Jason Heyward's Baseball Academy Brings Opportunity to Chicago's West Side

Out of 40 kids at a parking lot soccer clinic on Chicago's West Side, only five had ever played an organized sport. That moment stopped Andy McDermott cold. A former professional soccer player who grew up an hour outside the city and played collegiately at Northwestern, McDermott had seen what sport could do for a young person's trajectory. What he found in that parking lot told him how many kids were being left out of that equation entirely.

In 2021, McDermott brought that experience and a concrete vision to Jason Heyward, the Georgia-born outfielder who had become a fixture in Chicago after helping the Cubs end a 108-year World Series drought in 2016. The pitch was straightforward: take kids off the streets by giving them real access to real sports. Heyward said yes, and the Jason Heyward Baseball Academy was born.

Youth baseball has grown increasingly expensive in recent years, with participation costs reaching $3,000 or more per season in some markets. The academy, operating under McDermott's nonprofit Intentional Sports, works to bring the game to kids at all age levels at rates families on the West Side can actually afford. The 152,000-square-foot facility gives the community something tangible — a place to point to, a place to call their own.

The coaching staff includes former professionals, among them ex-New Orleans Saints wide receiver Austin Carr, and the program's goals extend well beyond the diamond. McDermott describes teaching leadership, resilience, and the ability to process failure — lessons that travel far beyond any field. The academy has also become a place where kids know they have someone to talk to.

Heyward's involvement goes deeper than lending his name to the effort. McDermott is direct about it: Heyward communicates regularly, stays close to the vision, and shows up in person. In a community where institutional investment has often been absent, that presence carries weight that no facility or funding alone can replicate.