YMCA Youth Sports
There is one thing that sets YMCA youth sports apart from other community-based or private sports leagues: Our values: caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility are the heart and soul of our YMCA.
Volunteer coaches find the four YMCA core values easy to integrate into sports. Caring can be helping a teammate up when he or she has fallen down. Honesty needs to be observed so that everyone plays by the same rules. Respect is congratulating the team you played that day with high fives. Responsibility is doing whatever you can to make your team better, such as, showing up to practice on time. Parents return to our sports programs season after season because they love that we work so hard to put values in what most people see as a competitive experience.
YMCA youth sports starts with kids as young as three playing on teams that focus on the more important parts of a sports experience: fitness, basic skills, and teamwork. As the players get older, Y-Sports adds more structure with the addition of referees and team benches. Most games are played without keeping score, and even when we do keep score, we don’t keep league standings. In all of our programs there is no championship tournament and everyone comes away a winner!
Playing sports at the YMCA and can lead to a lifetime of fitness. Our goal is that all the young athletes in our programs grow up into adults who play sports as a hobby or a way to stay fit. But to do that we need to make sure that all players have fun and a positive experience! As the saying goes, “If you take the fun out of sports, the kid will take themselves out of sports.”
Our goal is to build strong communities and give people a place to come together in a positive way. We do this through programs like Y-Sports that cater to building strong kids and families with good values, fitness, and fun.