Dennis Robinson remembers his reaction when a local representative of Dick’s Sporting Goods gave him the news on a phone call that Mr. Robinson’s McKeesport Little Tigers youth football program would be getting a grant from the national company.

“I got tears in my eyes,” he said.

He had 20,000 reasons to get emotional.

He is the president of the board of directors of the McKeesport Little Tigers and Dick’s recently gave the organization a $20,000 grant.

“We fundraise and do a lot of different things,” said Mr. Robinson, who was a standout player at McKeesport High School in the early 1990s. “But this was like a blessing that came out of nowhere. One time, it felt like someone was looking out for us.”

But the McKeesport Little Tigers is just one of many youth sports organizations, both in the Pittsburgh area and across the country, that have benefitted from Dick’s generosity through its “Sports Matter” program. The program gives grants to sports organizations and also schools to help kids play sports in underserved communities.

The “Sports Matter” program, which gets funding from the Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation, was started in 2014 and has grown extensively over the years. This year, Dick’s has given close to $200,000 to organizations and schools in the Pittsburgh area and $20 million nationally. According to a spokesman from Dick’s, the program has donated close to $70 million nationally since 2014.

In a ceremony at halftime of McKeesport High School’s home game Oct. 22, the Little Tigers were presented with a $20,000 check. The Little Tigers have been in existence for 67 years. They now sponsor a flag football team for ages 5-6, and three other youth teams that play “real” football in pads (ages 7-8, 9-10, 11-12). The Little Tigers also have cheerleading squads for teams.

Besides the grant, Dick’s also gave the Little Tigers more than $5,000 worth of equipment.

“The money will help us greatly with equipment,” Mr. Robinson said. “Equipment has a huge price tag. There have been situations where we have to cut off signups because we don’t have enough of the appropriate equipment. We had a kid wanting to play, but we didn’t have a helmet small enough for him, so he couldn’t play.

“We have some hardships within our community. We might have a grandmother who has taken in two or three kids and they want to play, but sometimes a family can’t afford the registration fee.”

In the Pittsburgh area this year, about 30 different organizations and schools have received Dick’s grants, ranging anywhere from $1,000 to $25,000. And the money is not all going to football organizations. The grants have gone to everything from local dance teams to a mountain bike organization. A few other organizations that received grants this year are the Pittsburgh Royal Outlawz Dance Team, Pittsburgh Blind Hockey, River Valley Education Foundation and the Charleroi High School girls softball program.

Maureen Lawrence is the community marketing manager at Dick’s Sporting Goods headquarters in Coraopolis. She is a local representative of the Dick’s Foundation and works extensively with the “Sports Matter” program.

“There are many statistics out there that sports participation is diminishing,” she said. “Sixty-three percent of public schools nationally are seeing their funding for sports stay stagnant or decreased. So, we are looking at less than a third of school systems that are actually putting money back into athletics. We all know what athletics can do for kids. We know there is sometimes a correlation between athletic success and academic success.

“More organizations need funding. Maybe they didn’t have fundraisers in the past year because of COVID. There are some families where a $25 registration fee is too much. We want every kid to have the opportunity and a chance to play and we want to take the financial hardship out of it.”

Organizations and schools can apply for a grant through the web site www.sportsmatter.org. Organizations must meet criteria to receive a grant. And Ms. Lawrence said the money from the grant does not have to be used only for buying equipment.

“When you hear someone like a Dennis Robinson who has tears in their eyes when you tell them the news, that says it all,” she said. “These volunteers at these organizations care deeply about these kids. That’s why this program exists. Our end goal is get more kids to have an opportunity to play sports. I think locally and nationally, it has had a tremendous impact.”

Ms. Lawrence, 33, is an interesting story herself, a former standout basketball player who walked away from a job as a women’s basketball assistant at the Division I college level before joining Dick’s.

She scored 1,003 career points at Bethel Park High School (she was Maureen Hester back then) before going on to play Division I basketball at Xavier University in Cincinnati. After her playing days, she was an assistant women’s coach/​director of basketball operations for three years at Xavier before becoming an assistant coach at Robert Morris for the 2012-13 season. Robert Morris made the NCAA Tournament that year.

At Robert Morris, she met her husband, Tim Lawrence, who used to be a men’s assistant coach. Maureen Lawrence walked away from coaching to start a family. The Lawrences live in Fox Chapel and have two sons, ages 1 and 3.

Her job as community marketing manager and working with the “Sports Matter” program gives her some feelings she had as a coach.

“Coaching, especially at the Division I college level, is so time-consuming,” she said. “I knew someday I wanted to have a family and I didn’t want to have those sort of time constraints. I was looking to get into the corporate world. I hate to use this pun but Dick’s was a home run for me. We have a lot of flexibility at Dick’s Sporting Goods. It’s very much a family-based company and that’s something a young mom appreciates.

“The thing I enjoyed most about coaching was the relationships you build with players. I still talk to a lot of the coaches I played for, specifically Jonna Burke when I was at Bethel Park. She has had a great impact on my life. The favorite part of my job and this program today is being able to deal with these organizations and knowing you’re having an impact on kids’ lives. … I might not be doing it first-hand myself any more like I was when I was coaching. But at the end, it’s still all the same. You know you’re still making an impact in someone’s life.”

Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mwhiteburgh.

First Published: November 28, 2021, 5:00 a.m.