May 18 – May 31, 2025
Welcome to issue four hundred and sixty-six of the Sports Doing Good newsletter. This week’s 10 stories include:

1. Johnny Gaudreau Becomes Emotional Focus of U.S. Hockey After They Win First Gold at Worlds in 92 Years (MSN/People)
2. Celebration of Service Award: Lessons in resilience from Figure Skating in Harlem (SportsBusiness Journal)
3. Nearly 50 Years Before the Valkyries, Denise Long Rife Was Drafted by the Warriors (SI)
4. NFL star gives back to his mother’s HBCU (Favorito/HBCU Gameday)
5. How Novak Djokovic Redefined Greatness After Age 30 (Huddle Up)
6. Touch2See increases accessibility for visually impaired, blind sports fans (SportsBusiness Journal)
7. Not holding back: Neither Lindsey Vonn nor Eileen Gu are scared to fail at the Olympics (CNN)
8. Power in Partnership: A Turning Point for U.S. Sports Governing Bodies (George Pyne/LinkedIn)
9. Breaking taboos – Iranian women’s football kicks against tradition (Geosport)
10. The new diplomats of sport: How private equity is rewriting global playbooks (SBJ)


10+
Student-Athlete Tackles Climate Change With Youth Eco Sports Scorecard (Beyond Sport)
https://beyondsport.org/2025/05/23/school-athlete-tackles-climate-change-through-the-youth-eco-sports-scorecard/
IOC highlights role of sport in tackling physical inactivity at World Health Assembly (IOC)
https://www.olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-highlights-role-of-sport-in-tackling-physical-inactivity-at-world-health-assembly
Becoming a Sports Diplomat: Skills, Knowledge & Experience for a Growing Global Profession (Sports Diplomacy)
https://sportsdiplomacy.substack.com/p/becoming-a-sports-diplomat-skills
South Rockies Baseball5 Club leads grassroots development of Baseball5 in Kenya (Sport and Dev)
https://www.sportanddev.org/latest/news/south-rockies-baseball5-club-leads-grassroots-development-baseball5-kenya
Up2Us Sports Turns 15: A Milestone with Exciting Changes Ahead (Up2Us Sports)
https://www.up2us.org/blog/2025/1/12/up2us-sports-turns-15-a-milestone-with-exciting-changes-ahead


We present again our “Featured Video” offering(s). With the explosion of video content out there highlighting the good in sport, we want to showcase such content for your enjoyment and learning. This will be an ongoing effort. And now we add podcasts!

High school hockey players step up at veteran’s funeral (ESPN)
https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/45287423
The Real Allen Iverson | So … You Want the Real Story? (The Players’ Tribune)
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/video


Introduction
Once again, I want to take a moment to encourage you to contact me if you are looking for college or graduate student interns for the summer, both in the sports space but also in areas such as international business, international relations, health & wellness, etc. You can email me at sab@sportsdoinggood.com or at 516-287-7141.

The ability of sport to change, for the better, individuals, communities, and even countries is now a well-known idea held by both those in and out of the sports world. That idea has spurred great efforts to increase access to sports for the poor and disenfranchised, build bridges between different cultures, and move women’s sports to its rightful place on the sports landscape, amongst other things. However you label it, sport for development, sports and CSR, sport for social change, sports diplomacy, etc., the results have been impressive, and we are really just getting started. You will get a chance to see samples of the results in basically every story this week.

One area that I have not associated with positive social change is private equity, for obvious reasons. But I am not against that area’s efforts to elevate sports to be the great differentiator it can be. An opinion piece by Ambassador (and fellow Hoya) Stuart Holliday, “The new diplomats of sport: How private equity is rewriting global playbooks,” puts out there that we can see “p.e. for good.” I am willing to give it a chance and do what I can to help that area leverage its strengths to enhance its impact on sports and society. That will include featuring stories in the newsletter than meet that standard.

Please continue to send along your stories. You are both our audience and the best source of stories. Our Twitter handle is @sportsdoinggood, and you can find us at www.facebook.com/sportsdoinggood and on Instagram.

If you think others would like to receive the newsletter, please feel free to forward it on or have them contact us directly at sab@sportsdoinggood.com. (If you do not want to receive the newsletter anymore you can use the Unsubscribe button at the end of the email).

So, enjoy. And have a good week.

Johnny Gaudreau Becomes Emotional Focus of U.S. Hockey After They Win First Gold at Worlds in 92 Years (MSN/People)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nhl/johnny-gaudreau-becomes-emotional-focus-of-u-s-hockey-after-they-win-first-gold-at-worlds-in-92-years/ar-AA1FvXMF

Celebration of Service Award: Lessons in resilience from Figure Skating in Harlem (SportsBusiness Journal)
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/05/05/celebration-of-service-award-lessons-in-resilience-from-figure-skating-in-harlem/

Nearly 50 Years Before the Valkyries, Denise Long Rife Was Drafted by the Warriors (SI)
https://www.si.com/wnba/nearly-50-years-before-valkyries-denise-long-rife-drafted-by-warriors

NFL star gives back to his mother’s HBCU (Favorito/HBCU Gameday)
https://hbcugameday.com/2025/05/07/nfl-star-gives-back-to-his-mothers-hbcu/

How Novak Djokovic Redefined Greatness After Age 30 (Huddle Up)
https://huddleup.substack.com/p/how-novak-djokovic-redefined-greatness

Touch2See increases accessibility for visually impaired, blind sports fans (SportsBusiness Journal)
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/05/06/touch2see-increases-accessibility-for-blind-sports-fans/

Not holding back: Neither Lindsey Vonn nor Eileen Gu are scared to fail at the Olympics (CNN)
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/07/sport/eileen-gu-lindsey-vonn-intl-spt

Power in Partnership: A Turning Point for U.S. Sports Governing Bodies (George Pyne/LinkedIn)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-partnership-turning-point-us-sports-governing-bodies-pyne-hzugf/

Breaking taboos – Iranian women’s football kicks against tradition (Geosport)
https://substack.com/home/post/p-164429656

The new diplomats of sport: How private equity is rewriting global playbooks (SBJ)
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/05/21/the-new-diplomats-of-sport-how-private-equity-is-rewriting-global-playbooks/

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Our goal is to have Sports Doing Good be a portal housing original content and excerpts from and links to the increasing number of articles, websites, video, and other media that showcase the good in sports and society. We aim to celebrate those concepts, activities, events, and individuals by highlighting them for a wider audience. Much of the news today, whether sports- related or not, is incredibly negative and increasingly polarizing, biased, and quite annoying. We are trying to refocus some of the discussion on the good, with a focus on sports.

Our mission is to have Sport Doing Good be a consistent, and significant, contributor to the areas of sports, social responsibility, and development. We look forward to partnering with other stakeholders in producing content, in creating and/or sponsoring athletic and service events, knowledge sharing, and conferences/seminars, and even having a commercial arm that could be the source of innovative social businesses.

We invite you to send in news, press releases, and guest pieces for possible publication, and email us with suggestions about the content and format of the newsletter and Sports Doing Good website.

Contact Information
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Sarbjit “Sab” Singh
sab@sportsdoinggood.com
516-287-7141
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