In 1999, Anthony Ramirez-Di Vittorio, lovingly known as Tony D., spotted a small ad in the Chicago Tribune that changed everything. The job posting was for a counselor position at Youth Guidance. At the time, he was working as a therapist. But something about that listing called to him.
“It just spoke to me,” he later said. “I wasn’t supposed to be in an office. I was supposed to be with young people.”
That instinct led Tony into the hallways of Clemente High School, where he began his work with Project Prepare, mentoring students in some of Chicago’s most underserved neighborhoods. The young men he met were Black, Puerto Rican, and white boys navigating trauma, poverty, and systemic injustice. This showed him that their challenges ran deeper than academics.
“They were angry, shut down, disconnected,” Tony recalled. “They didn’t need more punishment.
“They didn’t need more punishment. They needed a space to be seen, to be heard, to ask: who am I, and who do I want to become?”
He gave them that space by pulling desks into circles and starting conversations about manhood, respect, anger, and accountability. These were not just sessions. They were rituals. And they worked.
Building the Blueprint
By 2001, those informal circles had crystallized into a curriculum: Becoming A Man (BAM). Inspired by Carl Rogers’ humanistic psychology and rites-of-passage traditions, Tony crafted a framework rooted in values, reflection, and transformation.
Students were asked not just to reflect on where they came from, but to decide who they wanted to be and then practice it. The BAM model helped them slow down, regulate emotions, and make conscious choices. One early participant told him, “That BAM stuff you taught me really works.”
Tony is quick to deflect credit. “I’m not the creator of BAM, my mother is,” he says. Raised by a Mexican American single mom who modeled resilience and compassion, Tony credits her spirit as the guiding force behind his life’s work.
The Domino Effect
What began as one man, one circle, and one classroom has now become a national and international movement.
BAM currently operates in cities across the U.S., including Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Kansas City, Seattle, and Philadelphia, and has even been adapted in London.
Its impact is undeniable:
- 50% reduction in violent crime arrests, according to research from the University of Chicago’s Urban Labs
- 19% increase in high school graduation rates
- Measurable declines in PTSD and anxiety symptoms
- Stronger school engagement and emotional intelligence
In Boston, students like Devon say BAM gave them “a brotherhood,” motivation to attend college tours, and tools to stay focused. In the U.K., the Mental Health Foundation cited BAM as a promising intervention for youth.
Carrying the Work Forward
Today, BAM is regarded as one of the most effective school-based counseling and mentoring programs in the world. Its success lies in its simplicity and humanity. The six core values are integrity, accountability, self-determination, positive anger expression, respect for womanhood, and visionary goal-setting.
More than two decades later, Tony’s vision continues to ripple outward through the thousands of counselors and students carrying BAM forward.
Tony no longer facilitates circles in a single classroom, but his voice still echoes in each one. Every time a young man steps into a BAM room, takes a deep breath, and chooses a different path, the ripple effect of Tony’s work expands.
Where manhood was once measured in silence and scars, BAM dares to measure it in reflection and resilience. And what began in a single room now echoes in cities across the world, still shaped by the circle that started it all.