What do female football players, counselors and middle-school girls have in common?

Dreams.

Dreams, or Developing Responsible Empowered and Motivated Students, is a mentoring program unveiled last week by Propel-Homestead, a charter school that opened in 2004.

The Dreams program will connect 15 sixth- through eighth-grade girls with 15 players from the Pittsburgh Passion, one of 36 National Women's Football Association full-contact teams, Passion wide receiver Jennifer Moody said.

Taunya Tinsley, a California University of Pennsylvania sports counseling professor, will coordinate the Dreams program.

Like Propel-Homestead, the Pittsburgh Passion is a fledgling. Only 5 years old, the team comprises a roster of sports-loving women from middle-aged moms to teens; from singles to wives with careers.

Over the past three years, the Passion has maintained a winning average and hopes to spread that winning spirit to young girls just starting their lives via its philanthropic arm, the Passion for Life Foundation,

"We want to teach character values ... teamwork, loyalty, honesty, sacrifice -- core values," Ms. Moody said.

Starting Tuesday, the players were to begin visiting the students at school. The visits will be an hour on Tuesdays and two hours on Fridays for the next 16 weeks. The mentors will offer career advice, hold workshops on life skills and teach the girls football moves. They are also to telephone the girls periodically to keep abreast of their triumphs and troubles.

Their teachers selected the young participants "because they seemed to be girls who could benefit by some extra support," Ms. Tinsley said.

"I'm excited," she said. "This is a great opportunity. "We're on the cutting edge for this emerging field of sports counseling."

She said California University of Pennsylvania and Springfield College are the only two U.S. colleges that teach sports counseling.

Dr. Tinsley is also a regional coordinator for a similar high school mentoring program called Play It Smart, which is sponsored by the National Football Foundation of Morristown, N.J.

She has helped institute Play It Smart groups at high schools in McKeesport, Aliquippa, Pittsburgh and New Kensington.

In connection with the Propel program, Dr. Tinsley hopes to study how sports paired with counseling aids pre- and early-teen girls with academic, social and personal development.

"There is literature out there that says that middle school girls' self-esteem drops between elementary school and middle school," she said. The research is to determine whether playing sports helps allay that loss.

Dr. Tinsley said she will collect academic and demographic information about the girls at the outset of the program. She will compare her early findings in June to see what improvements have occurred among the girls.

Carol Wooten, Propel Charter Schools Inc. chief academic officer, said Dreams would be a great advantage.

"It is just such a wonderful opportunity for the girls to meet these professional women who participate in athletics while maintaining full-time jobs," she said.

By fall the program will be in all four Propel schools, including one in the Montour district that is to open in August, Dr. Wooten said.