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Arcadia and UYKQ - Philadelphia Baseball Review
PHILADELPHIA -- Nine years ago, there wasn’t a baseball diamond in Germantown.
There was an abandoned field — overgrown grass, no dugouts, no benches, no bathrooms, no infield dirt. It sat across from public housing. Forgotten.

Haneef Hill saw something else.

“When I found this field, it was fully overgrown grass. No dirt cut out,” Hill said. “But in my mind, I was like, this is a beauty. There’s a vision to this.”

He grabbed a shovel.

For three and a half years, he waited for dirt. Eight years before batting cages arrived. He rented porta-potties. Bought portable benches. Cut grass himself. Eventually purchased a tractor to maintain the field.

“If you waiting on the city, you gonna be waiting,” Hill said.

Today, that same field hosts between 170 and 200 kids annually — ages four through 14 — through Quick Ball, developmental baseball, travel teams and expanding softball programs.

But building access is only half the equation.

Exposure matters.

That’s where Arcadia enters.

Each winter, Urban Youth Kings & Queens - the organization founded by Hill - partners with Arcadia for an annual kickoff clinic inside the university’s indoor dome.

This year, more than 50 children participated.

“They have a nice indoor facility where the kids can get in there and learn,” Hill said. “It's been a success for a few years now, a really good event."

Arcadia players run drills. They interact. They demonstrate. They model what college baseball looks like.

For kids who might never step onto a college campus otherwise, that matters.

“It’s about the opportunity you create,” Hill said. “You’ve got to make them want to do it.”

Arcadia head coach Chuck Thielmann credits assistant coach Dylan Tice for helping establish the relationship.

“I can’t take too much credit for it,” Thielmann said. “I’ve got to give all the credit to our assistant coach, Dylan Tice.”

The partnership is now entering its third year.

Arcadia players lead instruction for younger and older groups. The youth players have been invited to Kids Day games, running out with Knights players and throwing out first pitches.

“It’s been really, really good for us,” Thielmann said. “It’s pretty cool. We see the kids get better.”

Urban Youth Kings & Queens didn’t begin as a baseball organization. It started with basketball. Baseball came because kids asked for it.

There were no local leagues initially willing to host them. Hill took his team to New Jersey, where they were overmatched.

“We went out there and got our butts kicked,” he said. “But we committed to not running from the challenge.”

Now, some of his players quit football to focus on baseball.

“You hear in a lot of inner-city communities that kids won’t do baseball because of football and basketball,” Hill said. “I’m doing the opposite.”

But sustaining that momentum requires more than passion.

“Finding volunteer coaches is very hard,” Hill said. “It’s one thing to get a dad to say, ‘Tell me what to do.’ It’s another thing to get someone who can actually coach.”

That’s where college partnerships become powerful.

Arcadia provides not just a facility — but visibility, mentorship and credibility.

When kids train inside a college dome, when they see players in college uniforms running drills, the game stops feeling distant.

It becomes tangible.

Hill doesn’t shy away from the disparity between programs with full-time facilities and those building from scratch.

“The Ryan Howard facility? That’s the golden ticket,” he said. “You can’t compete against 24-7 access.”

Urban Youth Kings & Queens built its field by hand.

Arcadia didn’t build that field.

But by opening its doors, its players and its platform, the Knights help extend the runway.

And for a program that now enters 2026 as the preseason favorite in the MAC Freedom, the impact runs deeper than standings.

It’s not just about getting back to the NCAA Tournament.

It’s about making sure more kids from Germantown can see that path — and believe it belongs to them.

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