Rishin Tandon, a high school junior from Issaquah, is set to receive the prestigious Billie Jean King Youth Leadership Award at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles for his innovative work in promoting sustainability in youth sports.
Tandon, who plays soccer and is preparing to get his driver’s license, created the ‘Youth Eco Sports Scorecard’ (YESS), an online survey designed to help youth sports teams evaluate their sustainability practices.
“The questions are kind of behavioral nudges to spark change and spark reflection with teams,” Tandon explained. “So, it’s like ‘oh, we encourage carpooling’…rather than necessarily the big system changes because that may not be feasible to every team.”
The Youth Eco Sports Scorecard is broken up into six categories and users are designated into four different tiers based on their answers to multiple choice questions.
Tandon was inspired to create the scorecard after attending a soccer tournament in Las Vegas, where he noticed the environmental impact of teams flying in from across the country.
“Once we get a lot more teams scored and a bigger dataset, we can kind of see how maybe teams in Washington State versus the other side of the country may compare in certain areas,” Tandon said. “Or, which specific areas of sustainability and the environment need to be focused on more.”
Tandon’s efforts to promote eco-friendliness in youth sports are gaining recognition, and his upcoming trip to Los Angeles for the ESPY Awards highlights the impact of his work.
©2025 Cox Media Group
