youth sports

While the sports world focuses on the Olympic Games in Paris, France, a notable local sporting competition deserves mention — the 9th National Urban Sports Classic.

Summertime in Boston celebrates another year of the Boston Neighborhood Basketball League, better known as the BNBL. Young men and women across the city form teams and play for the bragging rights of youth basketball. The league is the oldest of its kind in the United States.

It took a long year, coupled with growth, maturity and dedication to hard work by a group of young men to complete a historical milestone for Boston English High School’s first city team to win the MIAA Baseball title, since 1971.

More than three decades have passed since Tony Richards Sr. created a youth program to motivate urban athletes to new heights of scholastic achievement.

Mayor Michelle Wu last week outlined an ambitious agenda to support the city’s young people, pledging investments in early education, arts and sports programming, youth jobs and other key areas in a speech at the annual meeting of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.