I love sports

Cursing, inappropriate coach. Challenging to communicate with leadership in a timely manner.

Other teams coaches got in yelling fights. Games were cancelled due to weather and there were no make ups. Our kids were on a tiny field that shouldn’t even be considered a field.

We had another great season with the Y

ORGANIZATION AND COMMUNICATION HAS BECOME HORRIBLE. SEASON INFORMATION IS SENT OUT LAST MINUTE. GAME DAY CHANGES ARE SENT OUT LAST MINUTE. PRACTICE SCHEDULE CHANGES ARE NEVER COMMUNICATED. AGE LIMITS, ROSTER SIZES AND ACTUAL ROSTER VERIFICATION ARE NOT MONITORED. STAFF DOESN'T MONITOR PRACTICE TIMES AND COACHES ARE CONSTANTLY HAVING TO BE REMINDED OF WHEN THEY NEED TO END PRACTICE. OVERALL THERE HAS BEEN A STEADY DECLINE IN HOW THE YMCA HAS BEEN RUNNING ITS SPORT SEASONS. SEEMS IT STARTS AT THE TOP AND FOLLOWS ALL THE WAY THROUGH TO THE ON SITE STAFF.

We won’t be coming back. This was our 7th season with the Y and the worst one yet. The rules were never the same. The kids couldn’t learn the rules because they were different every game. We were kicked out after our last game and the kids couldn’t enjoy their time because of an altercation that started from another team. Do better.

The front desk staff are amazing. Our soccer coach was very nice and patient with the children. The Child Watch staff are excellent with children. My granddaughter loves to gi to Child Watch!

Friendly and helpful staff.

The last two weeks my son’s soccer team has lost 12-0 and 11-0. The opposing teams have clearly been practicing 3 times a week for years based on their coordination and level of play. The majority of my son’s team are first timers who practice once a week. I didn’t sign him up to be practice fodder for a more experienced team looking to boost their self confidence at the expense of my son. This was not his experience in basketball but it certainly has been in soccer. You need to strive for parity more actively because my son (10) knows that an experienced team can beat an inexperienced team. That has so far been the extent of his learning. I suppose if I was the father of the other team(s) I might have a different viewpoint (and perhaps that is who you’re actually catering to).

The sports director never returns emails or phone calls. It is difficult to reach out to anyone. The fields are full of ruts. We had a teammate break an arm. The fees stayed the same despite not getting a New Jersey each year. The New Jerseys are very thick and hot.

Double headers are tough, and Spring season is too short. Maybe 9-10 games or add a scrimmage; it won’t matter if we play the same team twice. That’s the only reason I rated it an 8. Other than that, great coaching and facilities. Thanks.

Lack of consistent communication, no real organization. We showed up day one and two and there was no structure to the game, our friends had to step up and coach because there were no coaches. I don’t understand why we paid for registration and uniforms when we could have coordinated a play date with our kids independently. This season has been ridiculous. On top of that, today’s game is cancelled for the weather but there’s been no communication of that. In fact, we received an email an hour ago stating that the game was still on. We only found out it was cancelled after calling in and asking. I grew up at the YMCA and had wonderful memories as a kid. I wish this space could provide the same for my own child, however, unfortunately that has not been the case.

Nice park and facility

This has been a better experience than with some other groups we have tried in the past. He likes that he has a game every weekend where he can apply what he practiced.

We’ve been really disappointed in the communication and organization of the youth sports program. It was our first time signing our 4 year old for sports, and we had to constantly seek information on what team he was on and who his coach would be. We showed up for the first practice/game and no one was there to tell us that we didn’t have a coach. Luckily, one of the parent volunteer coaches offered for our team to practice with hers since our team wasn’t sure what to do. About 30 minutes in, someone finally came out and informed us that we didn’t have coach. It definitely would have minimized confusion and frustration if we had been told that when we arrived. Also, the vendor that ships the jerseys took a full month to deliver the jersey (my child had already played 3 games by then).

Our son’s team got moved to the tball field. They were supposed to be on the big baseball field, but now they play games on the tball field. It is too small for them and they are all crowded. I feel like my son is not able to properly learn the skills the program had promised he would. Our coaches tried to speak to management about it but they did not seem to care. We have been in several programs with the Y at OP, and are considering not returning due to the response we have gotten. It seems they do not care about teaching kids the sport

Your enduring efforts to help meet the social needs of our community in a fair and open (FRIENDLY) environment where all participants and families; regardless of race, age, gender, etc., are valued and acknowledged!

I signed my child up for sports and have been trying to reach someone via phone, email, and the player space app and have not heard anything. Practice starts this week and am hoping to hear something soon. I called in via the phone number that was provided and it simply stated that all communication should be via email.

My two grandchildren play soccer at the Y. This is their first year playing and they are having a blast. I would also like to give a shout out to the staff. They always go above and beyond to help and assist anyone who needs it. I will always be grateful to them. They have a heart of gold!

Great service

Soccer coaches had this season actually know what they're doing. Boys had a great time building up a flow together.

If we are coaching, you need to let us know that we are the coach. No one emailed my husband saying he was the coach so we showed up unprepared. Also, the refs need to know the rules. For example, if there are no goalies in the 5-6 age range then that needs to be explained to the other coaches not listening. It is disheartening to the kids who are following the rules and especially when another coach starts yelling at the ref right in front of the kids. To the refs credit, she was informing this particular coach but he did not want to listen and then ended up getting mad because the parents on the sidelines started to say something too. I have no idea how coaches like that are still able to coach. It is 5-6 year olds and the YMCA it shouldn't be this intense. Please, if you get complaints about a coach, take it seriously we just want the kids to have a good time and play fairly. There were several other times that the ref called things but then not others. Another example is hands. If there are no hands, then call it for EVERY team, not just one. Another example, if the ball goes across the line but doesn't touch the back of the goal (which is still a goal) then don't NOT count it for certain teams but count for others. We had the same ref almost every game so its very confusing why she is calling some things but not other things. If the 5-6 year olds can catch on that it isnt fair, then the ref should too.

friendly focused on the kids everyone gets to play

Twice a week for duck young kids is a lot. Once a week is ideal.

My child has been involved in Youth Soccer since 2023. We like the close proximity to our home. My child adores his soccer coach. We have also joined Soccer Academy and he has gained skills from that program. An improvement would be continuing to work with coaches so they can look at rosters before they are finalized. During Winter season, a new parent requested our team using my child's name without talking to our coach, my family, or any team parents. At the first practice, she *lied* and told our coach and the Y that my family recommended that her son join our team and her son was very good friends with my child. Coach let her know that our roster was already packed but there were other teams that could use more players. After some back and forth, the Y kept her request. It was upsetting that I was drawn into this incident. Later I learned from a neighbor that this person didn't even know our last name-- she asked the neighbor to spell it for her when she was registering her son. If she had approached me prior to Winter about joining the team, I would have directed her to the coach as a decision maker, but we couldn't do anything because the roster was already made. I noticed that her son is again on our team for the Spring season, possibly due to a request using my child's name again. I understand that Y sports are for all, but the way this parent behaved does not match our values. When my son began Youth Soccer, he had no experience. We only asked that he play with his best friend, and they mutually requested each other during registration. We ended up on a team with a couple of seasoned kids, but mostly everyone was new. The team has worked hard the last few years. I am grateful for all of the coaches who are volunteers-- it is a tough task to have. We love the Y, but the incident from the winter is the primary reason for my lower rating.

The communication. The player space portal isn't user friendly and does not notify you when changes are made. The person over youth sports says she notified families, but no one on the teams receives information unless you log in. If posts/schedules are made, its should send us an email saying we have a new post or message. Despite verifying my email, I never receive anything and often miss information because of it.

We have had a great time with our team and our volunteer coaches. They worked hard to make the experience fun and rewarding to our player. The problem is we are paying 150 dollars for a program without any transparency of how those funds are utilized. I have been researching other soccer opportunities and most places who are comparable or cheaper then the YMCA program offer the Jersey as part of the enrollment. For example the NISD Soccer league is about 120 dollars, and you get a jersey, socks, and 2 tickets to the concession stand according to their website. As far as I can tell the only thing we are getting is access to the playing fields and since our games always started late, and ended early we didn't get our full playing time. While field upkeep is important the money really should be going to training your referee. This season our team was stuck on a pretend field in the middle of the baseball outfield for the entire season. Which meant that there were occasions that no referee was assigned to us, so our games started late and we got a referee who had no idea what she was doing. Throughout all our games she had difficulty knowing if the ball was in our out of bounds. And she had no idea that the 7-8 year olds have throw ins and corner kicks. It was up to the coaches and parents to make the calls during the game, because the referee just stood there. And not only did our games start late but our referee ended them early. So we ended up getting maybe 30-45 mins of game play versus the full hour. The other issue I had with the ref was she did not recognize when a player was hurt. She just kept game play going. For example, one of our players was tripped by a player on the other team and struck his head on the goal post. He could have been seriously hurt but nothing was done about it, not even a "hey are you ok?" This does not show the player first sport second mentality that had me join the YMCA in the first place. And this is not an isolated incident. One of my son's friends was also hurt on the field and his mom is the one that stopped the gameplay. I also heard that they had another kid get three of his teeth knocked out and same story game kept going. The ref's should care if a child is hurt. Now that I have told you the problem this is the solution as I see it. As an educator I have to go to trainings every Monday afternoon after school hours.. You can have your YMCA staff that are going to be referee's attend trainings that go over the general rules of soccer, and your program from the littles to the bigs. Have them watch a soccer mach (sure you can find them on YouTube) and talk about the calls that they should be making. Go over basic first aide and what signs to look for that might indicate an injury. A child walking around cradling the side of his head should be an automatic check in. Injuries happen fast, you might not see it, but you can usually tell when something is off. Look for the way they are moving, are they cradling a limb or the side of their head, is there blood?. I was a lifeguard and water safety instructor so I know how fast these situations can occur. But you need to respond to that situation. During your clinics have a scrimmage game and have new refs practice making the calls. Pair a seasoned ref to a new one. Each training you can say they are certified for a different age group. And if you are receiving angry reviews from parents, don't give the angry parents your referees email address. Protect your staff, especially the young collage kids. As a supervision your take the complaint, talk to the person that is involved and offer better training so they are not put into a position like this. I don't know if we will be back at the YMCA next season, which is really sad because we were enjoying it up until now.

Quality of referees is getting worse. In our division we had one female ref for many games. She was more interested in her phone, would only call goals if it hit the back of the net (multiple times for each team the goalie would stop a ball well behind the goal line and they wouldn't be called as goals). Inbound and hands rules not consistent from game to game. Ref in championship of tournament didn't know the ruling for hands in the goal box. And did not enforce it properly. He even admitted knowing he missed the call right after it happened and did nothing to correct it. We had two refs for most tournament games but not for the Championship or Semifinals when many easy calls were missed.

Well organized and at a reasonable price for the effort and time required to participate. The sports director and his team do an amazing job being present at the events. And properly communicate to all players and their parents in regards to changes due to weather.

The first day of class there was one coach to 30 kids and they had to take turns. 2 year old patience and attention will not last for more than 5 mins. Smaller clases would work better

The soccer fields used to be taken care of much better, but in the past year they've turned into dust bowls. This season has been so bad that we're all sick from inhaling so much dust during the games. We will probably look for a new league to play in until they get better taken care of.

Fun way for my kids to learn sports

Soccer fields, pool, and splash pad.

Thank you to all the workers and volunteers for hosting this opportunity! I am sure you are dealing with a lot of unpleasantness from parents and adults which I apologize on their behalf. As far as what can be done to be improved, I've only been to the park once in 2020 so it was difficult to navigate. I think an aerial map of the field with markings that show where the different fields are and the check-in tent is and bathrooms would be helpful. Thank you again for doing the hard work that we don't see behind the scenes to make this opportunity possible. I appreciate you all!

The way games are handled on bad weather days is terrible. Our team called and called for hours with no decision made by the new director for OP on a morning of terrible weather. Our game was not cancelled until 14 minutes before the game started. Multiple parents had wasted their time and shown up because no one could tell anyone what was happening. Absolutely rude and inconsiderate to waste people's time like that.

Everything is good just two things that I think really worth for kids: - Referee criteria for yellow cards is not clear, I know that all this is up to voluntarism and they are not professional refs, understand that but could worth to recap on what is the handball criteria that results in yellow cards. - The other and most important thing is the schedule, 2 games in raw is a lot, yesterday our team loss 6-5 against a team that we know before hand that will be though game, and their time just had 1 game yesterday, it was a disadvantage, and the other will have double game today but they already play against us, my team and the other team in question are the ones that will be likely playing the final, I think that the whole tournament should have had one more day to have even schedules for all the teams.

Staff is amazing Fun Location

Easy and fun and very family oriented.

Very effective for kids at entry and mid level.

Very unorganized this season. Total lack of communication. Fortunately, we have great VOLUNTEER coaches that go above and beyond to try and get information that was needed and keep things flowing as smoothly as possible. Expect more from the PAID staff. As the fees seem to keep going up the quality-of-service provided seems to be trending in the opposite direction. Lazy, poorly trained referees continue to be an issue season after season. They are not volunteers. They are PAID employees. Coddling them with the same excuses over and over about it "being a first job" and "they are young", does nothing to prepare them for the real world when they enter the workforce for full-time employment.

Scheduling two games one day was difficult for our players. One was at 8 am and immediately after the next game started at 9 am. Two hours of constant playing shouldn't be allowed.

I coached one of the 3-4 year old soccer teams and it was a HORRIBLE experience as a coach. Specifically working with the YMCA Staff. The communication was literally non-existent there was virtually no communcation from the director to us as coaches but when I tried to reach out to the director she never responded. I love the Y, I had three kids doing soccer this fall and the players, parents, and coaches were all great. And I would definitely recommend other parents have their kids do YMCA soccer. However if I could give a -10 from the coaches perspective I would. It was a HORRIBLE experience and one I heard from lots of other parents and coaches. I enjoyed coaching the kids but the infrastructure needs to improve from the Y.

Notifications from the portal YMCA uses. This would help with communication for those that don't check the portal daily.

-Consistent game scheduling, this past season, game times were changed, with no communication, and multiple times. It was very difficult for us to manage all the changes because we have 3 children playing. -Clear communication, we sometimes got messages that were confusing, for example, we didn't know which team they were referring to in the message. -Parking is really horrible and leads to dangerous situations or people getting angry, having road rage type behavior. People are also parking in non-parking spots, blocking driving aisles which again makes it dangerous as cars try to maneuver the parking lot with people weaving in and out, including small children. Maybe games can be spaced a bit in between to help relieve parking spots? It's been a major problem for years. -More emphasis on parent behavior and language. We heard parents cussing and also making comments about kid's body sizes. I heard a parent talking about my own son's small size and found it very difficult to not go up and say something. I also overheard parents making rude comments about kids being overweight. That is truly unacceptable. Maybe we can add something to announce at the beginning of the games, when we do pledge, about using kind language and not making comments about the players? Also, some of the kids cuss on the field or "trash talk" in ways that beyond appropriate for competition and for their age range.

We were disappointed in the refs. Girls 7-8: The refs seemed unaware of some of the rules and the level the girls were at. Many of the children made the jump from 5-6 to 7-8 this season and are still learning. It helps if you show them where a corner kick or a goal kick are placed rather than just continue to point and whistle when they do it wrong. Boys 5-6: the ref did not whistle to stop play when children were fighting which resulted in parents screaming at each other in front of all the children and the game ending early. Adults are responsible for their own behavior. The ref needs to keep the kids safe by making whistling when needed to stop rough play.

Communication/consistency can be improved: Make sure families are notified by 8 a.m. of inclement weather cancellations. Make sure correct branch email is being sent to parents (ex. Email from Portranco sports received when child doesn't play there). Include sign-up links in first and follow-up emails for registration for tournaments, seasonal, etc. Rule is that participants must wear a reversible Red/Gray Y jersey but we have played teams with several kids not wearing the jersey (ex. Dolphins 11-12 Boys).

Affordable All the staff we interacted with was very attentive, patient, and knowledgeable.

The director never was available or returned the communication when reached out to via phone, text, text, leave a message at center or email. Kids safety was compromised due to lack of training on refs 4 times we had a horrible ref or one who didn't like the children and couldn't be bothered to even help them tie their shoes. When we needed the first aid kit it only contained small bandaids no wrap or anything to stop bleeding. After almost 5 years with 3 to 4 seasons a year we will not return. The cost is similar to other programs but, there is zero parking on weekends. Noone is available to address simple issues. We will miss Lofti and the amazing job he did. Very disappointed.

The refs were not good this season, especially the girl that did the 7-8 age division soccer. You could tell she hated her job. In the past they have helped kids learn the game by showing them how to throw in and where to set the ball for different kicks, this season they did nothing. You could barely hear them say whose throw in it was and that caused confusion for everyone. This could be a huge issue for the tournaments where the score matters. Overall, I was very disappointed with the refs. Also, the field conditions toward the end of the season were not good. There was so much dust and dirt. Could you water the fields before the games?

Age groups need to be better enforced… my 9 year old was playing against kids twice his size- while it gives a competitive edge, it's dangerous for the smaller kids. This didn't just happen in one game, or just that age group… my 5yo had 7yo on his team and those kids were far more advanced causing my son to not want to play.