
“Tracey recognized that by outfitting the girls in similar attire, they would bond as a team and differences in background and economic status would be less meaningful,” Blank said.
She said that many parents erroneously believe that by constantly telling their child that she is great, beautiful or smart that the girl will accept that assessment and be fine. However, it is important for children to build self-esteem independent of their parents’ supportive words.
“You have to encourage girls to challenge themselves and gain validation through accomplishments,” which fosters confidence and self-esteem, Blank said. “What Tracey is doing is offering girls an outlet by which they can become a girl with great self-worth and a willingness to try new things.”
It’s worked for Yasmin and Bruce Hetherington, who enrolled their 12-year-old twin daughters, India and Sahara, in the Prissy Tomboy clinics.
Yasmin Hetherington, who lives near Pearson in Brookhaven, said her daughters have always been active but once they connected with Pearson they became even more so.
“This was a good outlet for them to be kids,” she said. “Kids have a tendency to vegetate with the cellphones, but Tracey encourages them to be active. She makes them do really cool things, and they really look up to her.”
About the Author
