Photo Credit: NAYS
When you hear the phrase “youth sports,” what is the first image that comes to mind? Maybe it’s a bunch of kids in uniforms running up and down a soccer field. Or maybe it is parents and other family members sitting in the stands, yelling encouraging words. Or perhaps—because you are a recreation department employee charged with overseeing these scenes—your thoughts veer to the negative: two coaches arguing on a field or a parent with a suspicious cup refilling it from a cooler. Or maybe your mind recalls a decision you made to cancel games due to approaching bad weather and the backlash you received from coaches and parents who wanted to finish the contest.
I am sure that, if 100 people were asked, we might get many different responses. Hopefully, most of them would be positive. But we know some would be negative.
But I think a common theme among all those images would be from game days. The kids would have their uniforms, moms and dads would be in the stands, team parents would be prepared for distributing those all-important post-game snacks and drinks, and administrators would be roaming the facility—hopefully in recognizable uniforms themselves—just in case they would be needed.