“When the people around you are pushing sports, it definitely makes you feel seen,” Cabey said.
In May, Mayor Michelle Wu announced the launch of Boston’s first Youth Sports Hub, an online directory where families can find nearby sports leagues and programs for children in elementary school through high school.
The Youth Sports Hub allows users to search for nearby sports facilities and organizations by using their neighborhood as a starting point. Users can search the directory by specific sports offered like basketball, rugby, baseball, martial arts, lacrosse, and gymnastics. The directory also lists seasonal availability, gender accommodations, level of engagement, language, age group, and costs for each program.
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Summer camp counselor Emilio Cabey III worked out at the Berkshire Partners Blue Hill Club in Dorchester in Boston on Monday.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
The directory is part of Wu’s Connect, Learn, Explore initiative, launched in 2024, which provides youth with access to sports, the arts, gardening, and other forms of community involvement.
The sports database comes at a time when youth involvement is down. According to Boston’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), 34 percent of high school youth were involved in at least one sports team in 2021 — a 10 percent decrease from 2019.
“This give kids the access to top-tier equipment to playing sports at a high level and keeping them safe,” Cabey said.
The hub — which includes Boys & Girls Clubs and Boston Centers for Youth and Families — also provides information on statewide recreational sports news, city-run sports programs, and space for organizations to find more resources to expand their reach in communities.
Along with the directory’s launch, the city hired its first youth sports initiative manager, Tyrik Wilson, earlier this year and invested $100,000 into local sports leagues via small grants to pay for equipment upgrades and travel.
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“We’re trying to figure out through these conversations with different programs — in what kinds of ways are you retaining your athletes in your program,” Wilson said. “It becomes more than dropping your kid off and leaving.”
Wilson said he wants youth sports programming to be able to offer opportunities for actual competition, academic support outside of school hours, and community-building for youth.
Obie Christmas, teen director at the Berkshire Partners Blue Hill Club, has been coaching some of his students, who are now headed to college, since elementary school.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
Obie Christmas, teen director at the Berkshire Partners Blue Hill Club, said the directory will keep families from traveling far into the city to find quality sports programming and training.
“All these kids have to outsource and go 30 minutes out to go to training with an indoor turf or a nice turf facility where it’s safe,” he said. “They have to go to their local — or not-so-local — gym to get a weightlifting session in.”
Christmas has been working at Blue Hill for seven years and leads sports training. He has been working with some of his students, who are now headed to college, since they were in elementary school.
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“The goal right now is to reach out into the community and just get people to buy into the system and get people to understand that they don’t have to go all the way to Newton or wherever for good programming,” Christmas said.
Blue Hill offers a plethora of sports like basketball, football, swimming, tennis, and soccer with recently renovated and quality courts, and equipment and training space for students. Christmas said the city’s efforts help families and organizations like Boys & Girls Clubs get kids started in sports and keep them involved throughout their development.
“This means we can now compete when we put kids in our programming. We are helping young athletes get started and keep growing,” he said.
Cabey said Boston’s youth should have easy access to sports programming whether they want to play in college or play recreationally.
“It teaches you discipline you may not get at home or anywhere else,” he said. “It also opens up opportunities to get in a new environment and meet new people and network.”
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Obie Christmas, left, program manager at the Berkshire Partners Blue Hill Club in Boston, trained Roody Jean-Louis on Monday, as he works to make the Bridgewater State University track team.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
Auzzy Byrdsell can be reached at austin.byrdsell@globe.com.
BOSTON (WHDH) – The maker of the online learning platform Canvas has reportedly reached a deal wit the hackers who took down the site last week to get their data back.
The company did not reveal what was given to the hackers in exchange for the return of more than 275 million users’ data, but said they confirmed the data was detroyed.
Canvas was down for several hours last week because of the cyberattack.
The hacking group said nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were impacted, including Harvard University.
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They said they accessed billions of private messages and personal information.
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Investigators identified Tyler Brown of Boston as the man who allegedly opened fire on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, leaving two victims with life-threatening injuries.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said Brown fired 50 to 60 shots on the busy road shortly after 1 p.m. Monday.
Two male victims were hit in vehicles, Ryan said. They are in critical condition and fighting for their lives.
A Massachusetts State Police trooper and a civilian with a license to carry a firearm went toward the gunman and fired their weapons at him. Officers treated Brown at the scene, and he was brought to a Boston hospital, where he is in intensive care, according to the district attorney.
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This video shared with NBC10 Boston appears to show a man opening fire at cars on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Monday, May 11, 2026.
Authorities have, so far, shared limited information about the suspect.
“Mr. Brown is from Boston, and apparently was in the process of moving here. We understand that Mr. Brown was under the supervision of either the Massachusetts Probation Department or Department of Parole,” Ryan said.
She did not elaborate on why Brown may have been on probation or parole.
“We will address Mr. Brown’s criminal record, if any, at the arraignment,” she said.
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Ryan added that she did not know enough about Brown’s condition to say whether he would be arraigned in court or in a hospital bed. The timing was also not clear.
He will face two counts of armed assault with intent to murder and firearms charges, and “a variety of other charges as we unfold what took place, exactly, and we have a chance to speak to the many, many people who were out there,” Ryan said.
An inbound stretch of Storrow Drive and Soldiers Field Road will be closed each night through August for tunnel repairs, officials announced.
Starting Monday, the closures will begin at 8 p.m. and last until 5 a.m., state officials said.
Road closures begin at North Harvard Street in Allston and stretch along the Charles River Esplanade to Mugar Way in Boston, near the Hatch Memorial Shell, officials said.
Traffic will be detoured into Cambridge over the Anderson Bridge, along Memorial Drive, and then be routed into Boston over the Longfellow Bridge.
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The closures will allow ongoing repairs to the Storrow Drive Tunnel in the Back Bay.The work is the first phase of a two-stage project to extend the lifespan of the tunnel, which carries roughly 50,000 drivers to and from downtown Boston daily.
The outbound portion of the tunnel and accompanying roadways will not be affected.
State transportation officials said changes to the work schedule will be made when necessary to minimize impacts during major local events at TD Garden, Fenway Park, or during the FIFA World Cup and 250th anniversary celebrations scheduled for this summer.
Additional changes may be made without notice due to weather.
Transportation officials have not specified when the closures will end.
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Bryan Hecht can be reached at bryan.hecht@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @bhechtjournalism.
