Baltimore has a rich history of developing its children and communities through sports – from the childhood of Babe Ruth to the proliferation of recreation centers in the 1960s and ‘70s, from the rise of decorated Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps to the basketball successes of Carmelo Anthony, Angel Reese and many others. Sports are baked into the DNA of Baltimore.
The Aspen Institute recognized as much in State of Play Baltimore, the first community landscape analysis from our Project Play initiative, which develops insights, ideas and opportunities to build healthy children and communities through sports. Published in 2017, the 40-page report included findings and recommendations shaped by an eight-member local advisory board that included then-City Council member Brandon Scott.
Since then, said Scott, now mayor, there has been “a seismic shift in how Baltimore as a whole has been investing in youth sports.”
- Greater investment in Baltimore City Recreation and Parks
- A first-ever strategic master plan for BCRP
- New sports added to recreation options
- Project Rampart
- Middle school sports program introduced
- More athletic trainers added to high schools
- Major growth in donated equipment
- Baltimore Children and Youth Fund
- Philanthropic giving shaped with sports and youth development in mind
- Gaps filled by private organizations and nonprofits
- Abandoned buildings turned into play hubs through innovative fundraising
- Sports opportunities for LGBTQ+ youth and allies created
And not just in Baltimore. Since 2017, Aspen has partnered with foundations, corporations and local stakeholders to produce State of Play reports in 14 more cities, counties and states. They have helped unlock tens of millions of dollars in grantmaking, shape municipal strategies for parks and recreational development, and launch city-based coalitions dedicated to equity in youth sports.
That’s one reason our Sports & Society Program is proud to bring the 2024 Project Play Summit 2024 to Baltimore (May 14-15), the community with the longest runway to introduce meaningful activations that can improve the lives of youth through sports. It’s also a community with great needs, with social, safety and financial challenges that make progress a long game.
After we left town, local organizations and leaders got to work. Under Armour, underwriter of the State of Play Baltimore report and Presenting Sponsor of this year’s Summit, was among those. But many other entities and people did as well, from city government to an array of non-profits.
Below are 12 key developments since release of the report, some directly related to opportunities that were highlighted, and all of them tied to the mission of the project. We recognize that many other organizations have made positive contributions as well, too many to cite here.
Brandon Scott speaks at the Project Play Baltimore Huddle in July 2017. Photo: Aspen Institute
1. Greater investment in Baltimore City Recreation and Parks
After Scott became mayor in 2020, he announced a “Rec Rollout” campaign that aims to reverse historic disinvestment in Baltimore recreation dating back to the 1990s. Four neighborhood rec centers have been renovated, with plans to renovate or build seven additional rec centers. The plan also includes 26 new playgrounds and the replacement of all 23 public swimming pools in the city. Our student survey in State of Play Baltimore had highlighted demand for swimming.
The effort is part of Scott’s $120 million vision for Baltimore City Recreation and Parks (BCRP). Scott gave recreation $41 million of the city’s American Rescue Plan Act funding for federal pandemic relief. In Scott’s first three budgets, the city spent $32.3 million, $59.4 million and $26.6 million on capital projects, renovation and construction in the rec department, according to the Baltimore Sun. In the previous eight budgets from 2014 to 2021, the city averaged $18.7 million on such capital projects.
“For me, it wasn’t even a question that we were going to invest heavily in youth sports, recreation and parks once I became mayor,” said Scott, who grew up playing in Baltimore rec centers and basketball leagues. “Because I know we lost young people, not just to death and gun violence, but also to not reaching their potential in life because of the disinvestment we saw from some of my predecessors by closing rec centers and ending programs.”
Since 2017, parks and recreation expenditures per citizen for the Baltimore metropolitan area have grown from $82 to $128, surpassing the $120 national average for the 100 largest U.S. cities, according to a Trust for Public Lands analysis. BCRP’s operating budget has increased from $48 million to slightly more than $60 million in the last three years, said BCRP Executive Director Reginald Moore, who attributed the increase to adding larger fitness and wellness centers that demand more staffing and operational needs.
Times have changed, as has the city which has had to make hard decisions on where to invest in facilities. Right now, Baltimore has 39 rec centers to serve its 565,000 residents, well below the 130 that the city had in the 1980s when Baltimore’s infrastructure was built for a larger population that peaked at 950,000 in 1950. Moore said BCRP is studying what the ideal number of rec centers should be for Baltimore given that it’s a heavily transient city and includes fitness opportunities in facilities that are not traditional rec centers.
“What some people call a rec center is not really a rec center,” Moore said. “We’re going to help the public understand the differences between a neighborhood center, a traditional recreation center, and a regional facility.”
When Moore arrived in 2017, he became the city’s 19th parks and recreation director in just 20 years. With no consistent leadership, several previous master plans focused on certain areas of Baltimore, not a comprehensive strategy of BCRP’s operations and how to look at equity across the city. That’s changing in summer 2024 with a detailed plan by BCRP.
“When you have a culture change, it doesn’t happen overnight,” Moore said. “We’ve created a culture of stability with a stable vision and we’re getting staff to start buying into it.”
BCRP has historically survived on part-time employees. Moore wants to hire more full-time employees so the community sees consistent faces. In Moore’s seven years, the number of full-time employees has barely increased from about 290 to 317.
“This is a city that has a lot of needs, a lot of old infrastructure, and a reduced tax base,” he said. “We still have a lot of work to do to meet our young people where they are. I’m extremely thankful for this administration understanding the value of recreation and I understand their limitations.”
Scott said he is especially proud of the growth of Volo Kids Baltimore, which he co-founded before he was mayor and provides free sports leagues. Participation grew from about 100 to 800 kids between 2015 and 2017; today, it’s over 5,000 and helps many children who can’t afford expensive sports programming.
“The ultimate goal (for youth sports in Baltimore) is very simple,” Scott said. “Every single young person who wants to play sports in this city can do that, and do the sport they want in a facility that meets the quality and standards across the board, whether it’s urban or suburban, or in the wealthiest neighborhood to the lowest income.”
In recent years, BCRP added broomball and flag football, joining programming in baseball, boxing, tackle football, ice skating, soccer, floor hockey, softball, track and field, as well as Baltimore’s longtime most popular sport, basketball. Midnight Basketball, the disappearance of which was the subject of a 2021 HBO documentary series that drew upon insights developed in the State of Play: Baltimore report, returns this summer. After offering flag football to middle schoolers in 2023 for the first time, BCRP also plans to expand by partnering with NFL Flag. The department is also interested in adding volleyball and lacrosse through partnerships.
BCRP plans to open this spring its first esports lab. “I grew up playing sports and understand their value, but we have to understand not every kid is interested in sports,” Moore said.
Moore isn’t giving up on sports. He believes rec professionals need to think outside the box to try to win some children back who dislike playing travel sports. “There are kids who shouldn’t be in rec, but they shouldn’t be in travel,” he said. “What is that middle?” Moore noted that he is having preliminary conversations about asking elite AAU basketball programs if there’s an opportunity for their B and C teams to come under the umbrella of BCRP to form a local competitive league.
Photo: Project Rampart
In 2017, Under Armour committed to changing the landscape of athletics in Baltimore through Project Rampart. The ongoing six-year partnership is designed to elevate city public high school athletes’ experiences and improve academic outcomes through the power of sport.
“Since the beginning, the investment Under Armour has made to Project Rampart has been very intentional,” said Kevin Plank, Under Armour founder and CEO. “At Under Armour, we know firsthand the power of sports, and the academic results we’re witnessing demonstrate what is possible. We believe in our student-athletes and recognize that support and resources on and off the field lead to tangible personal growth and life-altering results. Under Armour remains committed to the city schools, its student-athletes and coaches.”
Since launching Project Rampart, Under Armour has overseen the physical renovation of school gyms and outfitted every varsity athlete and coach with uniforms. “You won’t find many partnerships across the country like what Under Armour provides us with through uniforms,” said Tiffany Byrd, athletic director of Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPSS). “To know that regardless of their performance that every student has the same quality of uniform when participating is major. It’s a significant investment that allows us to be a good steward of resources in other ways. I also don’t want to minimize how else Under Armour has helped our students.”
Under Armour has connected athletes and their coaches to tools and experiences that promote skill and personal development. Currently, eight Baltimore schools have an athletic academic coach through Under Armour’s partnership with the AthLife Foundation. In addition, once a month, students receive leadership training through Under Armour’s Student-Athlete Leadership Council, which is comprised of one sophomore, junior and senior from each school through nominations by their coaches, administrators and/or peers. The students meet at UA House, a community athletic and learning center in East Baltimore rebuilt by Under Armour. And in fall 2024, girls flag football in Maryland will expand into 10 public high schools in Baltimore through a partnership with the Baltimore Ravens and Under Armour.
Of the 23,307 high school students enrolled in Baltimore City Schools in the 2022-23 academic year, 18% participated in at least one sport. Athletes demonstrated higher attendance rates, grade-point averages, promotion rates and expected graduation rates than non-athletes within the school district.
Under Armour also partners with the Baltimore Ravens and Positive Coaching Alliance to provide all school coaches and athletic directors with leadership-based coaching each season.
Middle school sports can help children enjoy the social, emotional and physical benefits that come from being active. Students in Baltimore suffered during the pandemic. While the physical activity rate of high school students in Baltimore rose slightly between 2016 and 2021 (from 29% to 31% receiving the recommended daily amount), the rate for middle school students fell from 43% to 30%, according to latest available federal and state data.
Building on the success of Project Rampart, Baltimore City Schools committed to developing a sustainable and centralized middle school sports program. Under Armour funded a landscape analysis through Baltimore’s Promise, a city-wide collaborative of public, business, higher education, nonprofit, community and philanthropic leaders. Under Armour also funded the strategy position for city schools, which has added full-time positions within its athletic department to oversee the expansion. Throughout this process led by the schools, Under Armour and other city leaders have helped convened local nonprofits throughout the multi-year process to discuss which sports to add.
In 2023-24, for the first time, BCPSS offered sports programs to all public middle school students. BCPSS previously had some sports, but it had never had offerings to all 80 middle schools. With a $2 million budget, the plan called for 20 different sport options, with seven run by the city school district and 13 run by independent vendors, according to WYPR News. Sports include flag football, cross country, indoor and outdoor bocce, volleyball, basketball and track and field.
Schools receive $50 per participating student to cover middle school sports costs. “The goal is to create budget guidance for schools,” Byrd said. “Every middle school has access to sports; not all schools have signed up.”
The long-term goal: Provide exposure and access to sports for middle school students before they get to high school. “It’s going to be a very good thing for high school sports,” Dunbar High School Athletic Director Dana Johnson said. “When you have young people coming in with a foundation for certain skills, it helps us as coaches and ADs to promote programs instead of a kid who wants to try out with no skills or knowledge.”
Baltimore’s lack of athletic trainers – a common problem in urban cities – was cited as a challenge in our 2017 report. Greater investment happened after the 2021 death of Elijah Gorham due to a head injury suffered during a Baltimore City high school football game. An athletic trainer was not present when Gorham fell to the ground and while he was treated on the sidelines for 45 minutes before an ambulance arrived, according to The Baltimore Sun.
A lawsuit brought by Gorham’s family resulted in a $345,000 settlement that also requires Baltimore City Public Schools to eventually hire athletic trainers for every high school, according to The Sun. By spring 2024, BCPSS said it had eight ATs at schools, plus a supervisor overseeing them, and two other ATs had accepted offers.
“To me, that’s major (that athletic trainers are being hired),” Byrd said. “It will lead to a better quality of life for students. Improving emergent care is critical. But it’s also injury prevention and rehabilitative care that’s helpful for those who can’t get the physical therapy visits they need.”
The Sun reported that the settlement also required Baltimore to work with the fire department to ensure quick response times to athletic events and increase emergency training for coaches and athletes. One day after the settlement, Maryland passed a law requiring that all middle and high schools develop emergency action plans for their athletic venues that are rehearsed and include nearby access to automated external defibrillators and cold-water immersion instruments.
This year’s Summit in Baltimore will have a panel on health equity in school-based sports, in which leaders will explore ways to make injury prevention strategies more widely available.
Photo: Southwest Sports & Fitness Alliance
Back in 2017, Leveling the Playing Field owned one warehouse with donated sports equipment for youth. It was in Silver Spring, Maryland – 35 miles away from Baltimore and culturally worlds apart. Yet 40% of Leveling the Playing Field’s distribution in 2017 went to Baltimore, causing the nonprofit to recognize that tremendous need existed in Baltimore.
Leveling the Playing Field opened a Baltimore warehouse in 2018. Since then, $4.8 million worth of sports equipment has been distributed to the greater Baltimore community, which includes Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Harford County. About $823,000 worth of equipment has gone into East Baltimore, the focus area of the 2017 State of Play Baltimore report. Leveling the Playing Field has served 652 schools, leagues, rec centers and programs in the Baltimore area.
“Baltimore’s awful history with redlining through systemic racism in housing is deep-seeded, and we still see the ramifications today,” said Kaitlin Brennan, chief operating officer of Leveling the Playing Field. “How that relates to youth sports is when you have a dwindling tax base in Baltimore City, invariably the schools and parks departments will be impacted year after year. What that says is the needs aren’t going anywhere. They’re just moving to Baltimore County.”
While 20% of Baltimore City residents live in poverty, so are 11% of Baltimore County residents – an increase in recent years. Maryland’s state poverty rate is 10%. “Poverty exists all over the greater Baltimore area, whether people want to acknowledge their neighbors are struggling or not,” Brennan said.
Photo: Leveling the Playing Field
Starting in 2018 at the urging of City Council President Bernard “Jack” C. Young, Baltimore launched a new fund dedicated to supporting all kinds of programs for young people. It was created in response to the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody three years earlier and was funded by city residents, with an annual appropriation of 3 cents on every $100 assessed value of all properties.
The Baltimore Children and Youth Fund (BCYF), a newly formed nonprofit organization, assumed responsibility for the fund in 2020. BCYF offers grants and capacity building with grassroots organizations and community leaders to empower youth and young adults, with a focus on racial equity and community engagement. Two-thirds of grant recipients are led by African-Americans.
Fourteen BCYF grantees have been sports providers with programming in baseball, lacrosse, boxing, soccer, tennis and more. For instance, Soccer Without Borders Maryland, which serves newcomer youth in Baltimore, received an $89,000 grant, and Leveling the Playing Field received $40,000 to help with donated equipment.
Funding priorities come directly from the community. Sports-connected organizations that tend to receive grants have focused on children’s access to social and emotional learning, fitness and wellbeing, and development in youth voice and leadership skills, said Alysia Lee, BCYF president.
“Where some people may not see sports can play those roles, I think all types of programs are capable of that,” Lee said. “Every year community members have stood up and said, ‘We want to support athletic programs and make sure there are a range of different sport options funded and in all five regions we care for.’”
One of the first actions taken in response to the State of Play Baltimore report was a $50,000 grant by the National Fitness Foundation to support P.E. in East Baltimore schools, announced at the ensuing Project Play Summit. Since then, other foundations have grown and shaped their support of efforts to improve the health of children through sports.
Among those is the largest Baltimore-based philanthropy: The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, which aims to help meet the basic needs of people experiencing poverty. Grants support direct services in housing, health, jobs, education and aging. In recent years, the Foundation provided grants to organizations such as Baltimore SquashWise, Next One Up, Parks & People Foundation, and YMCA of Central Maryland – all with an eye toward using sports and play to benefit the well-being of young people.
“We try to think where philanthropy could have the greatest impact in supporting better long-term outcomes,” said Kevin Loeb, the Foundation’s managing director of strategy, learning and evaluation. “Now we’re looking at a range of circumstances, including youth physical activity, and asking whether young people are active and eating well, and what the state of their mental health is. Are they engaged with caring adults who are not their immediately family?”
Whether it’s career exploration, homelessness services or youth sports, the Weinberg Foundation recognizes that the quality of the adult interaction is critical. “Coaches have such influence, like teachers, in a lot of meaningful ways – both good and bad,” said Sarah Manekin, the Foundation’s program director for education. “Organizations and agencies could support training in positive youth development for coaches to help make sure those connections are beneficial for kids.”
At a 2017 release event for State of Play Baltimore, Scott — then a Baltimore city council member — called for unifying language that stipulates training and background checks as requirements to be a youth sports coach at any level in the city. “Rec and parks has done some good work making sure we have coaches that are coming into trainings, but we still have a long way to go there,” Scott said recently.
Photo: Next One Up
The Southwest Sports and Fitness Alliance, a neighborhood-based nonprofit founded in 2018, plans to reopen, operate and manage Poppleton Recreation Center, which was closed for nearly 20 years in one of Baltimore’s most disenfranchised communities. The nonprofit runs youth development sports programs for about 150 kids in schools and will soon have its own home.
Southwest Sports and Fitness Alliance has raised about $2.75 million to repair the city-owned center, using city funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, Baltimore Regional Neighborhood Initiative state grants and private donations to nearly reach its $3 million goal. Church of the Nativity in Timonium raised $400,000 for the effort and Lowe’s donated $100,000.
“Baltimore is very neighborhood-oriented with very small neighborhoods,” said Ivan Leshinsky, co-founder of Southwest Sports and Fitness Alliance. “Because parents don’t want kids walking from one neighborhood to another, every neighborhood wants their own facilities and their own programs. It’s an impossible situation. If transportation improves and some neighborhood rec centers develop their own programming, that will connect a lot of neighborhoods.”
In another example, the Baltimore Ravens and The Stephen and Renee Bisciotti Foundation announced a $20 million donation in 2023 to build the Baltimore Ravens Boys and Girls Club at Hilton Recreation Center. The effort builds upon Torrey and Channel Smith’s commitment through LEVEL82 to West Baltimore to reopen the previously shuttered rec center.
Plans for the facility, which will be run by the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Baltimore, include a gym, tutoring center, teen center, arts room, dance studio, technology and music studio, and teaching kitchen. The campus will include a new turf athletic field with lights and a new outdoor basketball court. The center will also be the home sports and PE facility for the adjacent Green Street Academy, a public charter school serving nearly 900 students.
Learn how other communities have used their State of Play reports to unlock opportunities to play.
Another new play space is courtesy of love.fútbol, which utilized State of Play Baltimore findings when partnering with ESPN and the Pincus Family Foundation to clean up an underutilized space in Baltimore for soccer. In partnership with New Song Community Learning Center and 10:12 Sports, the space is expected to serve 500 youth from communities of color.
Next One Up, a long-term mentoring and athletic training program for boys and men, opened a new facility in East Baltimore in 2023, equipped with a recreational space and barber shop. Founded in 2009 by a former Baltimore teacher and coach, Next One Up serves about 200 boys through an application process, with an eye toward youth in Baltimore zip codes who lack access to sports teams, parks and rec centers. The program is free, but it’s a significant time commitment and includes STEM, robotics and engineering learning, mentoring programs, and job readiness preparation and placement.
Matt Hanna, Next One Up’s founder, said non-profits fill gaps in the landscape that schools and the rec department alone cannot cover, but that silos across that landscape need to be better connected. “We rise up to solve a problem, but we’re fighting over the same funding,” he said.
In the absence of an official city body to convene sport providers and balance competing interests, some organizations work together through the Baltimore Youth Sports Collaborative. Led by Rob Smith, the collaborative consists of 18 nonprofits helping underserved youth in the city and surrounding counties, assisting with advocacy for funding, training of coaches, and free sports equipment. One collaborative member is Beat the Streets Baltimore, which serves 700 youth with wrestling programming and individualized academic support through virtual tutoring by college students in Kenya.
That’s the type of life skills the Baltimore mayor believes sports can provide children. Scott, a former youth coach who still hears directly from coaches if coordination challenges arise in the city, said he could foresee the Baltimore mayor’s office playing a greater role to connect silos.
Baltimore’s former Greyhound bus station, a historic 1940s-era downtown building, was once a major travel center. It’s collected dust for many years – until now. Baltimore SquashWise, a youth development organization that supports Baltimore City Public Schools in the classroom and on the squash court, is renovating the building for a 2025 reopening.
Through state grants, a Maryland historic tax credit award and donations, SquashWise raised nearly all of the $14.3 million needed to start construction this year. Instead of selling naming rights for the building or courts, SquashWise launched what co-founder Abby Markoe calls “collaborative philanthropy,” also known as community-centric fundraising. It’s a movement that started in Seattle during the pandemic that prioritizes recognition of the entire community over individual organizations.
SquashWise identified five key stakeholder groups who were then challenged to raise 50 donations of any size, such as through school fundraisers and bake sales. The effort, no matter the dollar amount, allows these groups to be recognized with major donors on court names. “We’re in a new societal context these days around wealth, privilege and recognition, so even the major donors believe this is a great approach,” Markoe said.
The facility will have six squash courts along with classrooms, fitness and community space. SquashWise plans to quadruple the number of youth served. For children who want a lighter involvement, the new facility will offer school-day field trips, PE classes, and shorter-term squash exposure clinics.
Photo: SquashWise
Olanrele Oni grew up loving to play soccer, but never felt he could truly be himself in sports because he is gay. In 2020, as the Black Trans Lives Matter movement grew across the nation, Oni created Unmatched Athlete and started with clinics in climbing, obstacle courses, flag football, Ultimate frisbee, basketball, soccer, and volleyball. The goal is to eventually create leagues and tournaments and hire a coach to teach sports fundamentals.
The events are nongendered, meaning every child plays together. To date, 177 children ages 5-18 have registered or participated in Unmatched Athlete’s events in Baltimore City and Baltimore, Montgomery, Howard and Prince George’s counties. More than half of the children (51%) identify as female, with 35% identifying as male and 14% as transgender or nonbinary. Nationally, research shows LGBTQ+ youth play sports at far lower rates than their peers.
“Regardless of how you identify, sports are for everyone,” Oni said.
Photo: Unmatched Athlete
Finally, insights and ideas developed in Baltimore have influenced the national conversation about the challenges and opportunities to build healthier communities through sports. Dionne Koller, a University of Baltimore sports law professor who sat on the State of Play Baltimore advisory group, became co-chair of the Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics and Paralympics, which delivered its 277-page report to Congress last month calling for systems-level changes in the way that youth and grassroots sports are supported and governed.
Under Armour also brought its learnings to the Project Play 2024 roundtable of leading national organizations. Among them is the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation, a regional grant-maker which shaped its investments and launched Project Play coalitions in Southeast Michigan, Western New York, and Greater Rochester based on insights from State of Play reports.
Our work in Baltimore will come full circle at this year’s Project Play Summit. Day 1 will be held at UA House, a facility that demonstrates how community leaders and corporations can come together to help children. Under Armour, the Baltimore Ravens and others funded and help program this community center operated by Living Classrooms in East Baltimore, which was the focus area of State of Play Baltimore in 2017. More than 100 students are served daily through academic enrichment, health, sports, physical fitness education, and career development.
Under Armour is “the most deeply connected, invested and present partner” in catalyzing sports opportunities for Baltimore children, said Scott, Baltimore’s mayor.
“Whenever you see young people playing sports, they have on UA gear, and they play on courts and in schools that hadn’t been touched in a long time until Project Rampart. They’re also uplifting kids in other ways when they bring athletes down to campus and having them go through seminars. This is about (Under Armour) investing in the future of their city and through sports.”
Jon Solomon is Community Impact Director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program. Read our original State of Play Baltimore report and learn more about our community projects.