Reds celebrate National Girls & Women in Sports Day

By Brendan Hader | 6:20 PM EST

On Feb. 4, the Reds were proud to celebrate National Girls & Women in Sports Day (NGWSD), a nationwide observance honoring the achievements and impact of women and girls in sports to promote equality and participation.

Twenty-eight young women from the Reds Nike RBI softball teams joined Reds female front-office staff members at Great American Ball Park for an evening of dinner, discussion and interactive workshops. In addition to tying in with NGWSD, the special event coincided with the Reds Community Fund’s Scholars program, which focuses on developing student-athletes into Major League Citizens.

RCF Scholars’ immersive, yearlong curriculum combines individualized high-level athletic training with academic support and life-skills development for each high school student-athlete in the Reds’ Nike RBI program, providing them with the tools to succeed both on and off the field. Using the unique platform created by competitive baseball and softball combined with focused, expertly designed seminars and exercises, the Scholars program seeks to build student-athletes in four fundamental areas: mental and emotional; college awareness and access; workforce awareness and access; physical.

Now in its fourth year, RCF Scholars was started by Outreach & Education Manager Sara Scharff. She took the bones of a previous program called Home Base that folded during the COVID pandemic and reimagined it to the successful program it has become today, which continues to expand its reach and impact.

“Since we are in the fourth year, I’ve seen girls start as freshmen and now they’re getting ready to graduate,” Scharff said. “So, it’s great to see the growth within the girls and the boys that are in this program. Seeing the impact of them starting here and growing not only in the sport, but also mentally, emotionally, academically, and then getting to see them go off to that next level and hopefully come back. I’m really proud of the growth and that the word is getting out more. We’ve had a couple of families that it’s their first or second year, and they heard about all that we offer outside of just baseball and softball and decided to participate.”

That growth Scharff spoke of permeated through many of the evening’s attendees, including North College Hill senior Da’Nyiah Shamel, who has been with Reds Nike RBI for four years. Shamel, who will be going into the nursing program at Tuskegee University in Alabama next fall, credits the Reds Youth Academy for providing vital resources that helped her obtain scholarships for school and also become the more confident version of herself that she is today.

“I believe I am now less stressed and have more friends, so it’s been very helpful. I don’t really talk that much to people, but softball has helped me make friends,” she said. “And I’m excited to make more connections tonight, especially with going to college out of state. I want to have people that I can contact and can help be a resource.”

Wednesday’s program touched upon all four foundational elements of RCF Scholars. The program started with an opportunity for the guests to take a tour of the Reds Hall of Fame & Museum presented by Dinsmore. Dinner followed, proceeded by a mentorship portion featuring Reds staff members sitting with the RBI players and going through discussion questions relating to confidence, stress management, building up teammates, leadership and much more.

After the small group conversations, Reds chief communications and community officer Karen Forgus Bowman addressed the players and gave a snapshot of the business side of baseball. Forgus Bowman joined the Reds in 2006, the same year Reds principal owner and managing partner Bob Castellini became the team’s majority owner. She has a résumé chock-full of experience, including extensive time as vice president of marketing & communications and senior vice president of business operations before ascending to her current role.

Reds' full-time female staff

Forgus Bowman’s message was simple but impactful: No matter what the sport holds in the future for the young ladies on the field, the game of baseball will always be there to provide them an opportunity off the field -- something to which the 20-plus staff members in attendance could attest.

“This is such an amazing business, and I can predict this: I don’t know where you’re going to be when you’re my age, but I’ll bet you there’s going to be a team, and I bet you that people are still going to come around in mass to give their time to watching it,” she said. “If you like this and you’re having fun with it, just know this could be an actual life path for you. Be in it as an athlete, but also be in it as a smart woman and think about what you want to do with it in your generation.”

The athletes then split into two groups and participated in workshops: confidence and self-esteem led by Reds director of wellness Becky Schnakenberg and a mobility-inspired session led by Emma Crawford from Queen City Kettlebell. The evening concluded with a clubhouse and dugout tour where the group learned about all the different jobs that exist near the field and behind the scenes.

The Reds’ female staff members in attendance volunteered their time as part of their affiliation with the Women’s Initiative Network (WIN), one of the Reds’ four employee resource groups (ERGs).

WIN is committed to fostering a supportive and empowering community within Major League Baseball. The ERG champions inclusivity, mentorship, and personal and professional development while creating opportunities for growth, connection and collaboration.

The group contains subcommittees, each assigned a chair and co-chair, with a specific focus: membership (onboarding and engaging WIN members); peer mentoring (supporting professional growth and development); social (networking and leadership).

There is also an established branch of WIN in Goodyear, Ariz., where the Reds’ Spring Training facility operates year-round, which helps foster and maintain that connection with the organization even across the country.

WIN is one of the many ways the Reds have prioritized female representation in a traditionally male-dominated industry. Since the Castellinis acquired the team 20 years ago, the number of full-time women employed in the organization has more than doubled, growing from 43 in 2006 to 97 in ’26. There is a female presence on both the baseball and business side, especially on the business end with females representing over 37% of full-time staff.

Schnakenberg, one of those nearly 100 full-time female staff members, has been working in baseball for 28 years. On the teams she worked for in those early years, she was the only woman who didn’t occupy some type of administrative role. But the industry has come so far that when speaking to young women at events like these, she doesn’t want to harp on the past.

“I think sometimes when you focus on being a woman in sports, you take away from what your job is in the sport,” she said. “I never thought of myself as being a woman in baseball; I never really focused on that. I focused on doing the job and getting along with the players. And it had its challenges, but that was a long time ago. We’re in 2026, and luckily the young ladies that are in the game now didn’t have those challenges. So, to bring them up -- I don’t want to even put that in their minds. They can do anything.”

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