July 16, 2025 • 30 mins
Pittsburgh Hardball Academy is a 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.https://www.pittsburghhardball.org/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
And welcome in. This is a public affairs program shedding
the light on the issues and concerns o the Greater
Pittsburgh AIA. Good morning. My name is Johnny heart Well,
your host. Today's topic is Pittsburgh Hardball Academy, a nonprofit
youth advocacy organization that strives to enrich the lives of
under representative youth in the Greater Pittsburgh area via baseball
and softball. Let's say hello to Nelson Cooper, executive director.
(00:29):
Good to see you, against We'll.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
See you as well. I'm doing well and.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
This is my first time meeting Brian Jacobson, President and
co founder of the Hardball Academy. Good to meet you.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
How are you good to meet you? I'm well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Let's start with the history of the Hardball Academy. How
did it start? Let's start with Brian. So it started
in twenty twenty. Nelson and I work together in community baseball.
We really wanted to work with underrepresented youth and actually
bring a level playing field to the youth of the
city of Pittsburgh and the immediate surrounding areas. All right,
(01:02):
so you were a coach, you're both coaches, and how
how did you work started working together? What did you
do prior to working together? So we both coached together.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
We met in twenty eighteen coaching at the Shady Side
Boys and Girls Club. Actually, so we coached a local
rec team with the Shady Side Boys and Girls Club,
which is funny, it comes full circle. Our facility now,
the Pittsburgh Hardball Academy Training Performance Center, is actually at
the Shady Side Boys and Girls Club, so it kind
of came full circle for us. We were able to
open that indoor facility there. But we got involved. We
(01:33):
actually met a Steel Cactus, I believe if you remember
the Mexican restaurant, Steel Cat.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Restaurant right outside of P and C Park, Okay, yeah,
or it's annexed to P and C Park.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah right, yeah, And so we got involved there and
started coaching together. And it was my I was just
right out of college, so I was trying to get
back into the game. Met Brian and then started coaching together,
and in twenty twenty we kind of saw this was
late twenty nineteen. Actually, we had a group of kids
who are really talented but just needed some help not
only on the field and training and maybe didn't have
(02:05):
the resources to play on travel teams or to really
get exposure to college, but also off the field, really
having that mentorship and guidance to help them. Okay, so
you got to offer from a college, what do you
do now or how do I even solicit to offer? Okay,
how do I go through the faster process? Do I
do the sat all those different things that go into
that process that maybe our kids in the city or
that are underrepresented just don't have the same opportunity.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
They may have the skill set, but they don't have
the You know, I would know what to do if I, boy,
if I had like a pro quality talent. But you know,
it's not just having talent. There's a lot to go
goes with that too.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And that's absolutely right. You know, there's a saying out
there where people say, if you have the talent, they
will find you, meaning college coaches, pro scouts. That's not
so true. You know, there's not many college scouts, not
many pro scouts that are looking through the Pittsburgh public
school system for high level baseball players. You know, the
(03:03):
level of play is kind of gone a little bit downhill.
You know, the popularity of baseball has gone downhill. In
the inner city. So you need to have an advocate,
and so we serve as that advocate for the youth
and making sure that we provide them a platform that
I'll actually get them on the radar of college scouts
and you know, you know, hopefully pro scouts.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And we use the term underrepresented, meaning not only kids
that are maybe from a financial means underrepresented, that don't
have the means to maybe play on a travel team,
but also kids who just don't have that advocate. So
maybe they're playing in a school district where baseball is
not super popular, or of course in baseball, African Americans
are completely underrepresented relative to other races that play baseball.
(03:48):
So that's our focus is those kids who just maybe
have something a roadblock maybe in the way. We try
to remove those barriers for them and help them have
opportunities to play, excel and make it to whatever that
next step is after high school.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So you got together came up with the idea of
the Hardball Academy. So what is your mission? What do
you really want to accomplish?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
What we want to do is make good citizens, you know,
and make sure that we have youth that are on
the right pathway to be successful in their lives and
actually be able to pursue their goals. And we want
them to have a plan, and we help them kind
of lay out a roadmap to help accomplish those goals
(04:29):
and help accomplish those milestones, define those milestones, and see
if they can actually accomplish each step of the way
to actually reach their reach their goal, and reach their potential.
So that's probably in a nutshell kind of what our
mission is.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And we do that using base on softballs to condo
it to help them achieve those goals. So as much
as I would like to think people are you know,
sixteen year old, you know high school kids want to
just hang out with us and do financial education using
base on softballs kind of that catch to get them
in the door and then being able to help them
learn about life skills really is our goal through Pittsburgh
(05:07):
Harball Academy, So making baseball and softball not only accessible,
but then helping those kids once they're in the academy
really achieve their goals in life.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
How unique is your organization? It's very unique. You know,
travel programs are mostly for profit organizations. I mean it's
big business. It's very lucrative business. So you know, I
don't not for you, guys. No, no, it really isn't.
And you know, I don't fault people for trying to
(05:36):
make a living and there's a demand out there, there's
a huge demand. We're one of the only and I'm
not aware of any others of a nonprofit travel organization,
and we don't necessarily like to label ourselves as a
travel organization. You know, we are pretty clear with potential
(05:58):
members of our programs, say, hey, if you're just looking
for a travel team, because there are a lot of
people out there hunting for travel teams, maybe they didn't
have a good experience on our last travel team. They
jump to the next travel team, and this is kind
of you get a sort of a transient type of environment.
We say, if baseball is going to be the most
important part of this, this program's not for you. I mean,
(06:20):
we are a three hundred and sixty degree program where
we're developing character, we're developing athletic academics, social skills, and
we want to have full engagement. Now, we don't want
you just to show up on the weekends and play
in these tournaments. We want you to go to point
Park Universities and participate in the programming that we have
(06:41):
partnered with them through the Chuck Cooper Josh Gibson Center
for Equity and Education. We have very structured programs. We
have financial education, as Nelson mentioned, we do social media mentoring,
making sure that I mean this is very important using technology.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
One one of the most important things that we do
in our program as well is called the Coaching Boys
into Men curriculum, and so that curriculum is really not
only about citizenship, but specifically around sexual violence, and it's
targeted for middle school high school boys, and also we
use it for our young adults who have graduated through
the academy who are back coaching or really helping them
understand the proper way to view and talk about women
(07:26):
and the proper way to engage with not just women
but with anyone in respectful manner. So that's something that
we really emphasize in our program because obviously sports and
quote unquote locker room talk is something that you know,
sometimes gets normalized, but we try to make sure like
we need to be respectful.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Especially if somebody has aspirations those kind of road bumps,
like if you're a mistake on social media could cost
that person an opportunity and just a little bit of
common sense could go a long way. Now, I've got
absolutely I've got a million different questions about your organization,
but I don't want to get too far without mentioning
you have something coming up in just a couple of
(08:04):
weeks that you're looking for help, so tell us more
about that.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So just like on the point that we're making, so
our organization is pretty broad. So we as we're talking
about the mentoring and doing a lot of those things,
and we have travel teams. One of the things that
our travel teams are doing our high school teams. We're
going to Washington, d C. From July thirty first through
August third. We're going to be going to visit a
(08:27):
few of the museums and including the African American Heritage
Museum in DC. We're then going to do a showcase
camp at Georgetown University, so tour the school and then
play games. There's gonna be about ten college coaches there.
We're gonna do that Saturday and Sunday while we're down there,
and then Saturday evening, thanks to generous donation for P
and C Bank, we're going to be also attending the
(08:48):
Washington Nationals game in the suite down there. So it's
going to be really neat experience for our kids. So
not only getting you know, as we're talking about and hitting,
that's our program. In effect, we're bringing them out of town.
They're going to get some edge cation, they're going to
see colleges, they're going to get opportunity to showcase in
front of Division one, division two, division three, all different
types of schools, and get a neat experience of going
(09:08):
to MLB games. So really great trip that we're going on,
and it's going to be our first trip that we're
taking in our new fifteen passenger van that we are receiving.
The van was made possible by a grant from the
P and C Charitable Trust as well as from Number
one Cochrane who ordered the van, delivered the van and
(09:31):
then is putting together a really nice package for us
to be able to have the van available for our kids.
So it's going to be a really neat trip that
we're taken.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So you really rely on a lot of the community
corporations to help you accomplish we do. So if somebody
is interested in maybe helping you out what's what's the protocol?
What do they need to do?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, so right on our website there's a donation link.
We always ask people though, you know, if you're interested
in donating and donating, we'd love to connect with people
in a Julie maybe they can come check our programs
out in person, because one thing that's pretty unique about
our organization is that we're year round and we always
have our constituents. Our kids are always participating in programming.
(10:11):
So if they want to see it in action, if
they want to stop buy our facility on a Wednesday
at three point thirty during the summer, there's going to
be kids there as part of our summer programming going
on if they want to come to our games. So
we would advise people if you're interested in donating, to
either reach out to us. Our website is www dot
Pittsburgh Hardball dot org, and our social media were pretty
(10:32):
easy to find on Instagram, LinkedIn x at Pittsburgh Hardball
Academy or at PGH Underscore Hardball.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
All right, Brian, you mentioned this is kind of a
three sixty program. You want, it's a kind of a
holistic kind of attitude towards you know, it's not just
recruiting good baseball players. You want you ultimately want the
good people. You want good individuals, and so where does
it start. How do you recruit some of these? What's
what kind of outreach do you you guys participate in.
(11:01):
So we don't do so much recruiting per se. You know,
we try to be very explicit in our mission. We
have a very good social media presence. We try to
be very descriptive in our in our website content, so
people kind of understand what our mission is, what our
(11:23):
goals are, and then what we're looking for are like
minded potential members to join our program. So the way
we actually I guess quote unquote recruit will hold evaluations
or we'll send out expressions of interest forms say hey,
are you interested?
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Please check out our website, check out our social media.
Kind of understand what our mission is, and we'll put
the mission rate on the call for interest, you know,
email distributions that we do, and.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
What are the ages that you're looking to attract.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So what we've done this year we have teams that
are eleven you you know, ten eleven year olds all
the way up to eighteen and under. So we have
eight teams this year, but we also provide training clinics
at our facility that's annexed to the Shady Side Boys
(12:20):
and Girls Club as young as eight years old.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Oh wow, okay, and what kind of commitment are you
looking from these from these kids?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
So what we're looking for is we were looking for commitment,
We're looking for engagement.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
The the financial commitment is one thing and one thing
that we've always said, you know, Nelson and I, we're
never going to have, you know, finances be a barrier
to entry into our program.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
We have so for just real quick so for reference
on that. If we have multiple layers of our program.
But someone, I think we're talking about our travel teams.
Someone want to be on a travel team. Are costs
for the entire years nine hundred dollars and that would
cover all training, all tournaments, showcases. You get scholarships for showcases, jerseys.
(13:09):
This trip to DC that we're talking about, we do
a lot of different trips. We've into Boston, Louisville, and
North Carolina. All those things are covered as a part
of participating in the academy. So you know, if kids
need equipment like anything, they need a baseball if they
come to us, we'll take care of that. So we
value that on if you put it at a cost,
(13:30):
not that cost us. Excuse me, how to market value
of that. It's probably about eight eighty five hundred dollars
per kid per year to go through our program, so
it's very inexpensive for them. And we still even with
the nine hundred dollars, there are several families that are
scholarship payment plans. We just that's why we fundraise to
make sure that every kid that's interested in participating has
(13:50):
that opportunity to participate in the part.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So how many kids are participating in any given year?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, so are on our travel teams each It depends
on age group, right Younger groups probably have twelve kids.
Older groups have more. But right now we have about
one hundred and five players that are participating on our teams.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Is it boys and girls or just boys?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Just boys on our teams today if you include our
different training opportunities that we have and so our pro
like I was mentioning, we have teams, but then we
have a lot of other programming for members of our organization,
so they're not on a team. We have training, we
have clinics. We're starting to do lessons as well, and
then we have community memberships as well, so local rec
(14:28):
organizations for example, like Morningside Softball is a rec organization
or Swiss Field Softball that we allow it to utilize
our facility and actually provide coaches to help coach them.
It's been a great partnership with the University Pittsburgh Women's
Fast Pitch, like their girls come out and help coach
these these girls. They do great jobs. If you include
all of those different youth who get the opportunity to
participate in some type of hardball programming outside of our teams,
(14:51):
we have about three hundred and fifty to four hundred
on an annual basis that participate.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
That's amazing, that's fantastic. All right, give me a step
by step, all right, so you end out a letter
of interest and what kind of what's the step what
is that person going to experience? What are the options
for that person?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So they'll they'll return their expression of interest for them,
you know, they'll complete it. And so we're we're actually
right in the middle of evaluations right now, so we
were conducting those this.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Is there a deadline for submissions or.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
There there there is, you know, there's a lot of
other organizations out there. They typically do their evaluations June July,
not much later than that because, if you know, we
have very limited spots, and we had over two hundred
expressions of interest in our program for this upcoming twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
That's just for the teams.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah, that's just for the teams. And so we have
our existing rosters, you know, some of those most of
those kids are coming back. So there's very few limited
spots available on our teams. But we had over two hundred.
So we'll take a look at the expressions of interest
and then what we have are all these different evaluations
at different fields across the city. We have Josh Gibson
(16:09):
Field up in the Hill District where we do our
twelve you know, our ELEVENU our twelve year you tryouts.
We have Mellon Field on the East end. We have
Officer Kelly Memorial Field up in Stanton Heights. That's my
old field that I grew up playing at. I grew
up in Stanton Heights. And we go through an evaluation
(16:30):
and see which kids actually show some skill set to
actually be part of our program, and then we get
a chance to talk to the kids, We get a
chance to talk to parents, guardians and just kind of gauge,
you know, whether or not this is going to be
a good fit for them because it is a year
round commitment, and that's what we're looking for. Because Nelson
and I are our amazing staff. We put a lot
(16:53):
of effort, energy, passion into what we do and we
expect that in return, we want see that same passion,
that same commitment, that same energy and effort back into
our program. We're looking for buying.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
And you know, for this what I'd want to add
and for this year and what we're doing. We've done
this in the past as well, but really ramping up
for this year. We want to make sure there's a
competitive nature of making a team a travel team. Our
teams are pretty competitive. We've had a lot of players
go to college. Over fifty players have gotten college commitments
through participating in Pittsburgh Harball academy've had players drafted, but
(17:30):
not every single player is high level and that's okay,
and that's that's fine, and so that's why we are
really opening our doors to the memberships at our Shady
Side facility and our homestep facility and say, you know what,
maybe you don't have the skill today, or maybe you
don't want to do a year on travel program. That's okay.
And that's one thing that's missing from youth baseball today
(17:52):
is there are kids out there that want to train
and get better, that don't necessarily want to pay one
hundred dollars for a lesson, but they do want to
be more competitive for their high school because maybe basketball
is and everyone's sport, but they still like playing baseball
and they still want to train and get better, but
they don't necessarily want to play on a travel team.
We want to serve that market as well and make
sure any kid that wants to participate in baseball that
(18:13):
there's at least training opportunities for them. So they may
not make our team, but hey, you can still train
with us, you can still participate, and you can still
get better at baseball.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
You have a variety of what you may say as
a success. If somebody gets they may not be on
the travel team, but they you've given them an opportunity
to get better at a team or reach college even
though they may not pursue athletics at all. Correct, But
you also have had you mentioned you've had players drafted.
(18:41):
Can you tell us a little bit about those successes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So the player, the player that we had drafted, who
he participated on one of our travel teams. His name
is Derek Tarpley. He actually forewent the draft, so he's drafted,
but decided to go to University of Pittsburgh. So he'll
be a junior University of Pittsburgh this year. But amazing
story from Brownsville. And so that's something that as we
talk about underrepresented. It's not just inner city, right, Brownsville
(19:05):
is not exactly New York City, but a really nice
community out there, and he was a great player in
the whole community rallied around him, and we became aware
of him through a couple people reached out and said, hey,
there's a kid in Brownsville you guys should probably connect with.
And he joined our program and you could tell immediately
he's very talented. And I remember our first conversation with
his parents where like, we can't promise anything, but we
(19:27):
can promise he'll get some exposure. That's the only thing
that we can definitely promise you. We don't know if
that leads to college, if that leads to whatever. But
it ended up, you know, obviously working out for him
where he's now at University of Pittsburgh, but was drafted
by the Oakland Athletics. But the other, the other one
that we claim, he did not play for us because
the organization did not exist yet. But I think it's
(19:47):
fair to claim Brian's son, Tanner Jacobson as our other
draft pick. Brian could speak a little.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Bit, and Nelson and I did coach him.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
We did coach him. We coached him, We did coach him.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, right, all right, so tell us about the So.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
So, Tanner's a graduate of the Pittsburgh Public school system.
He went to Alderdyce High School. And you know, he
showed some talent, you know, he was he was pretty
pretty talented baseball wise. He always had a passion for baseball.
You know, I never had to force him to do
any practices, workouts. He was always at the field. He
(20:21):
was kind of what you call field rat. And to
my point earlier, where you know they say they say
that if you have the talent, they will find you,
well they weren't finding Tanner. So you know, you need
to have some advocates out there. So he had an advocate,
(20:41):
you know, he went through another travel organization that he played.
He worked out with for one year, you know, because
my son said, Hey, I need to try to figure
this thing out. I'm not getting many offers. I want
to play baseball. This is a dream of mine. And
you know, and I didn't have any dissillusion is like, oh,
my son's the greatest ballplayer. He's going to be pro.
(21:03):
I knew he had some talent, and I knew he
was at the capability of playing at the next level.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
He you know, offers weren't you know, flooding in the
mailbox by any stretch. So he worked out with this
local travel organization you know, in the suburbs, and the
coach there, one of the owner operators, knew of a
college coach that was starting a new NC double A
baseball program in Charlotte, North Carolina. He gave him a
(21:32):
call and said, Hey, I have a sky up here.
He's under the radar city kid. I think he can
pitch for you. He said, absolutely, I haven't come down
and you know, have us check him out. So he
went to Charlotte, North Carolina and it was Queen's University
of Charlotte. The head coach was Jack McDowell from the
from the White Sox. He was a Cyang Award winning
(21:53):
pitcher and they said, yeah, we want him. And that's
that's how it went. You just needed that one connection,
that one advocate on his behalf. And that's what we're
trying to be for our kids. You know, talent alone,
they're just not going to always find you. You know,
sometimes they'll find you, but you need to have that advocate.
(22:14):
And you mentioned this is year round. This program is
year round. This is year round, but this is your
full time jobs. No, no, no, So it's it's one
of them. It's certainly one of them.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Because I remember talking to Nelson. It was like, you know,
he told me what you know, everything that he does.
I was like, how do you find time to do this?
But you obviously you both have a passion for this.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
And I think I at this point either Starbucks or
Celsius should give me an il deal for my consumption someone.
But but no, it's it's a passion. It's a it's
a passion project for us, and we have grown to
the When Brian and I started our first team with Hardball,
(23:01):
we had fourteen players, and it was that and we've
grown every year to now we have eight teams and
all these kids that participate in different programming. There's actually
I've asked some of the kids. I'm like, hey, do
you know who like started hardball? And they have no idea,
which is great. So it's actually become a thing that
it's not just oh, it's Nelson and Brian. It's become
a real organization. And to that point this year, formerly
(23:23):
I have a full five person board of directors with
our five oh one C three. We also have an
eight person advisory board, Community and Corporate Advisory board that
helps guide, you know, the direction of the organization. And
we've also brought on an alumni advisory board as well
to keep kids who have graduated. I guess they're not
kids anymore, but kids who have graduated engage with our program.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
That's that's great that now that you've been around long enough,
which isn't all that long, you have people who have
who graduated and in turn see the value of your
organization that is helping out.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
You know, it's it's Nate. We're training the next generation
of youth advocates, mentors and coaches.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
You couldn't possibly do what you do without some sort
of sponsorship. So is there any particular organizations or corporations
that are really really helping you lift some of the weight?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
You know, I'll address this one. You know, a lot
of this couldn't be possible at least our growth couldn't
necessarily be possible, our scalability wouldn't be possible without P
and C Charitable Trust. I mean that was you know,
they provided the seed grant that really helped us catapult
(24:38):
this organization to the next level. And then there's several
other foundations that have really been generous United Way, there's
been individuals that are benefactors of ours that really believe
in our mission that are very generous, and a lot
of those have ties with P and C Bank. We've
(24:58):
had a lot of support from the Grabel Foundation.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
UPMC has been in large supporter. Coppers Dick's Sporting Goods
is one of the largest supporters as well. They helped
us renovate the indoor space, and one of our largest
partners and supporters and is the Boys and Girls Clubs
of Western Pennsylvania as well. Our facilities annexed there. We
have a kind of long term agreement with them to
do that, and they've been super helpful and supportive, and
(25:26):
I feel like I'm leaving folks out. It's on our website,
but there's it couldn't be done without the support of
the corporate community. And we've had some sports teams here
as well. You know, Pittsburgh Penguins have been a huge
support of our organization as well, both through donations and
some partnership programs that we do with with their different
(25:47):
programming there.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
What's what's neat about the Penguins Foundation. You know, the
Penguins are owned by Fenway Fenway Group, So we had
a annual trip to Boston for the past two years,
and there's an organization in Boston called The Base very
similar programs.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Boston't have any professional teams.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
No, very few. So what's what's neat is that there's
a an organization in Boston, the Base, that invited us
to come to one of their annual programs, and the
Penguins Foundation connected us with the Fenway Group that got
us tickets to a Red Sox game and a private
(26:29):
tour of the Green Monster.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
So our kids had an amazing time.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
And the Red Sox Foundation some of the folks in
their community engagement have still stayed involved and we communicate
on social media and stuff like that, so they have
been a big supporter as well.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
So do you have time to do any fundraisers? And
if you do, what what do you do you have
anything like that?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
That's one thing that I think now that we have
a board and an advisory committee that are going to
be helpful with that. We've do like an annual like
Giving Tuesday campaign which has yielded really good results. And
we've done some like traditional fundraisers like raffle tickets and
things of that nature. But a lot of our funding
has come from grants or from having opportunities like this
(27:08):
on your show. I know we got a lot of
different opportunities last year from participating on this show and
getting some exposure where people reached out and we're interested
in supporting our mission.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
All Right, we only have a couple of minutes left,
so let's kind of okay.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I do want to I do want to give a
shout out to our to our original initial fiscal sponsor,
the Poise Foundation, Mark Lewis and the Poise Foundation. It
kind of were our mentors getting into this nonprofit space,
so I thought that would just be noteworthy to give them.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
A shout out. All right, we only have about a
minute and before half left, so let's kind of tell
us what your organization is and what what do you
want the community to do to help you succeed.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
So our organization Youth Advocacy. You know, we are intently
focused on underrepresented youth in the inner city of Pittsburgh
and beyond. And what we would like is, you know,
visit our website, you know, visit our social media, you know,
support us in any way possible. You know, it doesn't
necessarily need to be financial. It could also be Hey,
(28:14):
if you're someone that can help, you know, provide some
sort of presentation to our youth and explain what you
do in your career to introduce them to something new.
That's something that we're always willing to open the door
for as well.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And we're very creative on ways people can get involved.
Like we want to expose, as Brian said, the youth
to any type of avenue that they may not have
been aware of in the past. So if it's someone
that's the owner of a business that say, hey, we're
looking for interns, We've had that actually happen. We have
a kid who's interning with an AI company this summer.
So any type of idea that they think that could
(28:51):
be beneficial to any type of youth is something that
we're definitely interested in.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
All right, So if somebody wants more information, what's the
website and how else can they contact?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
It's www dot Pittsburgh Hardball dot org. You can meet
us via email at contact at Pittsburgh Haardball dot org.
You could probably just google my name or Brian's name,
and I'm sure our information's out there somewhere. And then
on social media, we're on LinkedIn, Twitter or x Facebook, Instagram,
and it's Pittsburgh Hardball Academy on all this platforms.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Very good, This is this has been a pleasure. Brian
Jacobson and Nelson Cooper of Pittsburgh Hardball Academy. Once again.
The website, it's Pittsburgh Hardball dot org. Nelson, Brian, thank
you so much, and good luck, Thank you, thank you,
thanks for having us. As always, if you have any comments, concerns,
or an idea for a future program, please email us
from this radio station's website. I'm Johnny Hartwell, thank you
(29:43):
so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
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Speaker 1 (30:01):
I'm Bonnie Diver inviting you to the twentieth Annual Recipe
for Hope with twenty TV and radio celebrities wearing aprons
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You'll be supporting Western Pennsylvania women and girls battling cancer.
Get your tickets and more information at our website hairpeace
(30:23):
dot org. That's hair Peace, Peace
And welcome in. This is a public affairs program shedding
the light on the issues and concerns o the Greater
Pittsburgh AIA. Good morning. My name is Johnny heart Well,
your host. Today's topic is Pittsburgh Hardball Academy, a nonprofit
youth advocacy organization that strives to enrich the lives of
under representative youth in the Greater Pittsburgh area via baseball
and softball. Let's say hello to Nelson Cooper, executive director.
(00:29):
Good to see you, against We'll.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
See you as well. I'm doing well and.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
This is my first time meeting Brian Jacobson, President and
co founder of the Hardball Academy. Good to meet you.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
How are you good to meet you? I'm well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Let's start with the history of the Hardball Academy. How
did it start? Let's start with Brian. So it started
in twenty twenty. Nelson and I work together in community baseball.
We really wanted to work with underrepresented youth and actually
bring a level playing field to the youth of the
city of Pittsburgh and the immediate surrounding areas. All right,
(01:02):
so you were a coach, you're both coaches, and how
how did you work started working together? What did you
do prior to working together? So we both coached together.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
We met in twenty eighteen coaching at the Shady Side
Boys and Girls Club. Actually, so we coached a local
rec team with the Shady Side Boys and Girls Club,
which is funny, it comes full circle. Our facility now,
the Pittsburgh Hardball Academy Training Performance Center, is actually at
the Shady Side Boys and Girls Club, so it kind
of came full circle for us. We were able to
open that indoor facility there. But we got involved. We
(01:33):
actually met a Steel Cactus, I believe if you remember
the Mexican restaurant, Steel Cat.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Restaurant right outside of P and C Park, Okay, yeah,
or it's annexed to P and C Park.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah right, yeah, And so we got involved there and
started coaching together. And it was my I was just
right out of college, so I was trying to get
back into the game. Met Brian and then started coaching together,
and in twenty twenty we kind of saw this was
late twenty nineteen. Actually, we had a group of kids
who are really talented but just needed some help not
only on the field and training and maybe didn't have
(02:05):
the resources to play on travel teams or to really
get exposure to college, but also off the field, really
having that mentorship and guidance to help them. Okay, so
you got to offer from a college, what do you
do now or how do I even solicit to offer? Okay,
how do I go through the faster process? Do I
do the sat all those different things that go into
that process that maybe our kids in the city or
that are underrepresented just don't have the same opportunity.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
They may have the skill set, but they don't have
the You know, I would know what to do if I, boy,
if I had like a pro quality talent. But you know,
it's not just having talent. There's a lot to go
goes with that too.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And that's absolutely right. You know, there's a saying out
there where people say, if you have the talent, they
will find you, meaning college coaches, pro scouts. That's not
so true. You know, there's not many college scouts, not
many pro scouts that are looking through the Pittsburgh public
school system for high level baseball players. You know, the
(03:03):
level of play is kind of gone a little bit downhill.
You know, the popularity of baseball has gone downhill. In
the inner city. So you need to have an advocate,
and so we serve as that advocate for the youth
and making sure that we provide them a platform that
I'll actually get them on the radar of college scouts
and you know, you know, hopefully pro scouts.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And we use the term underrepresented, meaning not only kids
that are maybe from a financial means underrepresented, that don't
have the means to maybe play on a travel team,
but also kids who just don't have that advocate. So
maybe they're playing in a school district where baseball is
not super popular, or of course in baseball, African Americans
are completely underrepresented relative to other races that play baseball.
(03:48):
So that's our focus is those kids who just maybe
have something a roadblock maybe in the way. We try
to remove those barriers for them and help them have
opportunities to play, excel and make it to whatever that
next step is after high school.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So you got together came up with the idea of
the Hardball Academy. So what is your mission? What do
you really want to accomplish?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
What we want to do is make good citizens, you know,
and make sure that we have youth that are on
the right pathway to be successful in their lives and
actually be able to pursue their goals. And we want
them to have a plan, and we help them kind
of lay out a roadmap to help accomplish those goals
(04:29):
and help accomplish those milestones, define those milestones, and see
if they can actually accomplish each step of the way
to actually reach their reach their goal, and reach their potential.
So that's probably in a nutshell kind of what our
mission is.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And we do that using base on softballs to condo
it to help them achieve those goals. So as much
as I would like to think people are you know,
sixteen year old, you know high school kids want to
just hang out with us and do financial education using
base on softballs kind of that catch to get them
in the door and then being able to help them
learn about life skills really is our goal through Pittsburgh
(05:07):
Harball Academy, So making baseball and softball not only accessible,
but then helping those kids once they're in the academy
really achieve their goals in life.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
How unique is your organization? It's very unique. You know,
travel programs are mostly for profit organizations. I mean it's
big business. It's very lucrative business. So you know, I
don't not for you, guys. No, no, it really isn't.
And you know, I don't fault people for trying to
(05:36):
make a living and there's a demand out there, there's
a huge demand. We're one of the only and I'm
not aware of any others of a nonprofit travel organization,
and we don't necessarily like to label ourselves as a
travel organization. You know, we are pretty clear with potential
(05:58):
members of our programs, say, hey, if you're just looking
for a travel team, because there are a lot of
people out there hunting for travel teams, maybe they didn't
have a good experience on our last travel team. They
jump to the next travel team, and this is kind
of you get a sort of a transient type of environment.
We say, if baseball is going to be the most
important part of this, this program's not for you. I mean,
(06:20):
we are a three hundred and sixty degree program where
we're developing character, we're developing athletic academics, social skills, and
we want to have full engagement. Now, we don't want
you just to show up on the weekends and play
in these tournaments. We want you to go to point
Park Universities and participate in the programming that we have
(06:41):
partnered with them through the Chuck Cooper Josh Gibson Center
for Equity and Education. We have very structured programs. We
have financial education, as Nelson mentioned, we do social media mentoring,
making sure that I mean this is very important using technology.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
One one of the most important things that we do
in our program as well is called the Coaching Boys
into Men curriculum, and so that curriculum is really not
only about citizenship, but specifically around sexual violence, and it's
targeted for middle school high school boys, and also we
use it for our young adults who have graduated through
the academy who are back coaching or really helping them
understand the proper way to view and talk about women
(07:26):
and the proper way to engage with not just women
but with anyone in respectful manner. So that's something that
we really emphasize in our program because obviously sports and
quote unquote locker room talk is something that you know,
sometimes gets normalized, but we try to make sure like
we need to be respectful.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Especially if somebody has aspirations those kind of road bumps,
like if you're a mistake on social media could cost
that person an opportunity and just a little bit of
common sense could go a long way. Now, I've got
absolutely I've got a million different questions about your organization,
but I don't want to get too far without mentioning
you have something coming up in just a couple of
(08:04):
weeks that you're looking for help, so tell us more
about that.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So just like on the point that we're making, so
our organization is pretty broad. So we as we're talking
about the mentoring and doing a lot of those things,
and we have travel teams. One of the things that
our travel teams are doing our high school teams. We're
going to Washington, d C. From July thirty first through
August third. We're going to be going to visit a
(08:27):
few of the museums and including the African American Heritage
Museum in DC. We're then going to do a showcase
camp at Georgetown University, so tour the school and then
play games. There's gonna be about ten college coaches there.
We're gonna do that Saturday and Sunday while we're down there,
and then Saturday evening, thanks to generous donation for P
and C Bank, we're going to be also attending the
(08:48):
Washington Nationals game in the suite down there. So it's
going to be really neat experience for our kids. So
not only getting you know, as we're talking about and hitting,
that's our program. In effect, we're bringing them out of town.
They're going to get some edge cation, they're going to
see colleges, they're going to get opportunity to showcase in
front of Division one, division two, division three, all different
types of schools, and get a neat experience of going
(09:08):
to MLB games. So really great trip that we're going on,
and it's going to be our first trip that we're
taking in our new fifteen passenger van that we are receiving.
The van was made possible by a grant from the
P and C Charitable Trust as well as from Number
one Cochrane who ordered the van, delivered the van and
(09:31):
then is putting together a really nice package for us
to be able to have the van available for our kids.
So it's going to be a really neat trip that
we're taken.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So you really rely on a lot of the community
corporations to help you accomplish we do. So if somebody
is interested in maybe helping you out what's what's the protocol?
What do they need to do?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, so right on our website there's a donation link.
We always ask people though, you know, if you're interested
in donating and donating, we'd love to connect with people
in a Julie maybe they can come check our programs
out in person, because one thing that's pretty unique about
our organization is that we're year round and we always
have our constituents. Our kids are always participating in programming.
(10:11):
So if they want to see it in action, if
they want to stop buy our facility on a Wednesday
at three point thirty during the summer, there's going to
be kids there as part of our summer programming going
on if they want to come to our games. So
we would advise people if you're interested in donating, to
either reach out to us. Our website is www dot
Pittsburgh Hardball dot org, and our social media were pretty
(10:32):
easy to find on Instagram, LinkedIn x at Pittsburgh Hardball
Academy or at PGH Underscore Hardball.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
All right, Brian, you mentioned this is kind of a
three sixty program. You want, it's a kind of a
holistic kind of attitude towards you know, it's not just
recruiting good baseball players. You want you ultimately want the
good people. You want good individuals, and so where does
it start. How do you recruit some of these? What's
what kind of outreach do you you guys participate in.
(11:01):
So we don't do so much recruiting per se. You know,
we try to be very explicit in our mission. We
have a very good social media presence. We try to
be very descriptive in our in our website content, so
people kind of understand what our mission is, what our
(11:23):
goals are, and then what we're looking for are like
minded potential members to join our program. So the way
we actually I guess quote unquote recruit will hold evaluations
or we'll send out expressions of interest forms say hey,
are you interested?
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Please check out our website, check out our social media.
Kind of understand what our mission is, and we'll put
the mission rate on the call for interest, you know,
email distributions that we do, and.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
What are the ages that you're looking to attract.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So what we've done this year we have teams that
are eleven you you know, ten eleven year olds all
the way up to eighteen and under. So we have
eight teams this year, but we also provide training clinics
at our facility that's annexed to the Shady Side Boys
(12:20):
and Girls Club as young as eight years old.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Oh wow, okay, and what kind of commitment are you
looking from these from these kids?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
So what we're looking for is we were looking for commitment,
We're looking for engagement.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
The the financial commitment is one thing and one thing
that we've always said, you know, Nelson and I, we're
never going to have, you know, finances be a barrier
to entry into our program.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
We have so for just real quick so for reference
on that. If we have multiple layers of our program.
But someone, I think we're talking about our travel teams.
Someone want to be on a travel team. Are costs
for the entire years nine hundred dollars and that would
cover all training, all tournaments, showcases. You get scholarships for showcases, jerseys.
(13:09):
This trip to DC that we're talking about, we do
a lot of different trips. We've into Boston, Louisville, and
North Carolina. All those things are covered as a part
of participating in the academy. So you know, if kids
need equipment like anything, they need a baseball if they
come to us, we'll take care of that. So we
value that on if you put it at a cost,
(13:30):
not that cost us. Excuse me, how to market value
of that. It's probably about eight eighty five hundred dollars
per kid per year to go through our program, so
it's very inexpensive for them. And we still even with
the nine hundred dollars, there are several families that are
scholarship payment plans. We just that's why we fundraise to
make sure that every kid that's interested in participating has
(13:50):
that opportunity to participate in the part.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So how many kids are participating in any given year?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, so are on our travel teams each It depends
on age group, right Younger groups probably have twelve kids.
Older groups have more. But right now we have about
one hundred and five players that are participating on our teams.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Is it boys and girls or just boys?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Just boys on our teams today if you include our
different training opportunities that we have and so our pro
like I was mentioning, we have teams, but then we
have a lot of other programming for members of our organization,
so they're not on a team. We have training, we
have clinics. We're starting to do lessons as well, and
then we have community memberships as well, so local rec
(14:28):
organizations for example, like Morningside Softball is a rec organization
or Swiss Field Softball that we allow it to utilize
our facility and actually provide coaches to help coach them.
It's been a great partnership with the University Pittsburgh Women's
Fast Pitch, like their girls come out and help coach
these these girls. They do great jobs. If you include
all of those different youth who get the opportunity to
participate in some type of hardball programming outside of our teams,
(14:51):
we have about three hundred and fifty to four hundred
on an annual basis that participate.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
That's amazing, that's fantastic. All right, give me a step
by step, all right, so you end out a letter
of interest and what kind of what's the step what
is that person going to experience? What are the options
for that person?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So they'll they'll return their expression of interest for them,
you know, they'll complete it. And so we're we're actually
right in the middle of evaluations right now, so we
were conducting those this.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Is there a deadline for submissions or.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
There there there is, you know, there's a lot of
other organizations out there. They typically do their evaluations June July,
not much later than that because, if you know, we
have very limited spots, and we had over two hundred
expressions of interest in our program for this upcoming twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
That's just for the teams.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah, that's just for the teams. And so we have
our existing rosters, you know, some of those most of
those kids are coming back. So there's very few limited
spots available on our teams. But we had over two hundred.
So we'll take a look at the expressions of interest
and then what we have are all these different evaluations
at different fields across the city. We have Josh Gibson
(16:09):
Field up in the Hill District where we do our
twelve you know, our ELEVENU our twelve year you tryouts.
We have Mellon Field on the East end. We have
Officer Kelly Memorial Field up in Stanton Heights. That's my
old field that I grew up playing at. I grew
up in Stanton Heights. And we go through an evaluation
(16:30):
and see which kids actually show some skill set to
actually be part of our program, and then we get
a chance to talk to the kids, We get a
chance to talk to parents, guardians and just kind of gauge,
you know, whether or not this is going to be
a good fit for them because it is a year
round commitment, and that's what we're looking for. Because Nelson
and I are our amazing staff. We put a lot
(16:53):
of effort, energy, passion into what we do and we
expect that in return, we want see that same passion,
that same commitment, that same energy and effort back into
our program. We're looking for buying.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
And you know, for this what I'd want to add
and for this year and what we're doing. We've done
this in the past as well, but really ramping up
for this year. We want to make sure there's a
competitive nature of making a team a travel team. Our
teams are pretty competitive. We've had a lot of players
go to college. Over fifty players have gotten college commitments
through participating in Pittsburgh Harball academy've had players drafted, but
(17:30):
not every single player is high level and that's okay,
and that's that's fine, and so that's why we are
really opening our doors to the memberships at our Shady
Side facility and our homestep facility and say, you know what,
maybe you don't have the skill today, or maybe you
don't want to do a year on travel program. That's okay.
And that's one thing that's missing from youth baseball today
(17:52):
is there are kids out there that want to train
and get better, that don't necessarily want to pay one
hundred dollars for a lesson, but they do want to
be more competitive for their high school because maybe basketball
is and everyone's sport, but they still like playing baseball
and they still want to train and get better, but
they don't necessarily want to play on a travel team.
We want to serve that market as well and make
sure any kid that wants to participate in baseball that
(18:13):
there's at least training opportunities for them. So they may
not make our team, but hey, you can still train
with us, you can still participate, and you can still
get better at baseball.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
You have a variety of what you may say as
a success. If somebody gets they may not be on
the travel team, but they you've given them an opportunity
to get better at a team or reach college even
though they may not pursue athletics at all. Correct, But
you also have had you mentioned you've had players drafted.
(18:41):
Can you tell us a little bit about those successes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So the player, the player that we had drafted, who
he participated on one of our travel teams. His name
is Derek Tarpley. He actually forewent the draft, so he's drafted,
but decided to go to University of Pittsburgh. So he'll
be a junior University of Pittsburgh this year. But amazing
story from Brownsville. And so that's something that as we
talk about underrepresented. It's not just inner city, right, Brownsville
(19:05):
is not exactly New York City, but a really nice
community out there, and he was a great player in
the whole community rallied around him, and we became aware
of him through a couple people reached out and said, hey,
there's a kid in Brownsville you guys should probably connect with.
And he joined our program and you could tell immediately
he's very talented. And I remember our first conversation with
his parents where like, we can't promise anything, but we
(19:27):
can promise he'll get some exposure. That's the only thing
that we can definitely promise you. We don't know if
that leads to college, if that leads to whatever. But
it ended up, you know, obviously working out for him
where he's now at University of Pittsburgh, but was drafted
by the Oakland Athletics. But the other, the other one
that we claim, he did not play for us because
the organization did not exist yet. But I think it's
(19:47):
fair to claim Brian's son, Tanner Jacobson as our other
draft pick. Brian could speak a little.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Bit, and Nelson and I did coach him.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
We did coach him. We coached him, We did coach him.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, right, all right, so tell us about the So.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
So, Tanner's a graduate of the Pittsburgh Public school system.
He went to Alderdyce High School. And you know, he
showed some talent, you know, he was he was pretty
pretty talented baseball wise. He always had a passion for baseball.
You know, I never had to force him to do
any practices, workouts. He was always at the field. He
(20:21):
was kind of what you call field rat. And to
my point earlier, where you know they say they say
that if you have the talent, they will find you,
well they weren't finding Tanner. So you know, you need
to have some advocates out there. So he had an advocate,
(20:41):
you know, he went through another travel organization that he played.
He worked out with for one year, you know, because
my son said, Hey, I need to try to figure
this thing out. I'm not getting many offers. I want
to play baseball. This is a dream of mine. And
you know, and I didn't have any dissillusion is like, oh,
my son's the greatest ballplayer. He's going to be pro.
(21:03):
I knew he had some talent, and I knew he
was at the capability of playing at the next level.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
He you know, offers weren't you know, flooding in the
mailbox by any stretch. So he worked out with this
local travel organization you know, in the suburbs, and the
coach there, one of the owner operators, knew of a
college coach that was starting a new NC double A
baseball program in Charlotte, North Carolina. He gave him a
(21:32):
call and said, Hey, I have a sky up here.
He's under the radar city kid. I think he can
pitch for you. He said, absolutely, I haven't come down
and you know, have us check him out. So he
went to Charlotte, North Carolina and it was Queen's University
of Charlotte. The head coach was Jack McDowell from the
from the White Sox. He was a Cyang Award winning
(21:53):
pitcher and they said, yeah, we want him. And that's
that's how it went. You just needed that one connection,
that one advocate on his behalf. And that's what we're
trying to be for our kids. You know, talent alone,
they're just not going to always find you. You know,
sometimes they'll find you, but you need to have that advocate.
(22:14):
And you mentioned this is year round. This program is
year round. This is year round, but this is your
full time jobs. No, no, no, So it's it's one
of them. It's certainly one of them.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Because I remember talking to Nelson. It was like, you know,
he told me what you know, everything that he does.
I was like, how do you find time to do this?
But you obviously you both have a passion for this.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
And I think I at this point either Starbucks or
Celsius should give me an il deal for my consumption someone.
But but no, it's it's a passion. It's a it's
a passion project for us, and we have grown to
the When Brian and I started our first team with Hardball,
(23:01):
we had fourteen players, and it was that and we've
grown every year to now we have eight teams and
all these kids that participate in different programming. There's actually
I've asked some of the kids. I'm like, hey, do
you know who like started hardball? And they have no idea,
which is great. So it's actually become a thing that
it's not just oh, it's Nelson and Brian. It's become
a real organization. And to that point this year, formerly
(23:23):
I have a full five person board of directors with
our five oh one C three. We also have an
eight person advisory board, Community and Corporate Advisory board that
helps guide, you know, the direction of the organization. And
we've also brought on an alumni advisory board as well
to keep kids who have graduated. I guess they're not
kids anymore, but kids who have graduated engage with our program.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
That's that's great that now that you've been around long enough,
which isn't all that long, you have people who have
who graduated and in turn see the value of your
organization that is helping out.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
You know, it's it's Nate. We're training the next generation
of youth advocates, mentors and coaches.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
You couldn't possibly do what you do without some sort
of sponsorship. So is there any particular organizations or corporations
that are really really helping you lift some of the weight?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
You know, I'll address this one. You know, a lot
of this couldn't be possible at least our growth couldn't
necessarily be possible, our scalability wouldn't be possible without P
and C Charitable Trust. I mean that was you know,
they provided the seed grant that really helped us catapult
(24:38):
this organization to the next level. And then there's several
other foundations that have really been generous United Way, there's
been individuals that are benefactors of ours that really believe
in our mission that are very generous, and a lot
of those have ties with P and C Bank. We've
(24:58):
had a lot of support from the Grabel Foundation.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
UPMC has been in large supporter. Coppers Dick's Sporting Goods
is one of the largest supporters as well. They helped
us renovate the indoor space, and one of our largest
partners and supporters and is the Boys and Girls Clubs
of Western Pennsylvania as well. Our facilities annexed there. We
have a kind of long term agreement with them to
do that, and they've been super helpful and supportive, and
(25:26):
I feel like I'm leaving folks out. It's on our website,
but there's it couldn't be done without the support of
the corporate community. And we've had some sports teams here
as well. You know, Pittsburgh Penguins have been a huge
support of our organization as well, both through donations and
some partnership programs that we do with with their different
(25:47):
programming there.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
What's what's neat about the Penguins Foundation. You know, the
Penguins are owned by Fenway Fenway Group, So we had
a annual trip to Boston for the past two years,
and there's an organization in Boston called The Base very
similar programs.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Boston't have any professional teams.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
No, very few. So what's what's neat is that there's
a an organization in Boston, the Base, that invited us
to come to one of their annual programs, and the
Penguins Foundation connected us with the Fenway Group that got
us tickets to a Red Sox game and a private
(26:29):
tour of the Green Monster.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
So our kids had an amazing time.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
And the Red Sox Foundation some of the folks in
their community engagement have still stayed involved and we communicate
on social media and stuff like that, so they have
been a big supporter as well.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
So do you have time to do any fundraisers? And
if you do, what what do you do you have
anything like that?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
That's one thing that I think now that we have
a board and an advisory committee that are going to
be helpful with that. We've do like an annual like
Giving Tuesday campaign which has yielded really good results. And
we've done some like traditional fundraisers like raffle tickets and
things of that nature. But a lot of our funding
has come from grants or from having opportunities like this
(27:08):
on your show. I know we got a lot of
different opportunities last year from participating on this show and
getting some exposure where people reached out and we're interested
in supporting our mission.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
All Right, we only have a couple of minutes left,
so let's kind of okay.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I do want to I do want to give a
shout out to our to our original initial fiscal sponsor,
the Poise Foundation, Mark Lewis and the Poise Foundation. It
kind of were our mentors getting into this nonprofit space,
so I thought that would just be noteworthy to give them.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
A shout out. All right, we only have about a
minute and before half left, so let's kind of tell
us what your organization is and what what do you
want the community to do to help you succeed.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
So our organization Youth Advocacy. You know, we are intently
focused on underrepresented youth in the inner city of Pittsburgh
and beyond. And what we would like is, you know,
visit our website, you know, visit our social media, you know,
support us in any way possible. You know, it doesn't
necessarily need to be financial. It could also be Hey,
(28:14):
if you're someone that can help, you know, provide some
sort of presentation to our youth and explain what you
do in your career to introduce them to something new.
That's something that we're always willing to open the door
for as well.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And we're very creative on ways people can get involved.
Like we want to expose, as Brian said, the youth
to any type of avenue that they may not have
been aware of in the past. So if it's someone
that's the owner of a business that say, hey, we're
looking for interns, We've had that actually happen. We have
a kid who's interning with an AI company this summer.
So any type of idea that they think that could
(28:51):
be beneficial to any type of youth is something that
we're definitely interested in.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
All right, So if somebody wants more information, what's the
website and how else can they contact?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
It's www dot Pittsburgh Hardball dot org. You can meet
us via email at contact at Pittsburgh Haardball dot org.
You could probably just google my name or Brian's name,
and I'm sure our information's out there somewhere. And then
on social media, we're on LinkedIn, Twitter or x Facebook, Instagram,
and it's Pittsburgh Hardball Academy on all this platforms.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Very good, This is this has been a pleasure. Brian
Jacobson and Nelson Cooper of Pittsburgh Hardball Academy. Once again.
The website, it's Pittsburgh Hardball dot org. Nelson, Brian, thank
you so much, and good luck, Thank you, thank you,
thanks for having us. As always, if you have any comments, concerns,
or an idea for a future program, please email us
from this radio station's website. I'm Johnny Hartwell, thank you
(29:43):
so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Get ready for the most delicious event of the year.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
I'm Bonnie Diver inviting you to the twentieth Annual Recipe
for Hope with twenty TV and radio celebrities wearing aprons
and serving you their favorite dishes. It's Friday, August to
twenty second at the Merinick Center on Camp Hoorn Road.
You'll be supporting Western Pennsylvania women and girls battling cancer.
Get your tickets and more information at our website hairpeace
(30:23):
dot org. That's hair Peace, Peace
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