Kyle Schwarber's solo home run (41)
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CBS News
2 minutes ago
- CBS News
Boston soccer player grows as a leader as she coaches the next generation of athletes
A high school soccer player from Boston is spending her summer as a coach to the next generation of athletes through Soccer Unity Project, which teaches much more than just how to score a goal. Bryie Woods, a senior at Cristo Rey High School, said stepping on the soccer field helped her find her voice. "I started playing just to, like, get outside, just get active, I feel like I found people that have the same passion as me, that I get to bond over with them," said Woods. "When I'm on the field and especially during a game and I get the ball, I feel like I'm performing. Like I feel like I'm onstage performing, like I feel like I have to do my absolute best." "It's amazing when you put people into positions that they can sort of find things within them they didn't know they had," said Caroline Foscato, the president and founder of Soccer Unity Project. Woods is working with the Soccer Unity Project to help train young athletes on the field. Foscato said she's seen her grow. "She is a brilliant, amazing young woman that is not the loudest in the room. Is not the first to shout out," said Foscato. "But she has been developing over the summer these skills of, like, through her coaching the kids and it's just been really amazing to watch her leadership develop. "I've seen her patience grow a lot more and the way she talks to the kids, she understands how to talk to them, like coming to eye level and all that stuff.," said teammate Jazelle Ortega. She met Woods on the soccer field at school. "Me and her both play defense together, so we have a lot of chemistry," said Ortega. "She's a very hard worker and she is a little bit quiet but once you get to know her, she's very outgoing." Woods said growing up in Dorchester in a home with her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, who recently passed, helped shape her into the person she is today. "With four generations of women, I feel like I was just taught to stand strong by myself, whether I have people behind me or not," said Woods. Woods also attended the Youth Leaders Summit in Pennsylvania this year. "There's a lot of different ways to be a leader, there's no set rules to be a leader," said Woods. "Being a leader is to be empathetic, like to truly see people for what they're going through and take them as they are." "It can be the person that's supportive, it can be the person that's encouraging and nourishing," said Foscato. "And she's one of those people. She really is, you see it the way she interacts with the other teens." And Woods, who's also taking several honors classes at school, loves being out on the field with the younger players. "Seeing them get more excited to come every week is a great feeling. And seeing them get the enrichment that I didn't get to have when I was younger, I wish I started playing earlier," said Woods. "So seeing them get to start at such an early age is fulfilling." Woods said she hopes to attend college next year to become a dermatologist.
New York Times
2 minutes ago
- New York Times
Female umpire Jen Pawol takes field, breaks MLB barrier
ATLANTA — Stationed near first base in the familiar blue uniform, Jen Pawol watched intently as the Atlanta Braves' Hurston Waldrep fired the first pitch of a doubleheader Saturday. With that, Pawol, 48, made major-league history as the first female umpire to work a regular-season game. The moment completed a journey that took Pawol more than 1,200 minor-league games — and took women more than a century. Advertisement 'I'm aware of the gravity; I'm aware of the magnitude' of breaking through this barrier, Pawol said during a Zoom call with reporters Thursday. 'I believe that I'm going to be a very good steward and representative for young girls and women, and boys and men, that this is possible.' Pam Postema, who reached the Triple-A level in the 1980s but never umpired a regular-season MLB game, said of Pawol in a text message to The Athletic, 'I followed her career. Couldn't happen to a better person. I always knew there would be a woman in the big leagues. It just took time.' Pawol was assigned to work the bases for the Marlins-Braves doubleheader on Saturday at Truist Park — first base for the opener, third base for the doubleheader nightcap. For the series finale on Sunday, she is slated to be behind the plate. During the pregame lineup exchange at home plate, Marlins manager Clayton McCullough shook Pawol's hand and held it a little longer than usual as he leaned in to say something to her. The umpires and team representatives then had a group photo taken, with Braves bench coach Walt Weiss standing next to Pawol, his hand on her shoulder. Pawol ran out to her position before the first pitch and received a notably louder ovation than the other three umpires when their names were announced. Marlins first-base coach Tyler Smarslock shook her hand. Braves first baseman Matt Olson gave her a salute. Pawol, a Hofstra University graduate, called MLB spring training games in 2024, becoming the first female umpire to do so since 2007. She was only the third woman to umpire a major-league spring training game. Pawol powered toward Saturday's milestone by umpiring in the Triple-A International League since 2023 and was the first woman to umpire the International League championship game. She was the first woman to umpire a game at that level in 35 years. Advertisement The opportunity she hoped for, and worked so long to get, came Saturday. MLB rules require a fifth member to be added to an umpiring crew when there is a doubleheader, as is the case for the Marlins and Braves on Saturday, because each home-plate umpire skips the game they aren't calling. Enter Pawol, who etched her name in history. She was in her Nashville hotel room Wednesday when she got the call — director of umpire development Rich Rieker and vice president of umpire operations Matt McKendry were on the line to inform her she was going to make her MLB debut Saturday in Atlanta. 'I was overcome with emotion,' Pawol said during the Zoom call with reporters Thursday. Ted Barrett, who spent 29 years as a big-league umpire, told The Athletic this week, 'It has to be the right woman, just like a man — it's a physically demanding job, and Jen is certainly capable of doing it. 'There's a lot of women out there that are capable of doing it. My hope is that as she makes her debut, this brings awareness to it. And who knows, there might be a young girl watching her on TV and saying, 'That's something I'd like to pursue.'' This breakthrough comes long after other major sports leagues took the lead in hiring female officials, including the NBA (in 1997) and the NFL (2015). (Photo of Jen Pawol from before Saturday's game: David J. Griffin / Icon Sportswire 2025 / Associated Press) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
New York Times
2 minutes ago
- New York Times
Don Elbaum, Audacious Boxing Promoter and Heavyweight Raconteur, Dies at 94
Don Elbaum, a swashbuckling boxing figure who promoted Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali, along with less notable pugilists who fought for their dreams in smoky Holiday Inn ballrooms and dingy American Legion halls, died on July 27 in Erie, Pa. He was 94. His death, in a hospice facility, was confirmed by his son Kipp. Compared during his eight-decade career to P.T. Barnum, Don Quixote and a Damon Runyon character, Mr. Elbaum juked and sometimes jabbed his way to prominence in a sport whose outside-the-ring personalities become mythical figures and occasionally prison inmates — for four months, in Mr. Elbaum's case, on tax evasion charges. 'Don was a scoundrel, but he was a talented scoundrel and a colorful scoundrel — a well-intentioned scoundrel,' Lou DiBella, a boxing manager and former head of programming for HBO Sports, said in an interview. 'He told the most wonderful, incredible, remarkable stories, and a decent percentage of them were true.' Mr. Elbaum once staged a bout to decide the 'World's Worst Boxer,' matching two combatants who had never won a fight. Squaring off at a packed Elks Club in Ohio, the fighters had agreed that the loser would retire. The contest ended in a draw, naturally. In 1965, he hyped a Robinson fight in Johnstown, Pa., as 'The Biggest Event Since the Johnstown Flood,' a catastrophe that killed 2, 209 people in 1889. Hoping to generate headlines at a news conference before the bout, Mr. Elbaum surprised Robinson with the gloves the fighter had worn in his first match. Putting them on, Robinson discovered that both gloves were right-handed. Robinson, it turned out, did not have two right hands; the gloves were spares that Mr. Elbaum kept in his trunk. Robinson realized what was happening and told the reporters he couldn't bring himself to put them on. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
