April 17, 2024 • 26 mins
We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit youth advocacy organization that strives to enrich the lives of underrepresented youth in the Greater Pittsburgh area via the games of baseball and softball.
We provide affordable and accessible baseball and softball programming for youth including year-round travel teams, clinics, and community training. Our FOCUS (Facilitating Opportunities for College and Universal Success) Program provides academic and social enrichment (including college advisement & recruiting services), along with career readiness programming.
https://www.pittsburghhardball.org/
We provide affordable and accessible baseball and softball programming for youth including year-round travel teams, clinics, and community training. Our FOCUS (Facilitating Opportunities for College and Universal Success) Program provides academic and social enrichment (including college advisement & recruiting services), along with career readiness programming.
https://www.pittsburghhardball.org/
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Hey, welcome inn. This isa public affairs program shedding the light on
the interest, issues and concerns ofthe Greater Pittsburgh area. I'm your host,
Johnny Hartwell, let's say hello toNelson Cooper of the Pittsburgh Hertball Academy.
Thank you for joining me, Thankyou for having me. It's great.
So tell me everything we need toknow about your organization. Sure.
Pittsburgh Hartball Academy is a nonprofit youthadvocacy organization that strives to enrich the lives
(00:25):
of underrepresented youth throughout the Greater Pittsburghregion. The term underrepresented, in my
mind means African Americans in the gameof baseball and softball, and also kids
from backgrounds that maybe it's a singleparent background, Maybe financially they're underrepresented,
maybe they just don't have that resourceto get to the next level. So
our organization takes those kids in anduses the games of baseball and softball to
(00:47):
not only help them get to college, but get through college and become successful
young men and women into adulthood.When did you start this organization? We
started the organization in twenty twenty,like right before the pandemics, So it
was a great time to really workon our website because of anything else to
do. So myself and Brian Jacobsonstarted the organization. We started working together
(01:11):
in twenty eighteen with youth baseball andsoftball and really saw that there was an
opportunity gap for kids that had talent, that had the passion for the game,
but just needed more. They neededmore resources to help understand how do
I get to college? How doI prepare myself from a physical standpoint to
get there from a mental standpoint,from academic standpoint. So we started the
(01:32):
organization to really give those kids anopportunity. We started out with the Pittsburgh
Public Schools and Penhills for the mostpart, those two school districts, and
now we've grown to have over twentynine different schools representing the organization and over
two hundred kids. So started fromfourteen to two hundred and about four years.
Well, what's from a Gramlar pointof view, what's your goal?
What's the main Yeah, our missionis to empower youth through the games of
(01:57):
baseball and softball to help them getthrough high school and into post secondary the
education and maybe that's a trade andinto adulthood. So what does that mean.
We have a program called the FocusProgram Facilitating Opportunities for College and Universal
Success, where we take these kidsand Baseball on Softball is the theme.
(02:17):
That's how we get the kids in. It's through base on softball. But
once they're in there, we kindof sell them and introduce them to other
things. So we have three pillarsof that Focus Program, the first being
academic enrichment, so we help kidswith their college applications, understanding maybe if
they have a deficiency in one oftheir subject matter areas, helping them get
(02:38):
tutoring and things of that nature.We do social enrichment, so we do
a lot of different events off thefield where the kids get to bond together
and learn and be exposed to eitherdifferent careers, going on college tours,
going out of town to different tripsand experiences. And then we have career
readiness, so we bring in peoplefrom different fields to talk to the kids
about if it's banking, if it'syou know, construction, whatever those different
(03:02):
industries are. You know, we'vehad an electrical engineer coming, We've had
people from computer science field coming talkto them and really give them a view
of what they can be and seeingthemselves in the future. And so our
main goal, you know, withthat is to help the kids get into
college. But from a baseball perspective, our goal is to really diversify the
game. It was a couple ofyears ago Major League Baseball had in the
(03:27):
World Series for the first time sincethe color barrier is broken. No African
American players in the World Series,right, And so if you go around
and you look at baseball at theprofessional levels and the college ranks and high
school ranks, there's not a lotof African American baseball players. That's just
the way it is. And alot of that is due to financial barriers.
It's not really big in the AfricanAmerican community. These days, we're
(03:49):
trying to break that down and getthose kids into the game, giving them
opportunity to access you know, there'sso many financial barriers to playing the game.
Right, So these days thirty minutebatting session for a private lesson is
is sixty bucks to eighty bucks perthirty minutes. Right. If you want
to be on a high level travelteam and get coaching, it's thirty five
(04:11):
hundred and four thousand dollars. Butthen you also have to travel. You
also have to take off work,you have all these other things that come
with it. With our program,we eliminate those costs for kids. Bring
them in to our We have abrand new facility in Shady Side. Bring
them into the city, develop them, We do all the training, we
do all of the travel. Soyou have a kid that would start with
(04:32):
our program in August of a year, and it's a year round programs.
We'll start in August and go throughthe falling July pretty much following the school
calendar. That kid would have allof their equipment, all of their travel
expenses, all of their training,participating on the team. If their parents
can't go to the tournaments, wecover travel and lodging. If they want
to go to a showcase to putthemselves on the map, we cover all
(04:55):
of those different expenses for the kidsand the parents. They contribute, depending
on on their income levels, contributeat the maximum nine hundred dollars for the
entire year. Oh and that's nothing, it's nothing. That's nothing compared to
if you have a child who's ona travel team. You know, you
almost need a second more deed youneed Yeah, exactly, It's crazy how
expensive it can be. So we'rereducing those barriers to entry, which then
(05:17):
allows kids from all different backgrounds opportunityto play, which is leveling the playing
field. And that's really what ourorganization's about, is leveling the playing field
from a baseball perspective, from asoftball perspective, and from an off the
field perspective, because some of theinner city or some of the schools that
we work with that maybe are underresourced, they may not have those academic
(05:38):
resources as well, not just theyou know, being under resource from a
baseball perspective. They don't get thetraining, but maybe they don't have the
counselor that can walk them through theNCAA clearinghouse. Maybe they don't have a
professional come in to talk about financialeducation. So we do those things for
those kids to make sure that theyare the playing fields level for them and
(05:59):
when they're going in to college,they have the same opportunities as they're peers
who may have more resources in them. So how young do you what's what's
the age? Yeah? Yeah,So our organization has kind of two core
pillars on the baseball side, sokids that are twelve and under, and
we have kids as young as six. We do camps and clinics for those
(06:19):
kids. I really believe that kidsthat are that age should really be playing
a lot of different sports, tryingdifferent things. If it's baseball, basketball,
you know, learning how to playthe piano, do a lot of
different things, become well rounded.So we do camps and clinics for those
kids, just introducing to introducing themto the game. So we have some
(06:40):
kids who are brand new to thegame, have never played before, they
can come in. Or we havesome kids that are more experienced and talented.
They'll come in and we do trainingfor them at our new Pittsburgh Hardball
Academy Training and Education Center and ShadySide. For kids that are thirteen and
up, we have travel teams andso we have a thirteen year old team,
a fourteen year old team, asixteen year old team, in eighteen
(07:00):
year old team this year. Andthose teams travel much like any other travel
team that would be out there.So we've been to Louisville, Kentucky in
the past. We've been in Norfolk, Virginia. We're going to Boston again
this year. We've been to Philadelphia. We go all around in the way
that we make a unique experience forthose kids. When they go out of
town. Is not only are wegoing to play in those tournaments, we
(07:23):
have college tours that we take wheneverwe go out of town. So if
we're going down to Norfolk, Virginia, for example, last year we toured
Virginia State University, we went andtoured Norfolk State University when we were there.
So not only are they getting theexperience of playing high level competition out
of town, they're also getting tosee college campuses that maybe they otherwise wouldn't
(07:43):
have seen, and then getting thatopportunity to visualize themselves. I'm sixteen,
I can actually do this. Ican actually be here. I can actually
be on campus and feel a campus. So it's a really unique program.
And so, like I said,there's the camps and clinics for the younger
kids, then the older kids.We do have travel teams. You have
travel teams, you have I assumingyou have if you have travel teams in
(08:05):
baseball and softball, it's both maleand female. You have younger teams,
you have all these different gage andthen of course the focus program. How
large of an organization do you have? Yeah, logistically, how do you
do this? So softball is newto our organization Okay, So this is
our first year and on softball side, we are doing camps and clinics and
(08:26):
we're doing the focus program for thesoftball girl so just developing that. We
started softball in September of twenty twentythree, so newer program to us,
And the reason that we waited anddidn't start immediately is we didn't want to
do softball just to do it.We wanted to be very intentional and make
sure that we had the right resourcesand that we had a plan and that
(08:46):
we had the right people in placeto help run the softball program. So
we just brought on a director ofsoftball development, Rebecca. She's done a
great job really getting girls engaged.And our plan is over time to grow
and scale it like we did withbaseball, where or maybe start with camps
and clinics and then eventually work towardsteams. But in the meantime, we're
making sure those girls are getting theopportunities off the field, you know,
(09:07):
being able to enjoy the benefits ofour focused program as well. How big
is our organization, that's a greatthat's a great question. So there's two
directors, There's myself and Brian.Where the co founders of the organization.
I'm the executive director, Brian's thepresident of the organization. We have other
volunteer coaches that participate in one thingthat we're doing. As well as bringing
(09:30):
our alumni, which we have overforty alumni who have gone on to college
to continue their athletic and academic careers. We're bringing our alumni back to help
coach. So not only are thesekids then you know, getting the benefits
of our program when they're in highschool, but they're coming back and bring
paying that forward to the younger kidsas well. And then those kids that
are thirteen, fourteen, fifteen cansee a nineteen year old from their community
(09:54):
that's doing what they want to doand that's their coach, and it creates
a community, a sense of community. So overall, we have over two
hundred kids that participate in different programmingthat we have on our travel teams we
have fifteen or so per team,and then the camps and clinics we have.
You know, now, you workfor p and C Banks, so
I assume that you get a lotof support from the company. Yeah,
(10:16):
So PNC has been a huge advocatethrough their charitable trust has been a huge
advocate and supporter of Pittsburgh Harball Academyand individuals at the company, the Charitable
Trust and what other companies are supportingyour cost. Yeah, So we have
grown our sponsorships and support immensely overthe past couple of years. So you
(10:37):
know right now we have UPMC isa multi year sponsor the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Clearview Federal Credit Union is an amazingpartner and sponsor. One of our biggest
partners is the Boys and Girls Clubsof Western Pennsylvania. So together we were
able to create the Pittsburgh Harball Academyand Training Education Center, which is located
at their Shady Side clubhouse. TheBoys and Girls Clubs and through a shared
(11:01):
grant that we wrote together the ExportingGoods supported and actually renovated the facility to
make it a state of the artfacility. It's the only one in the
city of Pittsburgh. In the facilityhas all the bells and whistles, you
know, new turf batting cage,is pitching machine, we have a hit
track simulator. So all of thethe tools that those kids could ever need
(11:24):
is now available to them right herein the city of Pittsburgh. All right,
you said Hardball Academy started in twentytwenty. What was the idea?
How did this start? Yeah,So the idea in the background was there
are kids in the city. Thereare kids that are from under resourced communities.
There's kids that are not from underresourcedcommunities but are underrepresented, particularly you
(11:50):
know, single parent. I'm partialof a single parent. My mom was
a single parent, so that wasmy path. And then there are African
American black kids that just don't havea what team do they play on?
Like where can they go? Thereare a lot of what we've heard and
what we've seen is and I experiencedthis for a while when I was playing.
(12:11):
They're the only one on their team, or they're the only one in
their high school. And we sawthat, and we saw the opportunity to
create something unique, to give thosekids an opportunity to come together, to
play together, and to get onthe radar. And that's a big thing
with college recruiting for baseball. There'sso many recruiting services, there's so many
(12:31):
travel teams, there's so many opportunitiesfor parents to give their money to other
people, and we wanted to kindof break those barriers and we wanted to
provide opportunity and really educate individuals onyou don't have to pay someone twenty five
hundred dollars for your kid to getrecruited. You don't have to pay five
(12:54):
thousand dollars to be on a travelteam. And if you want to,
that's fine. And I always tellpeople that because they ask the question,
like, well, do you thinktravel teams shouldn't exist? There's a demand
for it, it should exist,and there's plenty of people who do have
the resources to pay. I mean, I work at a bank, so
I'm not telling people not to makemoney. But at the same time,
what about the people who don't havethose opportunities, or what about the people
who don't want to pay to beon that team, or they don't want
(13:16):
to be in the culture that is, you know, promoting you know,
I want to choose my words wisely, but promoting maybe I always call it
like a bro culture, right,like we have the resources, we are
able to do this, and maybeyou're not able to do that. And
so it's just uncomfortable for those kidsto them be in that environment if they
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don't have the resource. I knowmy mom is scrapping and clawing just for
me to get on the team andthem and playing on a team with kids
who they can get ten new batspretty quickly, or they can get a
new glob It's just an uncomfortable situation. So we wanted to create something completely
different, something unique, and thisexists in other cities. We have pure
programs that we talk to and goand play and travel to play to create
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a unique baseball experience where it doesn'tmatter where you come from, what your
background is. If you have passionfor playing baseball or softball and you want
to learn, this is a placethat you can come. And that was
really the background is we want tocreate something different and give opportunity to those
who otherwise may be looked over.Now you're working with almost thirty different school
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districts, and so what was theinitial reaction when you brought this proposal to
them? What was the reaction?Yeah, so we don't I wouldn't say
that we work directly with the schooldistricts. Right, We've worked directly with
Pittsford Public Schools and Penhills. Wehave kids that are from all different districts
and so, so, well,how did it grow? How do you
(14:46):
end up with kids from all thosedifferent school districts. It's really been online
social media and just word of mouthand people learning. The baseball community is
very small. The nonprofit community ispretty small here, like things get around,
but we were lucky to have,you know, very competitive teams from
the beginning, which opened eyes andwe when we go to these tournaments,
(15:09):
our teams look different than most ofthe teams that we're playing against. You
know, our teams are going tohave sixty to seventy percent minorities on the
team. Our team's going to havea minority coach. I mean that's not
common when we go to these tournaments. And so people go, well,
who are those guys with the brightblue jerseys on that are? They're pretty
good? And then one thing that'sreally height and awareness is just the results.
(15:33):
And I think that our organization.You know, if you look at
our social media and you look atour website, it's very clear it's focused
on the kids. It's focused onlike you can see the kids doing things
and they're out in the community.They're they're participating in the financial education someone
are, they're playing in the games, they're going to a trip to Boston
(15:56):
and touring Harvard they're doing these things, and so people want to be a
part of that, and they cansee the kids and they want to join,
and the word of mouth spreads withyou know, different families and kids,
and so that has been how we'vegrown the organization. I would say
something that's also kind of unique aboutwhat we're doing is and unique about this
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area is you know, we havenot it's not been all rosy. This
hasn't been an experience where everyone islike, this is awesome. Definitely get
on board. Where do you getpushed back? And why so we get
pushed back because if you think aboutwhat we're doing, right, we're providing
opportunity to kids who may otherwise nothave the opportunity, and unfortunately sometimes people
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feel like that means you're taking theiropportunity away. Right. If you think
about that, Well, if there'sten chairs at the table and Nelson and
Hardball are bringing someone to the table, that means one of those people on
the tables to leave. But that'snot the way that we think about our
program. We think about it,well, this table can fit eleven chairs
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as well, right, and sowe get put we've had pushback or people
we've heard the comments like we've heardin the past at a tournament, why
are you playing this inner city team? You know? Or you know that
that's the black team, and it'sinteresting in the kids here those things as
well. We're tiptoeing around racism.Yeah, yeah, we're tiptoeing around.
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I'm trying to be I'm learning toget nice. I get it, I
get it. Yeah. When Igrew up, baseball was a huge activity
for little leig and it was peopledon't realize. Everybody assumes that Pittsburgh is
a football town and it is nowtoday, but back in the seventies when
I played, there was a itwas there was a certain passion for the
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sport, and I played against alot of minority teams. And I think
baseball in a hole has has kindof shrunk, And I think part of
it is how expensive it used toIt used to be you had a ball
and a glove and that's all youreally needed and and basically I like to
still think that that's all you reallydo need and a certain passion for the
(18:15):
game, and and so that hasshrunk. So why do you think that
that that baseball has the passion forbaseball has shrunk? In this especially coming
from somebody from outside the area.I'm curious. I want to get your
perspective. Why has it shrunk?Yeah, I think a couple of reasons.
(18:36):
I think baseball there's a rise ofother sports. Right, so thirty
years ago lacrosse wasn't a mainstream sports. Soccer has really grown seventies isn't thirty
years ago. My math is offthat. But anyways, there's that you
think you're shocked, imagine how Iam. Wow. But the thing that
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you know, youth sports has becomevery it's a lucrative business, and so
that does turn kids away. LikeI see, the main age is around
like twelve or thirteen, because twelveis the end a little league and so
then they go to the bigger field. And so if you don't have the
skill when you go to the biggerfield, then it's very difficult to compete
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in baseball. I'll be the first. It's kind of it's kind of boring
if you're eight or nine. AndI mean I I don't really watch eight
or nine year old game so much. I mean, I understand why kids
would want to do soccer or basketball. And you know, sometimes we'll go
support our kids in the other sportsthat they play. So you know,
we have a kid that's in highschool, maybe he's playing on the basketball
team. We'll go watch, youknow, the basketball game and the energy.
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You know, in the basketball gym, it's warm and it's packed and
there's so much energy. And youget a high school baseball game it's freezing
cold. There's no fans. Youknow, it's a couple of parents there
and their chit chat and you knowon the side, and that's it.
Like there's no energy. Like Ican understand why some kids would. You
know, there's a lot of pressuresfor teenagers, and like it's cool to
play basketball, it's cool to playfootball. You know, you see the
(20:07):
stars the athletes that are stars orfootball and basketball players. You know,
in baseball not so much. Andso I think that's a part of it.
But again, the the cost isprohibitive. So you get back to
what I was saying there, youknow, the field gets bigger, so
then it's more difficult. They needthe skill, Well how do you get
the skill, Well you have topay some for private lessons. Well I
(20:29):
can't pay eight dollars per half hourfor private lessons, So I guess I'm
done. And so I think thathas really been kind of something that's driven
a lot of kids out of thegame. On the bright side, I
think that Okay, I was justgoing to say, but there's also there
there wasn't or there wasn't any organizationslike the Hardball Academy. Yes, that
is opening up some of those doors. It's leveling the playing field exactly,
(20:52):
and that it's going to give moremore people opportunity to really enjoy the passion
of this this amazing game. Yes, exactly. And that's and that's where
we're trying to step in while westarted doing the youth clinics. So at
least if you're twelve, you've hadsome background and some training that you can
now when you transition. At leastthey have the skill, so then they
can make the choice do I stillwant to, you know, continue with
(21:12):
baseball, and a lot of themcan see the path of am twelve and
they aspire to be on one ofour teams when they're thirteen and things that
nature. But yeah, we're that'sbeen I think that's a big driver of
baseball, like kids going you know, out of the game. I know
that participation. It seems like participationsup. At least what I've noticed over
the past year or so, likethere's a lot more interest. I think
(21:34):
some of that has to do withMajor League Baseball speeding the games up.
Oh that's true, which is great. But I think another big part of
it is I think Major League Baseballis doing a good job at it now.
Is a lot of these kids uselike Instagram, and they use those
social media you know, TikTok,Instagram for clips, and baseball does have
(21:55):
the unique thing of so many amazingmoments in the game, a dive and
catch at home run, and they'rereally leading into that, which gets kids
excited about the game. History inbaseball is just a moment away. Anything
could happen. So let me letme put it ask you a question,
how would how do you want thecommunity to help Pittsburgh Hardball Academy. What
(22:18):
what kind of help do you need? So there's a couple of ways that
the community could help us grow ourmission and our impact. I think the
first way is, you know,our organization is a volunteer organization. So
you know, myself and Brian wehave full time jobs. All of our
coaches have full time jobs, youknow, So Therefore, we have to
(22:42):
continue to grow resources in order toin order to grow our impact. And
I think that's the thing that we'rekind of on the cusp right now of
really being such a huge organization thatwe can have, you know, full
time staffing at our facility and beable to have full time staff. And
that's what we're trying to grow to. And we're very thankful for the Hillman
(23:03):
Family Foundations for they have helped uswith the grant that's going to help us
do some strategic planning, like afive year plan, as well as help
us grow capacity for our organization.So obviously what I'm trying to say and
beating around the bush is we needmoney. So donations are great, you
know, sponsorships, and we haveso many unique experiences that I think would
(23:27):
be valuable for businesses to be involvedwith. For example, this summer,
at the end of the summer,bringing our kids, forty five kids to
Boston for the National Urban Sports Classic, and so it's an event that's host
in Boston every year. We wentlast year. We're getting all the kids
on a charter bus, all ofthe lodging is taken care of. All
they have to do is get tothe bus and hopefully their parents can pick
(23:47):
them up for the bus and ifthey get there, you know, we
we bring them up to Boston.They play four or five games up there
against other diverse teams from all aroundthe country. So there's teams from Boston,
Philadelphia, Atlanta to Seattle, allover the place come up to play
at this National Urban Sports Classic.In addition to that, they do a
career fair, so like last year, the president and CEO of the TJ
(24:11):
Max Corporation was there talking to thekids about you know, opportunities and things
of that nature, not just inthe stores, but like corporate opportunities.
They do a college fair as well, so different universities there and then they
have college scouts and coaches there torecruit the kids and watch them play and
things of that nature. Then theyget to experience Boston, you know,
with other kids from other cities thatare going through similar experiences. Right,
(24:33):
So you have kids that maybe intheir high school they're only the only one
or maybe they're the you know,the white kid that's playing on the diverse
team. Like, they're different experiencesthere. So that trip is not free.
That's a huge trip that we dowe do things like that throughout the
summer. So that is one thing, like someone could support that. The
(24:55):
other thing that I think that wouldbe great to help our organization grow is
just continued word of mouth. Youknow, if you know kids that are
interested in baseball, having them reachout, if you know coaches that would
be interested in giving back and beinga part of what we're trying to do,
that would really help us continue togrow. I'd love to have even
more coaches so that we can continueto have this impact on more and more
(25:15):
kids. You know, the morecoaches that we have, obviously, the
more impact that we can make throughoutthe community. Oh okay, So if
somebody was willing to help, eitheryou know, to become a sponsor or
to be a coach, or ifyou want more information on the organization,
what's the first step? Yeah?Sure. So you can follow us on
social media at PGH Underscore Hardball onx and on Instagram, on Facebook and
(25:42):
on LinkedIn it's just Pittsburgh Hardball Academyand any of the platforms you can search
that. From there, you canreach out to us on those platforms if
you prefer to email, our emailis contact at Pittsburghhardball dot org. You
can reach out there, and there'salso a sponsorship or contact form of avails
on our website, which is wwwdot Pittsburgh hardball dot org. You're an
(26:04):
interesting person. Thank you. Thishas been fun. Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you. I appreciatethat. As always, if you
have any comments, concerns, oran idea for our future program, please
email us from this radio station's website. Johnny Hartwell, thank you so much
for listening.
Hey, welcome inn. This isa public affairs program shedding the light on
the interest, issues and concerns ofthe Greater Pittsburgh area. I'm your host,
Johnny Hartwell, let's say hello toNelson Cooper of the Pittsburgh Hertball Academy.
Thank you for joining me, Thankyou for having me. It's great.
So tell me everything we need toknow about your organization. Sure.
Pittsburgh Hartball Academy is a nonprofit youthadvocacy organization that strives to enrich the lives
(00:25):
of underrepresented youth throughout the Greater Pittsburghregion. The term underrepresented, in my
mind means African Americans in the gameof baseball and softball, and also kids
from backgrounds that maybe it's a singleparent background, Maybe financially they're underrepresented,
maybe they just don't have that resourceto get to the next level. So
our organization takes those kids in anduses the games of baseball and softball to
(00:47):
not only help them get to college, but get through college and become successful
young men and women into adulthood.When did you start this organization? We
started the organization in twenty twenty,like right before the pandemics, So it
was a great time to really workon our website because of anything else to
do. So myself and Brian Jacobsonstarted the organization. We started working together
(01:11):
in twenty eighteen with youth baseball andsoftball and really saw that there was an
opportunity gap for kids that had talent, that had the passion for the game,
but just needed more. They neededmore resources to help understand how do
I get to college? How doI prepare myself from a physical standpoint to
get there from a mental standpoint,from academic standpoint. So we started the
(01:32):
organization to really give those kids anopportunity. We started out with the Pittsburgh
Public Schools and Penhills for the mostpart, those two school districts, and
now we've grown to have over twentynine different schools representing the organization and over
two hundred kids. So started fromfourteen to two hundred and about four years.
Well, what's from a Gramlar pointof view, what's your goal?
What's the main Yeah, our missionis to empower youth through the games of
(01:57):
baseball and softball to help them getthrough high school and into post secondary the
education and maybe that's a trade andinto adulthood. So what does that mean.
We have a program called the FocusProgram Facilitating Opportunities for College and Universal
Success, where we take these kidsand Baseball on Softball is the theme.
(02:17):
That's how we get the kids in. It's through base on softball. But
once they're in there, we kindof sell them and introduce them to other
things. So we have three pillarsof that Focus Program, the first being
academic enrichment, so we help kidswith their college applications, understanding maybe if
they have a deficiency in one oftheir subject matter areas, helping them get
(02:38):
tutoring and things of that nature.We do social enrichment, so we do
a lot of different events off thefield where the kids get to bond together
and learn and be exposed to eitherdifferent careers, going on college tours,
going out of town to different tripsand experiences. And then we have career
readiness, so we bring in peoplefrom different fields to talk to the kids
about if it's banking, if it'syou know, construction, whatever those different
(03:02):
industries are. You know, we'vehad an electrical engineer coming, We've had
people from computer science field coming talkto them and really give them a view
of what they can be and seeingthemselves in the future. And so our
main goal, you know, withthat is to help the kids get into
college. But from a baseball perspective, our goal is to really diversify the
game. It was a couple ofyears ago Major League Baseball had in the
(03:27):
World Series for the first time sincethe color barrier is broken. No African
American players in the World Series,right, And so if you go around
and you look at baseball at theprofessional levels and the college ranks and high
school ranks, there's not a lotof African American baseball players. That's just
the way it is. And alot of that is due to financial barriers.
It's not really big in the AfricanAmerican community. These days, we're
(03:49):
trying to break that down and getthose kids into the game, giving them
opportunity to access you know, there'sso many financial barriers to playing the game.
Right, So these days thirty minutebatting session for a private lesson is
is sixty bucks to eighty bucks perthirty minutes. Right. If you want
to be on a high level travelteam and get coaching, it's thirty five
(04:11):
hundred and four thousand dollars. Butthen you also have to travel. You
also have to take off work,you have all these other things that come
with it. With our program,we eliminate those costs for kids. Bring
them in to our We have abrand new facility in Shady Side. Bring
them into the city, develop them, We do all the training, we
do all of the travel. Soyou have a kid that would start with
(04:32):
our program in August of a year, and it's a year round programs.
We'll start in August and go throughthe falling July pretty much following the school
calendar. That kid would have allof their equipment, all of their travel
expenses, all of their training,participating on the team. If their parents
can't go to the tournaments, wecover travel and lodging. If they want
to go to a showcase to putthemselves on the map, we cover all
(04:55):
of those different expenses for the kidsand the parents. They contribute, depending
on on their income levels, contributeat the maximum nine hundred dollars for the
entire year. Oh and that's nothing, it's nothing. That's nothing compared to
if you have a child who's ona travel team. You know, you
almost need a second more deed youneed Yeah, exactly, It's crazy how
expensive it can be. So we'rereducing those barriers to entry, which then
(05:17):
allows kids from all different backgrounds opportunityto play, which is leveling the playing
field. And that's really what ourorganization's about, is leveling the playing field
from a baseball perspective, from asoftball perspective, and from an off the
field perspective, because some of theinner city or some of the schools that
we work with that maybe are underresourced, they may not have those academic
(05:38):
resources as well, not just theyou know, being under resource from a
baseball perspective. They don't get thetraining, but maybe they don't have the
counselor that can walk them through theNCAA clearinghouse. Maybe they don't have a
professional come in to talk about financialeducation. So we do those things for
those kids to make sure that theyare the playing fields level for them and
(05:59):
when they're going in to college,they have the same opportunities as they're peers
who may have more resources in them. So how young do you what's what's
the age? Yeah? Yeah,So our organization has kind of two core
pillars on the baseball side, sokids that are twelve and under, and
we have kids as young as six. We do camps and clinics for those
(06:19):
kids. I really believe that kidsthat are that age should really be playing
a lot of different sports, tryingdifferent things. If it's baseball, basketball,
you know, learning how to playthe piano, do a lot of
different things, become well rounded.So we do camps and clinics for those
kids, just introducing to introducing themto the game. So we have some
(06:40):
kids who are brand new to thegame, have never played before, they
can come in. Or we havesome kids that are more experienced and talented.
They'll come in and we do trainingfor them at our new Pittsburgh Hardball
Academy Training and Education Center and ShadySide. For kids that are thirteen and
up, we have travel teams andso we have a thirteen year old team,
a fourteen year old team, asixteen year old team, in eighteen
(07:00):
year old team this year. Andthose teams travel much like any other travel
team that would be out there.So we've been to Louisville, Kentucky in
the past. We've been in Norfolk, Virginia. We're going to Boston again
this year. We've been to Philadelphia. We go all around in the way
that we make a unique experience forthose kids. When they go out of
town. Is not only are wegoing to play in those tournaments, we
(07:23):
have college tours that we take wheneverwe go out of town. So if
we're going down to Norfolk, Virginia, for example, last year we toured
Virginia State University, we went andtoured Norfolk State University when we were there.
So not only are they getting theexperience of playing high level competition out
of town, they're also getting tosee college campuses that maybe they otherwise wouldn't
(07:43):
have seen, and then getting thatopportunity to visualize themselves. I'm sixteen,
I can actually do this. Ican actually be here. I can actually
be on campus and feel a campus. So it's a really unique program.
And so, like I said,there's the camps and clinics for the younger
kids, then the older kids.We do have travel teams. You have
travel teams, you have I assumingyou have if you have travel teams in
(08:05):
baseball and softball, it's both maleand female. You have younger teams,
you have all these different gage andthen of course the focus program. How
large of an organization do you have? Yeah, logistically, how do you
do this? So softball is newto our organization Okay, So this is
our first year and on softball side, we are doing camps and clinics and
(08:26):
we're doing the focus program for thesoftball girl so just developing that. We
started softball in September of twenty twentythree, so newer program to us,
And the reason that we waited anddidn't start immediately is we didn't want to
do softball just to do it.We wanted to be very intentional and make
sure that we had the right resourcesand that we had a plan and that
(08:46):
we had the right people in placeto help run the softball program. So
we just brought on a director ofsoftball development, Rebecca. She's done a
great job really getting girls engaged.And our plan is over time to grow
and scale it like we did withbaseball, where or maybe start with camps
and clinics and then eventually work towardsteams. But in the meantime, we're
making sure those girls are getting theopportunities off the field, you know,
(09:07):
being able to enjoy the benefits ofour focused program as well. How big
is our organization, that's a greatthat's a great question. So there's two
directors, There's myself and Brian.Where the co founders of the organization.
I'm the executive director, Brian's thepresident of the organization. We have other
volunteer coaches that participate in one thingthat we're doing. As well as bringing
(09:30):
our alumni, which we have overforty alumni who have gone on to college
to continue their athletic and academic careers. We're bringing our alumni back to help
coach. So not only are thesekids then you know, getting the benefits
of our program when they're in highschool, but they're coming back and bring
paying that forward to the younger kidsas well. And then those kids that
are thirteen, fourteen, fifteen cansee a nineteen year old from their community
(09:54):
that's doing what they want to doand that's their coach, and it creates
a community, a sense of community. So overall, we have over two
hundred kids that participate in different programmingthat we have on our travel teams we
have fifteen or so per team,and then the camps and clinics we have.
You know, now, you workfor p and C Banks, so
I assume that you get a lotof support from the company. Yeah,
(10:16):
So PNC has been a huge advocatethrough their charitable trust has been a huge
advocate and supporter of Pittsburgh Harball Academyand individuals at the company, the Charitable
Trust and what other companies are supportingyour cost. Yeah, So we have
grown our sponsorships and support immensely overthe past couple of years. So you
(10:37):
know right now we have UPMC isa multi year sponsor the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Clearview Federal Credit Union is an amazingpartner and sponsor. One of our biggest
partners is the Boys and Girls Clubsof Western Pennsylvania. So together we were
able to create the Pittsburgh Harball Academyand Training Education Center, which is located
at their Shady Side clubhouse. TheBoys and Girls Clubs and through a shared
(11:01):
grant that we wrote together the ExportingGoods supported and actually renovated the facility to
make it a state of the artfacility. It's the only one in the
city of Pittsburgh. In the facilityhas all the bells and whistles, you
know, new turf batting cage,is pitching machine, we have a hit
track simulator. So all of thethe tools that those kids could ever need
(11:24):
is now available to them right herein the city of Pittsburgh. All right,
you said Hardball Academy started in twentytwenty. What was the idea?
How did this start? Yeah,So the idea in the background was there
are kids in the city. Thereare kids that are from under resourced communities.
There's kids that are not from underresourcedcommunities but are underrepresented, particularly you
(11:50):
know, single parent. I'm partialof a single parent. My mom was
a single parent, so that wasmy path. And then there are African
American black kids that just don't havea what team do they play on?
Like where can they go? Thereare a lot of what we've heard and
what we've seen is and I experiencedthis for a while when I was playing.
(12:11):
They're the only one on their team, or they're the only one in
their high school. And we sawthat, and we saw the opportunity to
create something unique, to give thosekids an opportunity to come together, to
play together, and to get onthe radar. And that's a big thing
with college recruiting for baseball. There'sso many recruiting services, there's so many
(12:31):
travel teams, there's so many opportunitiesfor parents to give their money to other
people, and we wanted to kindof break those barriers and we wanted to
provide opportunity and really educate individuals onyou don't have to pay someone twenty five
hundred dollars for your kid to getrecruited. You don't have to pay five
(12:54):
thousand dollars to be on a travelteam. And if you want to,
that's fine. And I always tellpeople that because they ask the question,
like, well, do you thinktravel teams shouldn't exist? There's a demand
for it, it should exist,and there's plenty of people who do have
the resources to pay. I mean, I work at a bank, so
I'm not telling people not to makemoney. But at the same time,
what about the people who don't havethose opportunities, or what about the people
who don't want to pay to beon that team, or they don't want
(13:16):
to be in the culture that is, you know, promoting you know,
I want to choose my words wisely, but promoting maybe I always call it
like a bro culture, right,like we have the resources, we are
able to do this, and maybeyou're not able to do that. And
so it's just uncomfortable for those kidsto them be in that environment if they
(13:37):
don't have the resource. I knowmy mom is scrapping and clawing just for
me to get on the team andthem and playing on a team with kids
who they can get ten new batspretty quickly, or they can get a
new glob It's just an uncomfortable situation. So we wanted to create something completely
different, something unique, and thisexists in other cities. We have pure
programs that we talk to and goand play and travel to play to create
(14:01):
a unique baseball experience where it doesn'tmatter where you come from, what your
background is. If you have passionfor playing baseball or softball and you want
to learn, this is a placethat you can come. And that was
really the background is we want tocreate something different and give opportunity to those
who otherwise may be looked over.Now you're working with almost thirty different school
(14:26):
districts, and so what was theinitial reaction when you brought this proposal to
them? What was the reaction?Yeah, so we don't I wouldn't say
that we work directly with the schooldistricts. Right, We've worked directly with
Pittsford Public Schools and Penhills. Wehave kids that are from all different districts
and so, so, well,how did it grow? How do you
(14:46):
end up with kids from all thosedifferent school districts. It's really been online
social media and just word of mouthand people learning. The baseball community is
very small. The nonprofit community ispretty small here, like things get around,
but we were lucky to have,you know, very competitive teams from
the beginning, which opened eyes andwe when we go to these tournaments,
(15:09):
our teams look different than most ofthe teams that we're playing against. You
know, our teams are going tohave sixty to seventy percent minorities on the
team. Our team's going to havea minority coach. I mean that's not
common when we go to these tournaments. And so people go, well,
who are those guys with the brightblue jerseys on that are? They're pretty
good? And then one thing that'sreally height and awareness is just the results.
(15:33):
And I think that our organization.You know, if you look at
our social media and you look atour website, it's very clear it's focused
on the kids. It's focused onlike you can see the kids doing things
and they're out in the community.They're they're participating in the financial education someone
are, they're playing in the games, they're going to a trip to Boston
(15:56):
and touring Harvard they're doing these things, and so people want to be a
part of that, and they cansee the kids and they want to join,
and the word of mouth spreads withyou know, different families and kids,
and so that has been how we'vegrown the organization. I would say
something that's also kind of unique aboutwhat we're doing is and unique about this
(16:21):
area is you know, we havenot it's not been all rosy. This
hasn't been an experience where everyone islike, this is awesome. Definitely get
on board. Where do you getpushed back? And why so we get
pushed back because if you think aboutwhat we're doing, right, we're providing
opportunity to kids who may otherwise nothave the opportunity, and unfortunately sometimes people
(16:47):
feel like that means you're taking theiropportunity away. Right. If you think
about that, Well, if there'sten chairs at the table and Nelson and
Hardball are bringing someone to the table, that means one of those people on
the tables to leave. But that'snot the way that we think about our
program. We think about it,well, this table can fit eleven chairs
(17:08):
as well, right, and sowe get put we've had pushback or people
we've heard the comments like we've heardin the past at a tournament, why
are you playing this inner city team? You know? Or you know that
that's the black team, and it'sinteresting in the kids here those things as
well. We're tiptoeing around racism.Yeah, yeah, we're tiptoeing around.
(17:30):
I'm trying to be I'm learning toget nice. I get it, I
get it. Yeah. When Igrew up, baseball was a huge activity
for little leig and it was peopledon't realize. Everybody assumes that Pittsburgh is
a football town and it is nowtoday, but back in the seventies when
I played, there was a itwas there was a certain passion for the
(17:53):
sport, and I played against alot of minority teams. And I think
baseball in a hole has has kindof shrunk, And I think part of
it is how expensive it used toIt used to be you had a ball
and a glove and that's all youreally needed and and basically I like to
still think that that's all you reallydo need and a certain passion for the
(18:15):
game, and and so that hasshrunk. So why do you think that
that that baseball has the passion forbaseball has shrunk? In this especially coming
from somebody from outside the area.I'm curious. I want to get your
perspective. Why has it shrunk?Yeah, I think a couple of reasons.
(18:36):
I think baseball there's a rise ofother sports. Right, so thirty
years ago lacrosse wasn't a mainstream sports. Soccer has really grown seventies isn't thirty
years ago. My math is offthat. But anyways, there's that you
think you're shocked, imagine how Iam. Wow. But the thing that
(19:00):
you know, youth sports has becomevery it's a lucrative business, and so
that does turn kids away. LikeI see, the main age is around
like twelve or thirteen, because twelveis the end a little league and so
then they go to the bigger field. And so if you don't have the
skill when you go to the biggerfield, then it's very difficult to compete
(19:21):
in baseball. I'll be the first. It's kind of it's kind of boring
if you're eight or nine. AndI mean I I don't really watch eight
or nine year old game so much. I mean, I understand why kids
would want to do soccer or basketball. And you know, sometimes we'll go
support our kids in the other sportsthat they play. So you know,
we have a kid that's in highschool, maybe he's playing on the basketball
team. We'll go watch, youknow, the basketball game and the energy.
(19:44):
You know, in the basketball gym, it's warm and it's packed and
there's so much energy. And youget a high school baseball game it's freezing
cold. There's no fans. Youknow, it's a couple of parents there
and their chit chat and you knowon the side, and that's it.
Like there's no energy. Like Ican understand why some kids would. You
know, there's a lot of pressuresfor teenagers, and like it's cool to
play basketball, it's cool to playfootball. You know, you see the
(20:07):
stars the athletes that are stars orfootball and basketball players. You know,
in baseball not so much. Andso I think that's a part of it.
But again, the the cost isprohibitive. So you get back to
what I was saying there, youknow, the field gets bigger, so
then it's more difficult. They needthe skill, Well how do you get
the skill, Well you have topay some for private lessons. Well I
(20:29):
can't pay eight dollars per half hourfor private lessons, So I guess I'm
done. And so I think thathas really been kind of something that's driven
a lot of kids out of thegame. On the bright side, I
think that Okay, I was justgoing to say, but there's also there
there wasn't or there wasn't any organizationslike the Hardball Academy. Yes, that
is opening up some of those doors. It's leveling the playing field exactly,
(20:52):
and that it's going to give moremore people opportunity to really enjoy the passion
of this this amazing game. Yes, exactly. And that's and that's where
we're trying to step in while westarted doing the youth clinics. So at
least if you're twelve, you've hadsome background and some training that you can
now when you transition. At leastthey have the skill, so then they
can make the choice do I stillwant to, you know, continue with
(21:12):
baseball, and a lot of themcan see the path of am twelve and
they aspire to be on one ofour teams when they're thirteen and things that
nature. But yeah, we're that'sbeen I think that's a big driver of
baseball, like kids going you know, out of the game. I know
that participation. It seems like participationsup. At least what I've noticed over
the past year or so, likethere's a lot more interest. I think
(21:34):
some of that has to do withMajor League Baseball speeding the games up.
Oh that's true, which is great. But I think another big part of
it is I think Major League Baseballis doing a good job at it now.
Is a lot of these kids uselike Instagram, and they use those
social media you know, TikTok,Instagram for clips, and baseball does have
(21:55):
the unique thing of so many amazingmoments in the game, a dive and
catch at home run, and they'rereally leading into that, which gets kids
excited about the game. History inbaseball is just a moment away. Anything
could happen. So let me letme put it ask you a question,
how would how do you want thecommunity to help Pittsburgh Hardball Academy. What
(22:18):
what kind of help do you need? So there's a couple of ways that
the community could help us grow ourmission and our impact. I think the
first way is, you know,our organization is a volunteer organization. So
you know, myself and Brian wehave full time jobs. All of our
coaches have full time jobs, youknow, So Therefore, we have to
(22:42):
continue to grow resources in order toin order to grow our impact. And
I think that's the thing that we'rekind of on the cusp right now of
really being such a huge organization thatwe can have, you know, full
time staffing at our facility and beable to have full time staff. And
that's what we're trying to grow to. And we're very thankful for the Hillman
(23:03):
Family Foundations for they have helped uswith the grant that's going to help us
do some strategic planning, like afive year plan, as well as help
us grow capacity for our organization.So obviously what I'm trying to say and
beating around the bush is we needmoney. So donations are great, you
know, sponsorships, and we haveso many unique experiences that I think would
(23:27):
be valuable for businesses to be involvedwith. For example, this summer,
at the end of the summer,bringing our kids, forty five kids to
Boston for the National Urban Sports Classic, and so it's an event that's host
in Boston every year. We wentlast year. We're getting all the kids
on a charter bus, all ofthe lodging is taken care of. All
they have to do is get tothe bus and hopefully their parents can pick
(23:47):
them up for the bus and ifthey get there, you know, we
we bring them up to Boston.They play four or five games up there
against other diverse teams from all aroundthe country. So there's teams from Boston,
Philadelphia, Atlanta to Seattle, allover the place come up to play
at this National Urban Sports Classic.In addition to that, they do a
career fair, so like last year, the president and CEO of the TJ
(24:11):
Max Corporation was there talking to thekids about you know, opportunities and things
of that nature, not just inthe stores, but like corporate opportunities.
They do a college fair as well, so different universities there and then they
have college scouts and coaches there torecruit the kids and watch them play and
things of that nature. Then theyget to experience Boston, you know,
with other kids from other cities thatare going through similar experiences. Right,
(24:33):
So you have kids that maybe intheir high school they're only the only one
or maybe they're the you know,the white kid that's playing on the diverse
team. Like, they're different experiencesthere. So that trip is not free.
That's a huge trip that we dowe do things like that throughout the
summer. So that is one thing, like someone could support that. The
(24:55):
other thing that I think that wouldbe great to help our organization grow is
just continued word of mouth. Youknow, if you know kids that are
interested in baseball, having them reachout, if you know coaches that would
be interested in giving back and beinga part of what we're trying to do,
that would really help us continue togrow. I'd love to have even
more coaches so that we can continueto have this impact on more and more
(25:15):
kids. You know, the morecoaches that we have, obviously, the
more impact that we can make throughoutthe community. Oh okay, So if
somebody was willing to help, eitheryou know, to become a sponsor or
to be a coach, or ifyou want more information on the organization,
what's the first step? Yeah?Sure. So you can follow us on
social media at PGH Underscore Hardball onx and on Instagram, on Facebook and
(25:42):
on LinkedIn it's just Pittsburgh Hardball Academyand any of the platforms you can search
that. From there, you canreach out to us on those platforms if
you prefer to email, our emailis contact at Pittsburghhardball dot org. You
can reach out there, and there'salso a sponsorship or contact form of avails
on our website, which is wwwdot Pittsburgh hardball dot org. You're an
(26:04):
interesting person. Thank you. Thishas been fun. Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you. I appreciatethat. As always, if you
have any comments, concerns, oran idea for our future program, please
email us from this radio station's website. Johnny Hartwell, thank you so much
for listening.
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