Rec Sports

Sliding mitts are baseball’s ‘must-have,’ even if at youth levels

Youth ballplayer Josiah Jones bats during a youth baseball game in Monroeville, Pa., with his sliding mitt in his back pocket on April 27, 2025. AP Photo | Gene J. Puskar PITTSBURGH — Andrew McCutchen hasn’t had the conversation with 7-year-old son Steel yet, but the Pittsburgh Pirates star knows it’s probably coming at some […]

Published

1 week ago

May 7, 2025

Your Sports Nation

134785152_web1_134785152-35551e1173774e6d9c67073d06790b16 — Youth ballplayer Josiah Jones bats during a youth baseball game in Monroeville, Pa., with his sliding mitt in his back pocket on April 27, 2025.

AP Photo | Gene J. Puskar

PITTSBURGH — Andrew McCutchen hasn’t had the conversation with 7-year-old son Steel yet, but the Pittsburgh Pirates star knows it’s probably coming at some point.

Steel, already playing in a youth baseball league, will probably come home at one point and ask his five-time All-Star father if he can have whatever hot item his teammates might be wearing during a given spring.

McCutchen plans to accommodate Steel up to a point. The oldest of McCutchen’s four children is already rocking an arm sleeve, just the way dad does.

Yet if Steel is hoping his father will spring for a sliding mitt — a padded glove a player can slip over one of their hands to protect it should the hand get stepped on while diving headfirst for a base — he probably shouldn’t get his hopes up.

McCutchen, who has stolen 220 bases at the major league level, has never worn one. And he’s quick to point out the next time the cleat of a fielder mashes his hand will also be the first.

Still, the 38-year-old understands. Once upon a time, he was a 20-something who epitomized baseball cool, from his dreadlocks (long since shorn) to his goatee to his rope chain to the occasional skull cap he wore underneath his batting helmet, all of it designed to accentuate McCutchen’s innate blend of talent and charisma.

“It’s all about the drip,” McCutchen said with a smile.

Even if the “drip” (Gen Z slang for stylish clothes and their accessories) emphasizes fashion over function, particularly when it comes to the gloves — which look a bit like oven mitts — that are becoming just as ubiquitous in the Little Leagues as they are in the major leagues.

Safety and self-expression

Former major leaguer Scott Podsednik (career stolen base total: 309) is credited with “inventing” the sliding mitt during the late stages of his 11-year career.

Tired of having his hand stepped on, Podsednik worked with a hand therapist for a solution. The initial mitts were relatively simple. A 2009 picture of Podsednik sliding into second base shows his left hand covered in what looks like a padded modified batting glove, all wrapped in black to match the trim on his Chicago White Sox uniform.

Things have gotten considerably more intricate over the years. Google “sliding mitt designs” and you’ll find themes ranging from the American flag to an ice cream cone to aliens to a poop emoji ( yes, really ).

Scott McMillen, a lawyer in the Chicago area, had no plans to get into the baseball accessory business. He first took notice of sliding mitts when his son Braydon, then 10, pointed out one of his teammates had one and said basically, “Oh hey dad, wouldn’t it be nice if I had one, too.”

They headed to a local sporting goods store, where McMillen was surprised at the variety available.

That was around 2021. By early 2024, McMillen had launched “ Goat’d,” a specialty baseball accessory company with everything from sliding mitts to batting gloves to arm sleeves to headbands and more, many of them religiously inspired.

Sales during their first full year? Over 1 million units.

“We were surprised at how large the marketplace is,” McMillen said.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been.

Youth sports have bounced back from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Aspen Institute’s 2024 State of Play report noted that the participation levels in sports among children ages 6-17 were the highest they’ve been since 2015. Baseball’s numbers have steadied following a decline. Little League International told The Associated Press last fall that more than 2 million kids played baseball or softball under its umbrella across the world, an uptick over 2019.

Many of those kids are also fans of the game, some of whom may have noticed their favorite major leaguer sporting a mitt when they’re on the bases. Yes, that was San Diego Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. sliding across home plate ( feetfirst, by the way ) with a bright yellow mitt on his left hand in the ninth inning of a 2-1 win over Pittsburgh last weekend.

It’s one of the many ways in which the game has evolved over the years. When McMillen grew up, there wasn’t much swag to go around.

“We had our baseball uniform and our glove (and) everyone looked the same, everyone was the same,” he said. “Now, everyone wants to express themselves individually. The best way to do that without acting like a clown is to wear something that shows people who you are.”

Self-expression, however, doesn’t exactly come cheap, particularly in an era when top-of-the-line bats are $400 or more. What amounts to an entry-level sliding mitt can go for $40, but Goat’d and others have versions that can fetch double that.

That hasn’t stopped sales from being brisk, and McMillen points out it’s not merely a luxury item.

“We don’t play football with 1940s safety equipment,” he said. “You feel better in the (batter’s) box when you have something that protects you, right? With a sliding mitt, it’s also like, ‘Hey this is fun. It’s cool. I want to be like my fave high school player, like my favorite college player.’”

It’s becoming increasingly common for McMillen and other members of the company’s staff to spot Goat’d gear at the field. In recent months, they’ve popped up in youth tournaments from Georgia to Las Vegas, sometimes in the back pockets of players as young as 6 or 7. McMillen can’t help but shake his head to see his product become part of the time-honored tradition of kids imitating their heroes.

Which is good for business and, oh by the way, probably unnecessary.

The pressure to keep up

Here’s the thing: In most — if not all — youth baseball leagues, headfirst slides that would require a player to stretch out their hand to secure the bag are illegal.

In Little League, for example, stealing bases for players 12 and under is rare because the player can take off only after the ball has reached the batter. And even if they do bolt for the next base, they have to slide feetfirst. The only times in Little League that a baserunner can dive headfirst toward a base is when they are returning to it while in a rundown or during a pickoff attempt, both of which are also rare.

That doesn’t stop the players from wanting a sliding mitt. It also doesn’t stop their parents from buying them, all part of the pressure to “keep up with the Jones” that has practically been a part of youth sports culture since the first time somebody came to practice with a batting glove or wristbands.

It’s a phenomenon Chelsea Cahill and her family has known for years. The longtime educator who lives just east of Columbus, Ohio, has spent most of the last decade shuttling her three boys from practice to games to tournaments.

What she and her husband have learned over the years is that some trends come and go, but the pressure to have the right stuff remains.

“There’s always that feeling of ‘This is the next new thing’ or ‘This is what you’ve got to get,’” Cahill said.

They appeased their sons up to a point, but only up to a point.

Last summer their youngest son Braxton, then 11, and the rest of the kids on his travel team kept pestering their parents to buy sliding mitts. Entering the final tournament, the team moms decided to give in.

Sort of.

Rather than plop down that kind of money for something they didn’t actually need, the moms headed to a local dollar store and bought them actual oven mitts — the kind used to pull tonight’s dinner from out of the oven. Average retail price? Less than a cup of coffee at the gas station.

Oh, and the kids loved them, and wore them during the game. Cahill posted video of them playing with the mitts stuck in their back pocket to her TikTok account. The video is now at 12 million views and counting.

“They thought it was hilarious, but we didn’t really think they would wear them for the rest of the tournament,” Cahill said. “We were wrong. They really embraced it!”

Among viewers of that TikTok, by the way, were the people at Goat’d, who sent Braxton a couple of mitts as a result.

The good news is, Cahill now won’t have to buy one for Braxton this spring. Yet there’s also something else she has learned through the years: This time in her boys’ lives is fleeting.

For proof, just look at her calendar. Her two older sons — the ones who played travel baseball just like Braxton, and asked for all the cool stuff their teammates had, just like Braxton has — gave up baseball by the time they got to high school.

Her advice to parents who might be feeling the financial pinch of what it takes to play these days: Relax.

“We’ve learned as parents is to stop taking it so seriously,” she said. “They’re kids. Let them have fun.”

The reality

A day after hundreds of members of the Monroeville Baseball and Softball Association marched through the Pittsburgh suburb’s well-appointed community park, the regular season is in full swing.

All four fields are alive with the chatter of coaches, parents and boys and girls aged anywhere from 5-12.

Over on Field 1, the Rays are in the middle of their season opener. Playing first base, Josiah Jones has his glove at the ready, with a black sliding mitt noticeably sticking out of his left back pocket.

Per the league rules, the Rays and the other players at the “Bronco” level (ages 11-12), play actual full-on baseball. They can take leads and steal bases whenever they like, though headfirst slides are only allowed when returning to a base, just like in Little League.

Longtime MBSA executive commissioner Josh Plassmeyer is milling about, trying to keep tabs on everything. Plassmeyer outlawed sliding mitts on his son Grant’s 10-and-under tournament team, calling them a “distraction” because players would spend so much time fiddling with them once they got to first base, they would miss signs from the third-base coach.

About 50 feet away, Jones settles into the box and rips a ball to left-center field. His long legs carry him past first base, and he cruises into second with an easy double.

As his teammates erupted in the dugout, Jones beamed for a brief moment. Then, as the opposing pitcher stepped onto the rubber, he took an aggressive lead off second and eyed third.

His back pocket, the one where his sliding mitt had been 30 minutes before, was empty.

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Olympic swimmer Simone Manuel advocates for Black youth, water safety

Watch Tori Penso share the toughest situation as a soccer referee Tori Penso knows it’s tough to be a referee in soccer, and shares how she deals with it as a woman in a male soccer league. Sports Seriously Simone Manuel will be at the grocery store, and someone might stop her and ask: “What […]

Published

13 minutes ago

May 15, 2025

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Simone Manuel will be at the grocery store, and someone might stop her and ask: “What sport do you do?”

“Sometimes I entertain them a little bit and I let them guess,” she says with a slight laugh, “and swimming is never their guess. When I end up telling them I swim, I kind of get some crazy eyes. I’ve gotten laughed at. I’ve gotten, ‘There’s no way that you’re a good swimmer,’ even though they look at my build.”

“Actually,” she will tell them, “I’ve won Olympic medals.”

Manuel was 20 in 2016 when she became the first Black woman to win an individual gold at Olympic swimming. Nearly 10 years later, she sometimes still feels dragged down by the heft and responsibility of the moment, and she still faces the stereotypes that are assigned to her race and sport.

“The most common one is that Black people can’t swim,” Manuel tells USA TODAY Sports. “I still hear that to this day, unfortunately. I’ve gotten comments from the Black community as well that we can’t swim.”

Manuel, 28, has won seven Olympic and 16 world championship swimming medals. She is seeking more, but spoke of another opportunity ahead of International Water Safety Day on Wednesday. In 2023, Manuel launched the Simone Manuel Foundation, with a goal of increasing opportunities and water safety in communities of color.

“It’s about bringing swimming into spaces where people may not feel like they’re welcome, or they may not even feel like it’s an avenue for them to pursue,” she says.

According to a report by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released last May, nearly 64% of Black children have little to no swimming ability.

The statistic is decades in the making, reflecting America’s long history of racial intolerance at pools that conflicted a little girl in Sugar Land, Texas.

“I began to question if swimming was the sport for me,” Manuel says.

She shared how getting her mind around her identity within her sports was a process filled with doubt. But she has acquired lessons from an often-excruciating athletic journey that might help parents and young athletes.

(Questions and responses are edited for length and clarity.)

Validating emotions can build a stronger athlete

Manuel tried other sports, but something came alive inside of her when she got in the pool. The water not only cooled her from the sweltering Texas heat, but filled her with confidence, pushing her up into training groups with older swimmers.

Then a voice in her head told her she should quit. Sharron and Marc Manuel helped their daughter understand what she was hearing. Sharron also would scroll the Internet with her young daughter, pulling up photos of past Black swimming champions like Olympic silver medalist Maritza Correia McClendon.

USA TODAY: How did your parents support you in swimming?

Simone Manuel: I think the biggest tangible thing was just continuing to allow me to be authentically myself, to continue to validate my experiences as a Black woman in this sport. Being one of a few is a really tough journey, and I know that as parents, they dealt with their own experiences and they were able to recognize that my journey was gonna be unlike other swimmers’ just because of, unfortunately, the color of my skin.

So a lot of their support came from encouraging me. When I would come home from practice and tell them, “Oh, someone said this,” or, “This happened,” that alone helped me feel empowered. It allowed me to (feel) that I wasn’t crazy, that what I was experiencing was real, but then to use that as motivation to continue to fight for my goals and dreams.

Sports unify the world, but often isolate the athlete

When you swim, you spend a lot of time by yourself in the water, propelling toward the wall and not knowing if you will get there first. After Manuel touched the wall in Rio in 2016 to win the 100-meter freestyle, she realized how solitary a sport it can be.

USAT: You have felt pressure to be an example. Can you expand on that?

SM: I found out that I made history when I did the interview. At that moment, I just was trying to win a medal, but then for that moment to be really historic, nobody can prepare you for that. I think it was, in some sense, a heavy weight that I wasn’t prepared for. It’s not like I dive in a pool every day and I’m like, “I want to be the best Black swimmer.” I want to be the best swimmer that I can be. I can inspire my community (and) people beyond my community who may not feel like they fit into whatever particular endeavor that they want to pursue, but there is pressure that comes with it. I have learned that I will be my best when I focus on trying to be the best Simone, and that comes with my competition, with my advocacy. And the rest, even if it feels lonely at times, it’s really important for me to just try to stay true to myself.

It’s really important for me to continue to compete and do what I love to do, because hopefully there’s a young Black child watching me on TV, and they look at the screen and they say, “Hey mom, hey dad, I want to learn how to swim too.”

Again, a supportive family can make all the difference. Manuel’s older brothers played college basketball, Chris at Oklahoma Christian and Ryan at SMU.

“They always would encourage me,” she says. “They would ask me to come out and play, but they would show no mercy (laughs), and I appreciated that. I didn’t need them to take it easy on me. I had to take a couple of elbows and maybe lose by 20 points. But I mean, beyond that, they’re like my biggest supporters.

“At the end of the day, I’m just their little sister. It reminds me that I am a swimmer, but it’s not who I completely am.”

It takes courage to believe in yourself when you don’t fit the mold

Public pools dominated the American landscape for much of the 20^th Century. These could be intimate spaces shared by friends and competitors, but also ones charged with racial strife.

Federal judges began declaring pool segregation unconstitutional before the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, but waves of American communities pushed back in the 1950s and 1960s. Instead of complying with desegregation, they closed pools, affecting generations of potential Black swimmers.

“And then on top of that, you have the rise of private pools, country clubs, people no longer going to public pools and having the access,” Manuel says. “The accessibility to backyard pools, in the Black community, is not something that we typically had in the past. Discrimination and racism have created these consequences.”

USAT: What was it like growing up in a primarily white sport?

SM: I didn’t feel like I fit in. I think it’s kind of normal to, at a young age, look around and not see other people that look like you. I don’t see any other Black children doing this, but when I’m on the soccer field, I see them. When I’m on the volleyball court, I see them. When I play basketball, I see them. So I really began to question if it was a sport group that I could be good at and successful in. But I think on top of that, just some of the experiences, some of the comments from teammates, parents, that make you doubt yourself, tacked on with what you’re already feeling, makes it very difficult to feel like the pool is a welcoming space.

I had supportive coaches who helped a lot with that. I learned that it was really important for me to own my dream, and that, unfortunately, this was a journey that I was going to have to go on. I was going to have to deal with these obstacles. We all do in life, and this was one of them that I had to hopefully conquer.

USAT: What would you say to young swimmers who look up to you?

SM: Believe in the power of your dreams. Believe in yourself and don’t let anyone keep you from pursuing your passion, because if it’s yours, it’s for you, and it’s not for them to take.

‘Drowning epidemic’: Swimming can help shed stereotypes

Recent CDC data indicates Black children ages 10-14 drown in swimming pools at a rate that is almost eight times higher than white children.

“So many people are so terrified of the water,” said Naji Ali, a long-distance swimmer who has hosted a podcast promoting swimming in the Black community. He spoke as a featured voice for a 2021 Philadelphia museum exhibit known as “Pool: A Social History of Segregation.”

“Whether you go in or not, you should know how to swim,” he said. “And not just survival swimming, I’m talking where you are comfortable in the water.”

The Simone Manuel Foundation seeks better education – through water safety awareness workshops, swim lessons, clinics – in BIPOC (Black, indigenous and people of color) communities.

And it offers possibility.

USAT: What message do you want to share about the work that you’re doing?

SM: It would be great to see other Black swimmers on the podium. I don’t know if I will see that in my lifetime. But above that, I think it’s really about empowering the Black community to learn how to swim, because the drowning epidemic is so staggering.

USAT: What has sports done for you and for your life?

SM: Sports has allowed me to grow into a stronger, more resilient person. It’s given me some of my greatest achievements, but also some of my lowest lows. Sports (is) a microcosm of society, it’s a microcosm of life, and the experiences that I’ve had through have helped me handle difficult situations. I believe that swimming has really given me all the tools to be able to handle whatever comes my way.

Coach Steve: What the brash ex-swimmer learned about his career when he lost everything

Sports careers often remain ‘unfinished,’ no matter who we are

Manuel says that before Rio, she faced undisclosed “major health issues” that forced her to significantly modify her training.

“There were times where I didn’t think I could go any further,” she says.

Before Tokyo, she developed overtraining syndrome. She spent six months out of the water recovering from mental and physical exhaustion, depression, anxiety, soreness and other symptoms.

She returned to win a bronze in Tokyo and a silver in Paris. She has described her career since Rio as not a comeback but unfinished, a perspective on how sports continue to teach throughout athletes’ lives.

USAT: You’re hoping to compete in Los Angeles in 2028. How is that going?

SM: It’s probably been the hardest training that I’ve ever done in my career, but it’s been really fun. I’m really excited what hopefully the next four years has to come.

My goal is always to win medals. I’m never been someone that sets low goals. But I also think it’s really important to be realistic. The last couple years have been really tough for me, so I just want to continue to improve, not put too much pressure on myself, and just see where my results land, and then adjust from there. So it’s hard to kind of give a definitive goal when something is four years away. I ultimately see my best results staying in the present.

USAT: You said your goal is to be able to compete without the weight of expectations. Do you think you’ve gotten to that point yet?

SM: No, I haven’t, unfortunately, I feel like I’m getting there. I’m starting to learn how to swim more for me. I do think it is gonna take some more work on my part, but expectations are good. Hopefully I continue to become more confident in what I’ve accomplished and what my resume says about me, that I can just step up on the blocks and not feel like I have to prove anything.

Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.

Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@usatoday.com

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KDKA report: Progress on reducing youth soccer concussions

Photo above courtesy of Kristine Sorensen. We often think of football when we think of concussions, but girls who play high school soccer are at nearly the same risk for traumatic brain injuries as high school football players. Boys playing high school football suffered the most concussions of any youth sport studied — an average […]

Published

31 minutes ago

May 15, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Photo above courtesy of Kristine Sorensen.

We often think of football when we think of concussions, but girls who play high school soccer are at nearly the same risk for traumatic brain injuries as high school football players. Boys playing high school football suffered the most concussions of any youth sport studied — an average of 10.2 for every 10,000 practices and games.

Girls playing soccer suffered the second-most at 8.4 per 10,000 times playing.

But a recent study shows that rule changes in youth soccer that started in 2016 to reduce concussions are helping. Almost 10 years ago, the U. S. Soccer Federation banned headers for players younger than 10, and players ages 11 to 13 can practice headers for no more than 30 minutes a week.

The new report found that since the rule change, there’s been a nearly 26% reduction in soccer-related concussions, going from 8.2% of all soccer injuries to 6.1%.

Nine-year old Presley Markich, who plays for the Pittsburgh Riverhounds Soccer Club at AHN Montour Sports Complex, knows what a concussion feels like. She was just 8 when she got a concussion playing soccer after colliding with another player.

“I started to feel sick in the car and threw up when I got home. I took a nap because my vision was blurry, and I threw up again and ended up in the ER for four hours,” she says.

The ER visit was important to Presley’s mom, Liz Whiting: “As a parent, I really did not want any long-term effects from this, especially at such a young age.”

AHN physical therapist Kim Kelly suffered three concussions playing soccer in high school and college — each one in the midst of going for a header.

“In high school, another player and I were jumping at the same time, and I hit the ball, and she hit the back of my head,” Kelley says.

PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENTS

The U.S. Soccer Federation also now requires that any time there’s a potential concussion, coaches must include the player in an assessment, and if it could be a concussion, they must call in a medical professional.

“I think it’s really important to stop and make sure that they’re evaluated so it doesn’t get any worse, because there are horrible long-term effects if it continues to happen,” Whiting says.

Evaluations and precautions can save lives.

“If they get hit in the midst of a current concussion or a fresh acute concussion, that’s potentially fatal,” says Kelley, who works with kids who have concussions. “We see that those kids have a prolonged recovery, higher risk of prolonged headaches, prolonged symptoms, some higher risks — we’re talking about depression, anxiety, things like that.”

One of the most important things for players to do is to be honest about their symptoms. It’s also vital for parents and coaches to look for subtle signs that players may not be talking about.

“You have to be honest with yourself, with everybody else,” Kelley tells young players. “It’s very hard with these athletes. They’re extremely competitive. No one wants to miss any playing time, but we are talking about your career and well-being.”

Whether it’s practice or a game, these young soccer players give it their all — every sprint, every block, every shot. They are passionate about the sport.

Eight-year-old Ivy Armel says she loves the “footwork, goalie, scoring.” Teammate Adley Valkavitch says, “I like when I have to defend,” and Markich says she likes “the games, practicing and all my teammates.”

The key is keeping safety in mind. Mia Duckstein is 15 and says the coaches teach them how to properly head the ball.

“If you do it the right way, it doesn’t hurt, but if you do it the wrong way, it kind of hurts a little bit,” she says.

These young players want to win on the field, but their parents often have a longer-term perspective wanting to ensure they win at life.

“It’s hard not to wonder if and how those headers, even when they do it the right way, are affecting the brain,” says Mia’s mom, Mikaela Halaja. “Even if it’s little bumps and bruises along the way, it is definitely a concern.”

One interesting note from the study was that girls had fewer concussions overall, but a higher percentage of their injuries were from concussions — 10% compared to 6% for boys. This could be because of female anatomy because boys have thicker skulls and stronger neck muscles, but there’s no scientific consensus.

Click here for more resources on concussion treatment and click here to learn more about concussion symptoms.

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The Program, a New Basketball Training Facility, Opening in Greenpoint This September

If you’re a local basketball player, it’ll soon be time to get with the program. Or rather, The Program, the name of a new state-of-the-art training facility opening on Java Street in September. The Program entails 12,500 square feet of courts, weight and turf training, a recovery room, among other features, all designed to support […]

Published

1 hour ago

May 15, 2025

Your Sports Nation

If you’re a local basketball player, it’ll soon be time to get with the program.

Or rather, The Program, the name of a new state-of-the-art training facility opening on Java Street in September. The Program entails 12,500 square feet of courts, weight and turf training, a recovery room, among other features, all designed to support youth players.

The Program comes with an impressive pedigree. Carmelo Anthony, Sue Bird, and Roc Nation serve as strategic partners (Griffin Taylor and Jared Effron, CEO and president respectively, co-founded the project).

“We want to restore New York City’s reputation as ‘the Mecca’ for basketball at the youth and grassroots levels, as it was in decades past,” The Program’s site reads. Fall/winter founding memberships are already live, with tiers based on school grade-level. Members can access court time, coaching, specialized skills training such as Point Guard Academy, and other perks based on age level.

Adult players can also apply for a program specifically designed for those 18+. Financial aid is available

And if this news comes with a sense of deja vu, remember that the New York Liberty recently announced plans to build their own training facility in the northern tip of Greenpoint.

The Program will open at 255 Java Street on September 2.

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Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy Foot Locker for $2.4 billion

Dick’s Sporting Goods announced early Thursday that it will acquire Foot Locker in a $2.4 billion deal. The Findlay-based company said it plans to operate Foot Locker as a standalone business and maintain its brands. The acquisition will place Dick’s, already one of the largest domestic sporting goods company, into the international market with about […]

Published

1 hour ago

May 15, 2025

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Dick’s Sporting Goods announced early Thursday that it will acquire Foot Locker in a $2.4 billion deal.

The Findlay-based company said it plans to operate Foot Locker as a standalone business and maintain its brands.

The acquisition will place Dick’s, already one of the largest domestic sporting goods company, into the international market with about 2,400 Foot Locker locations in 20 countries. Among those locations are other brands owned by Foot Locker such as Kids Foot Locker, Champs Sports, WSS and atmos.

Last year, Foot Locker had worldwide sales of $8 billion.

“Sports and sports culture continue to be incredibly powerful, and with this acquisition, we’ll create a new global platform that serves those ever-evolving needs through iconic concepts consumers know and love, enhanced store designs and omnichannel experiences, as well as a product mix that appeals to our different customer bases,” Dick’s CEO Lauren Hobart said.

Foot Locker will be the latest and largest addition to Dick’s brand portfolio, which also includes retailers like Golf Galaxy, Public Lands and Going Going Gone! as well as the youth sports app GameChanger.

In the announcement, Dick’s said it intends to finance the acquisition through a combination of cash-on-hand and new debt.

Though the boards of directors of both Dick’s and Foot Locker gave the green light for the deal, the transition will still require approval from regulators and Foot Locker shareholders. According to the announcement, Foot Locker shareholders can opt to receive either $24 in cash or 0.1168 shares of Dick’s stock for each Foot Locker share.

“We are pleased to provide shareholders with a transaction structure that offers the choice of significant and immediate cash value or the opportunity to invest in the combined company and benefit from the substantial upside potential,” Foot Locker CEO Mary Dillon said.

Dick’s will host a conference call on Thursday at 9 a.m. to discuss the proposed acquisition. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2025.

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Rotunda project promises new resource for Pittsburgh’s East End

This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art scene. Sign up here to get it every Wednesday afternoon. Do Pittsburgh’s eastern neighborhoods have a big unmet need for meeting spaces for arts groups and other organizations? An established arts nonprofit and one of Pittsburgh’s oldest community-development […]

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2 hours ago

May 15, 2025

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This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art scene. Sign up here to get it every Wednesday afternoon.

Do Pittsburgh’s eastern neighborhoods have a big unmet need for meeting spaces for arts groups and other organizations?

An established arts nonprofit and one of Pittsburgh’s oldest community-development organizations are betting they do.

This Thu., May 15, marks the public kick-off of the Rotunda Collaborative, a new space housed in an old synagogue on North Negley Avenue, in Garfield. The building’s owner is the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp., and the key tenant for the new arts-education and community events center is BOOM Concepts.

The BGC, which has been working on the project for two years, closed a $598,000 deal for the property late last year with former owner Beacon Communities. Executive director Rick Swartz said the Rotunda Collaborative expands, in part, on the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative, the 1990s project that brought galleries and more to Penn and gave birth to the still-ongoing first-Fridays art crawl Unblurred.

“It became clear to us that not only is the arts an important bridge-builder here in the city, but we also need places where average people can congregate, celebrate the milestones that occur in their lives,” Swartz said. “Between the arts and the diminishing number of public gathering spaces in the East End today, we felt kind of compelled to really pursue this project seriously.”

The 102-year-old rotunda, designed by famed architect Henry Hornbostel, housed B’nai Israel’s services for 70 years. It boasts 11,000 square feet of space, 35-foot ceilings and a mezzanine for offices and meeting spaces.

“This space is going to be absolutely beautiful,” said artist and BOOM co-founder DS Kinsel. Not only is it considerably grander than the modest Penn Avenue storefront that’s been BOOM’s home for all of its 11 years, but the Rotunda will also allow the group to expand its program of exhibitions, artist residencies and more, most of which are now housed in partner venues around the city.

BOOM has two full-time employees — Kinsel and fellow co-founder Thomas Agnew — and two part-timers. Each year it contracts up to 100 artists for teaching, outreach and exhibitions at venues from the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Frick Environmental Center to Downtown’s Emerald City.

The Rotunda “feels like the natural evolution of our existence in the neighborhood,” Kinsel said.

B’nai Israel closed in 1995 and was once home to the Urban League of Pittsburgh Charter School. The rotunda — the sanctuary where services had once taken place — remained vacant, as it did after developer Beacon Communities converted the adjoining school into apartments (and added another apartment structure behind it).

So the rotunda has been unused for three decades. Swartz calls Thursday’s event, titled Raising the Roof on the Rotunda, a “barn-raising.”

“You’ll have the chance to see the grand sweep of the space,” he said. The fundraiser will feature food, drinks, art, music and performances.

But Raising the Roof will be the last public event there for a while. The building needs a lot of work including, for starters, new electrical, plumbing and HVAC. While the building is zoned commercial, Swartz says the Rotunda will require new city occupancy permits. And with no parking on site, and street parking limited, Rotunda is seeking a nearby location that would hold three dozen or more cars for evening events.

In all, Swartz said, it will take two years to ready the building for occupancy, and four to complete the project.

The Rotunda will serve seven neighborhoods, including Garfield, East Liberty, Highland Park, Friendship, Bloomfield, Morningside and Stanton Heights. The plan is to find eight or nine groups to join BOOM in the collaborative.

Member groups would pay a monthly fee, Swartz said, but the building would also host outside events — everything from youth sports banquets and graduations to weddings, performances, educational forums and more. The building should be able to accommodate 300 or more guests, he said.

Most importantly, Swartz said, access would be affordable, at a time when the closure or demolition of churches (like Bloomfield’s recently leveled Immaculate Conception) and Moose Lodges has left that swath of town with an array of venues too small, too expensive or otherwise unsuitable for many such gatherings.

At Rotunda, BOOM will be the constant. Kinsel says he and fellow co-founder Thomas Agnew view the facility as the group’s “forever home.”

The key to success will be demand.

Swartz said the BGC’s current activity center, in a former church on North Pacific Avenue, is inundated with requests, whether from a children’s ballet school, an improv-comedy troupe or groups seeking to hold health-education events.

“We are turning people away all the time who want to have events at our building,” he said.

Kinsel said that since the press release announcing the Rotunda went out, in late April, six “established” organizations have reached out to him about having events there.

“Thank you for the excitement,” he replied. “We’re two years out! Let’s figure out something for 2027!”

Ticket information for Raising the Roof on the Rotunda is here.

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Rec Sports

Monumental Sports & Entertainment Raises the Game for Girls’ Sports in Washington D.C. with New Girls Empowerment Program

First-of-its-kind Coach Across America partnership and upcoming DCPS sports bra distribution event will add to ongoing initiatives from MSE’s Wizards, Capitals and Mystics CLICK HERE FOR IMAGES Credit: Monumental Sports & Entertainment Washington, D.C. (May 15, 2025) – Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE) is jumpstarting the next generation of women in sports across Washington D.C. […]

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2 hours ago

May 15, 2025

Your Sports Nation

First-of-its-kind Coach Across America partnership and upcoming DCPS sports bra distribution event will add to ongoing initiatives from MSE’s Wizards, Capitals and Mystics

CLICK HERE FOR IMAGES

Credit: Monumental Sports & Entertainment

Washington, D.C. (May 15, 2025) – Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE) is jumpstarting the next generation of women in sports across Washington D.C. with the MSE Girls Empowerment Program, announced today to support girls’ participation in sports and female coaches in the region. The program anchors MSE’s larger District of Play youth sports platform and combines a groundbreaking partnership with Coach Across America with team-led programming from the Washington Capitals, Wizards, and Mystics, along with support from the MSE Foundation.

As a cornerstone of the Girls Empowerment Program, Monumental has launched a new partnership with Coach Across America’s She Changes the Game® initiative, dedicated to supporting and strengthening the roster of female coaches in the District. As She Changes the Game®’s first national partner, MSE will establish Washington D.C. as the program’s inaugural hub city, committing nearly half a million dollars to developing the program and region’s coaching pipeline. This investment will support the hiring and placement of at least 40 women coaches for D.C. sports programs over the next four years, as well as develop internship and training programs for young D.C. women interested in coaching.

She Changes the Game® D.C. will engage coaches to reach more than 1,000 K-12 D.C. youth over four years and is actively seeking their inaugural Washington D.C. director. Those interested in learning more and applying for the role can do so here.

“Sports equip girls with confidence, community, and a clear runway for who they can become,” said Monica Dixon, President, External Affairs, Chief Administrative Officer and Foundation Board Chair, Monumental Sports & Entertainment. “By investing in and supporting a pipeline of trained female coaches, Monumental is building the foundation that keeps girls engaged in sport and positions them to lead, both on and off the field.”

“Monumental’s deep-rooted community engagement and shared vision align perfectly with Coach Across America’s mission to create transformative coaching experiences for young people,” said Tony White, Vice President of Development, Coach Across America. “This partnership will help us amplify our impact and provide even more female athletes with the support and guidance they need to succeed both on and off the field.”

In partnership with DC Public Schools (DCPS) and Leveling the Playing Field, Monumental will formally kick off the Girl’s Empowerment Program with a sports clinic and free sports bra distribution for students at Columbia Heights Education Campus (CHEC) on June 11, 2025, ahead of DCPS summer break. Further event details will be released in coming weeks.

The MSE Foundation will also provide additional support for both programs, furthering its mission to increase access and opportunity for youth in sports throughout the D.C. region.

Team Initiatives

In addition to the new company-wide initiatives, MSE’s Capitals, Wizards and Mystics also lead a slate of programming and activations focused on girls’ empowerment, including:

Continued amplification of the Capitals’ award winning ALL CAPS ALL HER platform, which has provided access to hockey and elevated the game for over 2,000 women and girls in the Washington D.C. area since its launch in 2021 through adult and youth hockey programs, professional development opportunities and coach/referee trainings

The Mystics’ annual Her Time to Play game presented by CarMax on Sun. Aug. 17 against the Los Angeles Sparks. This annual theme game inspires young girls to participate in youth sports, sparking next generation of female athletes in the DMV through in-game activities, inspiring messages from female athletes, a sports bra donation drive and fun giveaways.

A “Power Plays & Conversations” event series on women in sports hosted by the Wizards, beginning with an event on May 29, 2025, at Hotel Zena in Washington, D.C. held in partnership with the Positive Coaching Alliance

Dedicated girls basketball clinics, mental health workshops, and female coach/referee education led by Wizards and Mystics staff

Monumental Sports Network’s multi-year partnership with Flag Star Football, which includes a dedicated focus on expanding opportunities for girls through enhanced programming and access

More initiatives to be announced.

The teams also host several activations during their regular seasons focused on engaging young female athletes and elevating women in the sports industry including annual Women’s Night games and pre-game/in-game activities.

About District of Play

Launched in September 2024, the public-private partnership between Monumental Sports and the District to create a new Capital One Arena included a robust Community Benefits component which MSE Founder & CEO Ted Leonsis labeled “District of Play.” The program aims to create positive and accessible spaces for youth to play, grow, and develop lifelong skills in sports, all while engaging parents, coaches, and local communities.

The multi-million-dollar District of Play includes dozens of programs and commitments, including the highlights below. More information and a full list of District of Play initiatives can be found at www.monumentalsports.com/DistrictOfPlay.

MSE along with the Wizards and Mystics recently completed the “District Dribble” campaign that delivered a new basketball to every PreK – 5th grade student at 80 D.C. Public Schools, totaling over 29,000 balls distributed.

MSE has expanded access to sports through Capitals Rink Pass, Wizards and Mystics Jr. NBA League support, and Flag Star Football scholarships

MSE has strengthened DC’s coaching ecosystem with a free Coaches Workshop at Care First Arena, sponsoring USA Basketball licenses for 415 DCPS coaches, and sponsoring Flag Star’s sports business and leadership internship for high school and college athletes

MSE has helped build community connection through a 3v3 tournament at historic Barry Farm, Midnight Basketball in Ward 8, and a new playground at Huntwood Courts.

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About Monumental Sports & Entertainment
Monumental Sports & Entertainment is America’s leading integrated sports and entertainment company and is ranked as one of the most valuable globally. Our people, players, teams, and events bring excitement and joy to millions. We invest and innovate to consistently raise the game so we can deliver extraordinary experiences that will inspire and unite our community, our fans, and our people. To learn more, please visit monumentalsports.com.

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