The Women’s Sports Foundation estimates that 3.4 million high school-aged girls participate in a sport in comparison to 3.6 million boys. Still, although numbers have risen in recent years, studies show that physical activity tends to decrease as girls go through puberty. Experts say this isn’t due to a lack of passion, but the lack of comfort that takes shape in the absence of sports bras.
To remove an often forgotten barrier to women and girls participating in sports, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Penguins, Pirates, and Riverhounds joined together with Operation Warm and FLY:FWD to distribute sports bras to the Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Girls Flag Football team.
While each team does its share of giving back to the city — whether it’s supporting Juneteenth festivities, or the Pittsburgh Pride parade, or hosting a charity event for vulnerable communities — Riverhounds and Riveters Senior Director of Ticketing Nicole Rudy told Pittsburgh City Paper that the teams involved couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work together and ensure that girls could comfortably play their favorite sport.
“It’s a piece of equipment that goes forgotten and the equipment that a young girl might need to feel comfortable playing that sport and a sports bra is one of those things that is very important and especially as girls get into those teenage years, it can be something that deters them from wanting to continue participating,” Rudy says. “So any opportunity we have to help encourage young females in our area to stay engaged in athletics, we’re all in for helping out.”
Where Operation Warm is a nonprofit dedicated to supplying children in need with coats and shoes, FLY:FWD, cofounded by the Philadelphia Eagles, ensures that girls in sports have access to sports bras. As a part of a collaboration between the two organizations, volunteers braved the cold to mark National Women in Sports Day, Feb. 5, by heading to Acrisure Stadium to package and distribute 500 sports bras to 250 athletes from the Pittsburgh Allderdice, Brashear, Carrick, Obama, and Westinghouse flag football teams.
As Rudy observed, studies have shown that, as girls get older, breast-related discomfort in the absence of a sports bra was an often-cited reason they’d stop participating in sports. Yet cost and parents’ discomfort in purchasing sports bras for their children can mean that the problem isn’t solved, and a promising athlete never reaches her full potential.
Pittsburgh Penguins Chief People Officer and General Counsel Tracey McCants Lewis recalls that, during her childhood when she ran track, some of her teammates resorted to binding their breasts with ace tape to get the support they needed. Memories like that, Lewis said, make it important to ensure that current and future generations of female athletes aren’t in such dire straits.
“Girls have dreams to be engaged in sports, and we want to make sure that they have the resources necessary … to be able to achieve their dreams, to be able to play and engage in sports,” Lewis said. “And so I think for the [four] sports teams to come together, to pull their resources together to be able to support girls and women in sport, is so important.”
As a longtime supporter of girls’ flag football teams in the commonwealth, Pittsburgh Steelers Director of Community Relations Blayre Holmes Davis says the NFL team couldn’t pass up the opportunity to help the players continue to live up to their potential. Additionally, Davis says that the drive’s donations went to flag football players as well as members of the soccer and swim teams. Davis added that the Steelers have supported the players by hosting clinics for girls’ flag football. Davis explained that there was no better way to commemorate a holiday dedicated to celebrating how far women in sports have come than to continue showing support.
“Girls flag football is now a sanctioned sport in Pennsylvania, and our team, as well as the Philadelphia Eagles, really worked hard to get that passed here,” Davis says. “And so we’ve worked really, really closely to make sure that we’re not only collaborating with the schools and the folks who administer that program, but also just making sure we’re able to lift the young women who participate in it.”
Ultimately, although the partnership with Operation Warm is new and Women and Girls in Sports Day only comes once a year, the plan is to work year-round to give back to the City of Pittsburgh and ensure that female athletes have all that they need to thrive.
“With the sports teams, we continue to all work together to make sure that our community is supported,” Davis said. “While we’re excited for everything that happens on the field with our individual sports, we also really want people to know that each individual sports team is here to support the community.”
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2025.
