He sat front and center last Monday for a picture that is worth a thousand words – and could produce almost as many stories. Charlie Batch then made a quick exit from Grandview Golf Club just outside of Pittsburgh.
The former Steelers quarterback had just spoken at an annual lunch gathering of legendary Western Pennsylvania high school football coaches. And he would have loved nothing more than to continue chatting with them. Some of the coaches were winning regional and state titles while he starred at nearby Steel Valley High School.
But it was past 2 PM/ET, and kids by the dozen would soon be streaming out of Best of The Batch Foundation headquarters.
“I’m the best crossing guard in Western Pennsylvania,” Batch joked.
Almost 30 years after starting a foundation in response to a senseless tragedy, Batch is more than making sure at-risk kids get home safely. He provides hope and opportunity through avenues that are not readily available to them.
His foundation’s summer program, for example, has more than 300 kids from 13 different school districts. It runs four days a week from 9:30 to 3 PM/ET for eight weeks. And kids get more than just a safe space and nutritional meals at the Best of Batch Foundation’s “clubhouse.” They receive encouragement and mentorship, especially when it comes to education.
Sometimes it’s as simple as getting a kid to read that first book.
Danielle Batch has to be smiling down on all of them, especially her big brother. Charlie was playing at Eastern Michigan University when Danielle was gunned down at the age of 17 for being in the wrong place at the wrong time in their native Homestead.
“She was caught in the crossfire between rival gangs and the guy that she was with used her as a body shield,” Batch said. “I said at the particular point if I was ever in position to give back I would.”
He started his foundation in Detroit after the Lions picked him in the second round of the 1998 NFL Draft. It took off after he signed with his hometown Steelers in 2002. In 2025, more than a decade after he beat the Baltimore Ravens in his final NFL game, Batch said his foundation served almost 4,000 kids.
What also drives Batch is an opportunity he did not get as a youngster. Inexplicably, and sadly, Homestead — of Homestead Grays, Josh Gibson and Negro League fame – did not have a little league baseball program while Batch was coming of age in a borough that struggled economically after Pittsburgh’s steel industry collapsed.
That explains why he could never do something that is both fundamental in baseball and fundamental to a quarterback’s well-being: slide. The Lions went as far as bringing someone in to teach Batch to slide after he broke a couple of ribs when getting drilled from behind on a scramble. Alas, it was a relief pitcher, and relief pitchers run the bases as often as kids order broccoli.
Basketball, not baseball, offers the best portal into the Batch Foundation’s approach.
A summer league became one of its staples, providing hundreds of kids with structure through regular practices and games. And it came with a catch: if they didn’t buy into basic educational requirements, they didn’t play.
“The ultimate goal was to get these kids to pay attention to a book in the summer. ‘Come play basketball. Oh, by the way you need to attend four mandatory study halls and read a book,’” Batch said.
His foundation offers all kinds of camps, including basketball and too many other programs to list, but they can be found here. Perhaps the greatest measure of the foundation’s reach is that Batch now refers kids to YouTube if they have any doubts that he played 15 seasons in the NFL.
“Now we’re seeing third generations come into our family,” Batch said. “The next step is to try to get these kids to colleges, trade schools, whatever that might look like.”
What it looks like is that Charlie Batch turned an unfathomable loss into a greater good and his true life’s work.
Thousands of kids are better for it.
And counting.