Rick Wolff

is a nationally-recognized expert in the field of sports psychology and sports parenting. Routinely quoted by the media about the issues that face today’s athletes, coaches, and parents, Wolff has written and lectured widely on the psychological pressures that accompany America’s keen passion for sports.

For more than 23 years, Wolff has hosted a highly-popular weekly sports parenting program, “Rick Wolff’s Sports Edge”, on WFAN Radio in New York City. He’s been a featured expert on Oprah, ESPN, CNN, ABC’s “NightLine”, ABC’s “20/20”, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, Fox & Friends, Fox Business, CNBC, PBS, A&E, MSNBC, Court TV, Lifetime, SportsChannel, the Madison Square Garden Network, as well as dozens of other media outlets. Along the way, he’s been honored with an Emmy Award for his on-air work on SportsChannel.  In 1997, Wolff co-hosted an original video program, Youth Sports, with Steve Young, the Hall of Fame quarterback from the San Francisco 49ers.

Wolff, a former professional baseball player in the Detroit Tigers’ organization, was hired as by the Cleveland Indians as their very first roving sports psychology coach from 1989-94. He’s worked with numerous top professional and collegiate athletes, including players from the National Football League, the National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball. He also served as the head baseball coach at Mercy College (Dobbs Ferry, NY) from 1978-1985, when the Flyers were nationally-ranked in Division II (NCAA). He was inducted into the Mercy College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008.

From 1995 to 2005, Wolff wrote hundreds of widely-acclaimed prescriptive columns on sports parenting that ran in Sports Illustrated. In addition, Wolff’s

by-line has also appeared in such well-known publications as The New York Times, Harvard Magazine, the Harvard Business Review, GQ, Hemispheres, Sesame Street Magazine, Child, Scholastic, Family Life, USA TODAY, Psychology Today, Readers Digest, and many others.

Wolff has authored or co-authored 18 books, including four in the sports parenting field. One of his most recent efforts is the highly-acclaimed, Parenting Young Athletes the Ripken Way (Gotham, 2006), which he co-authored with Cal Ripken, Jr.  Wolff also penned The Sports Parenting Edge (Running Press, 2003), Coaching Kids for Dummies (IDG, 2000) and Good Sports: The Concerned Parents Guide to Competitive Sports (Dell, 1992).

His most recent books is the highly-acclaimed, Secrets of Sports Psychology Revealed (Skyhorse, 2018).

Wolff graduated magna cum laude in psychology from Harvard University. He received his master’s degree with high honors in psychology at Long Island University. He’s a longtime member of the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sports Psychology as well as the American Baseball Coaches Association.

Wolff and his wife, Trish, have three grown children — John, Alyssa, and Samantha who all played a variety of sports. Wolff and his wife reside in Armonk, NY.

Doug Abrams

Douglas E. Abrams, a University of Missouri law professor, coached youth hockey at all age levels for more than 40 years. He was raised in Westbury, New York, and he played and coached in the Nassau County youth hockey program at Cantiague Park in Hicksville.

He holds a B.A. summa cum laude from Wesleyan University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received the Scholar-Athlete Award. He set an Eastern College Athletic Conference Division III goaltending record for most saves in a game (64) and was the first Wesleyan hockey player named to the weekly ECAC All-East team.

Doug earned his law degree at Columbia Law School. At the University of Missouri, he has taught family law, children and the law, constitutional law, and American legal history. With royalties from books he has written or co-written, he created the Happiness For Health program, a permanent endowment that provides toys, stuffed animals, and games for the sick and injured children at the University of Missouri Children’s Hospital. HFH also provides parties for children who are hospitalized on their birthdays and other special occasions.

He serves on the Advisory Board of the Missouri Division of Youth Services, which is considered the nation’s finest statewide juvenile justice treatment agency. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the University of Missouri Children’s Hospital.

The Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader has called Doug “one of the people who help serve as the conscience for anyone involved in youth sports,” and “a nationally known authority on youth sports.” He writes regularly about sportsmanship, player safety, and equal opportunity. He recently collaborated with former National Basketball Association player Bob Bigelow on a book that urges reform of sports programs for pre-teen boys and girls.

In 1990, Doug was instrumental in creating mid-Missouri’s first youth hockey program. During his 11-year tenure as president, the program grew from 19 players to 180, while enrolling every interested player, encouraging beginners, and fully involving each player in all practice sessions and games. He also stressed community service projects that the players selected and performed during the season.

For their community service projects, his teams received the 2006 Honoring the Game Award, presented by the Positive Coaching Alliance. The Governor issued a proclamation stating that his teams had “brought honor to Missouri,” and a newspaper called one of his teams “a philanthropic organization on skates.”

Doug has received the Meritorious Service to the Children of America Award, presented by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. The Missouri Bar Foundation has honored him for service to the cause of justice. He recently received the Missouri Bar’s Distinguished Service Award for lifetime contributions to the interests of justice. At the University of Missouri Law School, he has received the Administration of Justice, Distinguished Faculty Achievement, and Teacher-of-the-Year awards. In 2013, he received USA Hockey’s Excellence in Safety Award.

Steve Kallas

Born and raised in upper Manhattan, Steve Kallas attended elementary school at P.S. 98 in the Inwood section.  He played baseball, basketball and was on the bowling team at the legendary Power Memorial Academy.  In his senior year at Power, Steve was awarded the John P. Donohue Medal for excellence in athletics and the Rev. Br. Eugene F. Ryall Medal for graduating second in his class academically.

Steve went on to play Division I baseball at New York University (where he hit .350 in his varsity career). He also played basketball and was on the bowling team (where he bowled for a national championship in his junior year).  Steve later graduated from the Fordham University School of Law, where he was a member of the prestigious Fordham Law Review and was President of his class section.

Steve Kallas presently does a weekly national sports show, entitled “Kallas Remarks,” with Philadelphia sports personality Joe Staszak. The show is posted every Friday or Saturday at Steve’s Facebook Group Page, “Speaking of Sports with Steve Kallas,” among other places.  For the last three years, Steve has been a regular weekend guest with host Joe Staszak on 97.5 the Fanatic in Philadelphia.

Since 2019, Steve Kallas has been the Sports Director of WestchesterCountyPost.com.  At Westchester County Post YouTube, there are about 100 sports videos posted with Steve and guest commentators covering topics ranging from all of the major sports to the horrors of CTE and how CoViD 19 has affected the sports world. He is particularly proud of the video posted after the death of Yankee legend Whitey Ford, which he did with Janelle Allbritton, owner-publisher of WestchesterCountyPost.com.

Steve has appeared numerous times on television and radio to talk about sports in general, youth sports, and/or sports and the law. His TV appearances include national spots on ESPN SportsCenter (with Sage Steele), on CNN Headline News and on Fox and Friends, as well as a number of local spots on PIX 11 and Fox 5. He has also appeared on MSG SportsDesk (with Deb Placey) and their talk show (Talk of the Town) multiple times on the Madison Square Garden Network, as well as Connecticut Public Television.

Steve has also appeared on episodes of American Greed on CNBC and Momsters: When Moms Go Bad (Season 1, Episode 3, “Anger in the Outfield”), on the Investigation Discovery Network. In addition, Steve has appeared a number of times on SNY TV as a legal analyst.

On radio, Steve has appeared dozens of times on Rick Wolff’s WFAN radio show, “The Sports Edge,” and has substitute-hosted for Rick a number of times. In 2004, Steve was selected by the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance to be on a national expert panel which, in 2005, came out with its National Report Card on Youth Sports.

Steve also has appeared numerous times on WFAN as the legal analyst from 2008 (the Plaxico Burress case) through 2017.  He appeared multiple times on the Mike Francesa Show, The Boomer and Carton Show and The Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts Show.  He has also appeared over the years with Marc Malusis, Steve Somers and Richard Neer, among others. Steve has also appeared multiple times on WFAN’s coverage of The Hambletonian (the “Kentucky Derby” of harness racing) at the Meadowlands, usually with Marc Malusis (Steve has special harness racing knowledge, having trained and driven harness horses for 10 years at the Meadowlands and Yonkers, among other places).

In addition, Steve has substitute-hosted his own sports show on WFAN a number of times over the last few years.

Steve Kallas has done over a thousand sports talk shows in the last decade. He did a year of Thursdays at WVOX in New Rochelle. For four years, Steve did a sports talk show weekdays at noon at sportstalknetwork.com. Steve has also appeared numerous times with host Rick Morris on his FDH Lounge “mini-episodes” (available at fdhlounge.com) to discuss all of the major sports and horse racing.

Steve’s writing includes three years as a columnist for Madison Square Garden’s website, msgnetwork.com, and one year as a columnist for The New York Post Sports Week (in its only year of existence), where he covered all of the major sports and horse racing.  He also wrote a column for four years at wfan.com. His written work has appeared in such varied publications as Sports Business Journal, Hispanic Beisbol Magazine, The Mount Vernon Post, The Hartford Courant, Hoof Beats Magazine, The Scarsdale Inquirer, thebiglead.com, The Horseman and Fair World Magazine and WestchesterCountyPost.com.

For over ten years of Steve’s written work, go to wfan.com and stevekallas.com.

Steve Kallas has two children.  Johnnie Kallas, after three years as a labor union organizer for home health care workers, is now getting a PhD in Labor Relations at Cornell’s University School of Industrial and Labor Relations (“ILR” School).  Gabriella Kallas, after getting her Master’s Degree in International Immigration and Public Policy at the London School of Economics, is now working to help refugees all over the world at the non-profit organization, Asylum Access.

In 2017, Steve Kallas was inducted into the Power Memorial Academy Hall of Fame, joining prior inductees Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (formerly Lew Alcindor at Power), NBA Coach Brendan Malone, 20-year United States Congressman Joseph Crowley, and ABA, NBA player and commentator Len Elmore, among others.