Tarek Pertew of NYC Footy On How We Can Solve The Loneliness Epidemic Among Young People
An interview with Pirie Jones Grossman
Promote Mental Health Awareness and Resources: Raise awareness about the importance of physical activities and social engagement for one’s mental health and its positive reverse effect on loneliness.
Our youth are facing a loneliness epidemic like never before. They have “social” media, but many are lacking healthy social lives. Many have likes and virtual “friends” but not real live friends. They can text and tweet but not speak and listen and connect. And they are feeling it. Humans were made for real live interaction, and we crave it when we don’t get it, or don’t even know how to go about looking for connection. How can we solve this loneliness epidemic that young people face? As a part of our interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic Among Young People ’ we had the pleasure to interview Tarek Pertew, Co-Founder of NYC Footy.
Tarek Pertew is the Co-Founder of NYC Footy, the top destination for organized adult soccer leagues in the United States, with 40,000 players. A natural at building connections across communities, Tarek’s career path has included founding a job fair platform for college alumni, a referral hiring platform and a tech conference business. Tarek has been an advisor for his alma mater, The University of Virginia, the coaching platform SkillCycle, and as a technology advisor for the United Kingdom (UKTI). Tarek currently lives between Verona, NJ, Brooklyn, NY and Upstate New York with his wife, Thais, and daughters, Calila and Leona.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?
Sports has played a very critical role in my life, providing an important source of connection for me during my early childhood in Northeast Tennessee and continuing during key points of transition when I moved to Long Island at the age of 10 and again after college, while integrating into the social fabric of NYC.
After joining a recreational soccer league soon after moving to NYC in 2006, my week soon revolved around my Sunday league game in lower Manhattan. It was here where I met folks that became my business partners on the NYC Footy project that has grown to become the nation’s largest adult soccer league.
The desire to create our own league stemmed from wanting a more professional experience at the recreational level. A more seamless player experience, a more vibrant online presence, professional jerseys, etc.
Furthermore, we wanted a place where people, regardless of their skill level or gender, could come together, play soccer, and make friends. By being focused on a mixed gender experience, we were able to ground the organization in community first, competition second.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
COVID. Which is so heavily linked to the theme of this piece: loneliness.
COVID simultaneously devastated my one business in the HR tech whilst driving borderline unmanageable demand to NYC Footy. The demand for physical interaction, community bonding and outdoor physical exercise was unprecedented as it forced NYC Footy to become a completely different business as a result. A place where a couple of us managed it part-time, to a team of over 10 full time employees, dozens of part-timers and over 50 contractors.
It has been said that sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or takeaway you learned from that?
The first business I started was a t-shirt company. It was called Dishonestees (DHT). We launched the business at a market in SoHo and were certain we’d have such extraordinary demand that we printed 1,000 t-shirts for our opening weekend. To make a very long story short, the business didn’t last much beyond a year and we still have inventory to this day.
This is when the concept of small, compounding baby steps made its initial appearance in my life. It’s easy to get fixated on your desired outcome and plan inappropriately for a methodical, sustainable and steady path early on in a business. This allows you to strengthen the foundation of your business whilst better understanding market demand and dynamics.
We took this approach to NYC Footy. Small daily victories. Compounded. 10 years later and we are beyond our wildest dreams in terms of where the league finds itself today. We have set ourselves up for a really bright future as a result of the controlled, disciplined approach to growing the league and putting ourselves in a position to execute when an earth-shattering event like COVID landed to wreak havoc on the business (in a bad way to start, and in an extremely positive way thereafter).
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We just launched NJ Footy to expand our offering outside of NYC and are currently working on other markets as well.
We are also moving closer to deploying our first ever player app league wide. It’s currently in beta testing right now and we are confident it’s the right time to offer our players and refs an app as a way to communicate time sensitive information and gather real-time feedback so we can more efficiently address lingering challenges.
We also just partnered with a brand new clothing line, Paloma, which all of our players are now wearing during league games. The Paloma partnership allows us to have more creative control over the jersey design process and deliver a compelling new jersey semi-regularly to our community.
Can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority on the topic of ‘The Loneliness Epidemic Among Young People’?
Loneliness is heavily linked to a lack of genuine connection to others. My life journey has been to consistently provide opportunities for connection. This harks back to our childhood and organizing street games. But it became more rooted when I led the social efforts to organize events at my fraternity and business school in college, as well as structuring the first ever organized intramural league for the business school.
Soon after, my entrepreneurial journey started and immediately I introduced events as a business arm of my HR technology business. So, this background, coupled with building out the NYC Footy sports league, gives me decades of applicational efforts to combat loneliness.
However, it was my daily routine building my HR technology company, Uncubed, that provided me with visibility on the other end — seeing how remote work and technology reliant careers has fostered loneliness and informed the ongoing movement for companies to address mental health issues within their workforce.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. According to this story in the New York Times, loneliness is becoming an increasing health threat not just in the US, but across the world. Can you articulate for our readers 3 reasons why being lonely and isolated can harm one’s health?
Well you’re increasing your risk of heart disease and stroke for starters; long term loneliness can lead to stress which is always the start to something more serious.
Your immune system is also likely to be weakened thanks to stress again and the fact you’re actually more susceptible to infections and illnesses the less you interact with others.
Finally, your mental health is going to decline since loneliness can lead to sadness and long term depression.
Social interaction is like water, without it your body and mind can fall into misalignment, leading to negative mental and physical health events.
Based on your experience or research, are children impacted differently than adults by the loneliness epidemic? How?
I don’t have much experience working with children, as all of my life’s work has been focused on bringing adults together for professional advancement, social engagement or through competition.
However, as a father of two children and regularly exposed to the patterns of children whose lives we are intermixed with, you can see how children living a more remote and reclusive life struggle to not only feel authentic empathy for other humans, but they struggle with conflict resolution, healthy intimacy and feeling valued. This leads to self-confidence issues which can lead to concerning behavior in work, social settings and civic engagement.
We see it with adults. With children, it’s amplified and can lead to some fissures in the foundational development that can remain with a person from childhood throughout the rest of their life.
On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness among our youth harming our communities and society?
The entire concept of community fails to exist in isolation. Loneliness doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a pattern of personal, communal and societal behaviors that erode community over time. Fostering outdoor play with members of one’s community builds strong bonds, increases civic engagement, enhances empathy and drives happiness. If this breaks down, civic engagement becomes non-existent, making the way for decision making around communities to be made without the voice or interest of its inhabitants. And, worse, happiness plummets.
We have confused and angry adults that can’t connect, kids who won’t share, technology companies that won’t take responsibility, and a generation of humans that only know comfort through the touch of a screen. It’s devastating to some degree, but throughout society we’ve found a way to rally around the challenges that impact our communities and find a way to come out stronger. People are feeling this and leaders are beginning to enact policy changes to help.
Community oriented businesses like NYC Footy and BetterPlayer will play an even more critical role in helping preserve, grow and strengthen communities.
The irony of having a loneliness epidemic is glaring. We are living in a time where more people are connected to each other than ever before in history. Our technology has the power to connect billions of people in one network, in a way that was never possible. Yet despite this, so many people are lonely. Why is this? Can you share 3 of the main reasons why our young people are facing a loneliness epidemic today? Please give a story or an example for each.
Biological, sentient beings are not gaining authentic human connection via a digital platform. It’s clear that digital connection cannot replace physical connection.
Human connection has been quantified so that the number of followers you have now determines what your value is as a person.
- The introduction of likes, hearts, and digital symbols of value has put too much stress on the presentation and not the substance of what it means to be human.
- Family dynamics are also changing, with increased work hours, career mobility, and lack of boundaries between work and home life leading to less family time and support.
- Increased screen time and the need to be entertained by social media makes face to face interactions less popular and meaningful.
Finding connection online has evolved into finding validation online.
Seeking validation in a world before the digital wildfire we currently live in already led to insecurities in children and adults. The digital landscape has not only enhanced this, but has taken it to debilitating proportions. Young children have endless access to “influencers” that will degrade themselves for likes. These likes translate into a validation metric that is influencing young children (and adults).
People are becoming less authentic and more performative. The more performative one becomes, the less they recognize their true self. This, of course, creates the type of internal conflict that can lead to unhappiness and depression. Two things connected to loneliness — which cannot be resolved no matter how many likes and comments one’s ridiculous Instagram post receives.
What signs would you tell parents, friends, or loved ones to look for in young people they think may need help? Can you please explain?
I would remind any parent that despite what they might think, they do know their child well and there are some common signs that can serve as a path to learning more. A few things I’d look out for are a loss of interest in family social life as well as traditional activities they once enjoyed.
I’d eliminate social media and limit access to certain content platforms (e.g. YouTube, Instagram) and keep most digital screen time to content that enhances the sense of self-love and value in human connection.
I’d suggest parents work tirelessly to create boundaries in their own work lives that can free up time for outdoor activities within the community. This is easier said than done and something I myself really struggle with.
Finally, I’d absolutely seek professional help for a child if the warning signs are there and parents are struggling to break through to the child.
Ok. It is not enough to talk about problems without offering possible solutions. In your experience, what are the “5 Things Each Of Us Can Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic Among Young People?”
1. We can encourage social connection through organized social events and activities. We offer this through our seasonal Footy programs for adults and, to a lesser extent, children. We also do this through our support of South Bronx United, which leverages outdoor connection through sports to guide positive outcomes for youth in the South Bronx.
2. Foster Open Communication and Emotional Support:
We can all create safe spaces where young people feel comfortable sharing their feelings and experiences without judgment. We offer an incident report which allows any player to provide thoughts on when they see things out on the pitch our community values simply don’t stand for or that may lead to conflict that disrupts the sense of community.
3. Promote Mental Health Awareness and Resources:
Raise awareness about the importance of physical activities and social engagement for one’s mental health and its positive reverse effect on loneliness.
4. Leverage Technology for Positive Social Interaction:
Completely restricting access to screens and social media will prove to be a potentially impossible task, if not counterproductive. So, working hard to incorporate technology in a healthy way and using it, when possible, to drive in-person human connection. This is the power of BettterPlayer, an NYC Footy partner that brings coaches together with players for in person group-oriented practices.
Technology can’t replace something, like a good friend, but it can help make getting in touch with that friend just a bit easier.
5. Mentorship and Peer Support Programs
Our charity partner South Bronx United is focused on building support through the game of soccer and uses mentorship programs to accomplish this mission. While we don’t have a formal peer support program here at NYC Footy, our code of conduct and league rules foster peer support through fair play. All of our programs have their own group chat for players to interact with one another and our online forum, FootyHQ, has become a place for folks to meet new people and schedule connections on the pitch.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
If I were to stay on brand, I’d say “get off the screen and on the green”. This is a tagline I’ve dropped a few times in conversation. This is made easier through scheduled, organized sports. You join a team and you are relied upon by a group of peers to show up every week to help your team compete in friendly competition. Committing to that, even once a week, will reap immediate rewards.
On a larger scale, it would be a mass movement to welcome respectful debate. This allows us to have difficult conversations without the fear of being ostracized or judged. It allows two people to love and respect one another before, during, and after a respectful debate, no matter how large the difference of opinions.
If society could work its way back to a culture of respectful debate, then we would not only find ourselves enjoying the company of a wider, more diverse range of people, but it would allow us to engage in the type of difficult conversations that can reverse this awful trend towards loneliness.
We are blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)
I would actually like to have a private breakfast with a third party contender for the Presidency of this country. Someone that isn’t, by label, one-sided in their approach to civic and political challenges. Today, that person is JFK’s nephew and son of the late Bobby Kennedy.
He is also a very vocal proponent of respectful debate which, no matter what areas I agree or disagree on with him or anyone else, is the key to so many of our problems today. And perhaps by not agreeing with some of his policies, by adopting his vision for respectful debate, it opens the door to learning and empathy. And since he has left an impression on me in his fight for this ideal state, I would like to sit with this person and learn, perhaps by osmosis, how I can strengthen my own presence and force of argument to convince more people to engage in respectful debate about controversial topics without the fear or being ostracized.
The irony, of course, is that by even mentioning this particular person, I will fall victim to the existing divisive nature of the world we live in and lose credibility without an opportunity for respectful dialog or debate. But in order to fight for something you believe in, you have to put yourself into the position to feel pain and ridicule.
If you’d like to keep this answer apolitical, then I’d very much love to meet with Jurgen Klopp, the former LIverpool FC manager that used love, compassion, hard work, accountability and strong leadership to unite a team and a city and used a long-term approach to bringing Liverpool FC back to the forefront of soccer success. There is so much to learn from sports when it comes to growing a business and I believe anytime with Jurgen can help inform how to hire better and grow our influence in an authentic and inclusive way.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The best way to stay in touch with me and all things NYC Footy is to subscribe to our newsletter by visiting nycfooty.com and follow us at @nycfootyofficial across all social platforms.
Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!
About The Interviewer: Pirie is a TedX speaker, author and a Life Empowerment Coach. She is a co-host of Own your Throne podcast, inspiring women in the 2nd chapter of their lives. With over 20 years in front of the camera, Pirie Grossman understands the power of storytelling. After success in commercials and acting. She spent 10 years reporting for E! Entertainment Television, Entertainment Tonight, also hosted ABC’s “Every Woman”. Her work off-camera capitalizes on her strength, producing, bringing people together for unique experiences. She produced a Children’s Day of Compassion during the Dalai Lama’s visit here in 2005. 10,000 children attended, sharing ideas about compassion with His Holiness. From 2006–2009, Pirie Co-chaired the Special Olympics World Winter Games, in Idaho, welcoming 3,000 athletes from over 150 countries. She founded Destiny Productions to create Wellness Festivals and is an Advisory Board member of the Sun Valley Wellness Board.In February 2017, Pirie produced, “Love is Louder”, a Brain Health Summit, bringing in Kevin Hines, noted suicide survivor to Sun Valley who spoke to school kids about suicide. Sun Valley is in the top 5% highest suicide rate per capita in the Northwest, prompting a community initiative with St. Luke’s and other stake holders, to begin healing. She lives in Sun Valley with her two children, serves on the Board of Community School. She has her Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica and is an Executive Life Empowerment Coach, where she helps people meet their dreams and goals! The difference between a dream and a goal is that a goal is a dream with a date on it!
