National Youth Sports is very poorly run from the ground up. I have enrolled and coached for a couple seasons for both flag football and tackle football.
In the flag football arena, they took your money, and really provided you with nothing. On occasion the Referees would show up. It would be common that they didn't show up at all and the Coaches would self officiate. The field facilities they would provide would be seriously substandard. Not just poor quality but also dangerous to the kids. And the site directors were some of the rudest individuals I have ever met. It was clear that they had your money, and didn't care about anything else.
On one occasion, the field was not set up for our flag football game, so the opposing coach and I set up our field. The ref's never showed so we kept time and self officiated. All of this took some time and we started our game about 20-25 minutes late. We played the first half. After the first half a site official arrived and informed us that we would have to vacate the park because he was going to need it for soccer. He fully admitted that it was his mistake that the field was not set for us, and that no refs showed up. But nonetheless, we had to vacate because he had a schedule to keep. We offered to move "OUR FIELD" to make room for soccer. But this was not acceptable. He wanted us to vacate the park and threatened to call the police if needed, because we did not have a permit to utilize the fields.
I asked for a pro rata discount that season for the multiple times events like these occured. NYS never made good on it.
In the tackle football arena, things got even worse. The level of disorganization, constant field changes and game time changes was enough to make even the coolest parent a little angry. The officiating was so horrible that even the same officiating crew couldn't agree on what the rules were. Let alone have consistent rules from week to week.
The most aggregious problem I found however was with player safety. NYS could care less about actually enforcing age ranges for tackle football. I know for a fact that my 6-8 year old team was routinely playing against kids that were 10 and 11 years old. This is not my opinion. This is a fact. When I pointed it out to the league multiple times, their only response to me was that "They feel they do a good job screening the kids". I went to them with a legitimate concern for player safety, they shrugged me off. And no, it wasn't just about winning. When you have 6 year old boys being mauled on the field by 11 year olds it is a safety concern. Not to mention scared off half of my team for ever returning to tackle football. Sounds like a great way to instill a little confidence in those young men!
And lastly, I have heard and read their rebuttals. They haven't changed a freaking thing. This has been the modus operandi for years and will be how they continue to do business. There is a sucker born every minute and they capitalize on that concept. Any parent worth his / her salt would run from NYS within a few seasons. If they didn't I would question his / her sanity.
They take your money, give you nothing in return, when you gripe they either dismiss you, or tell you how many changes they made to make it better (which is just a blatant lie)
To the parents, run like the wind.
To NYS, and I very sincerely hope it never happens, but one day a small child will be severely injured by your negligence. But you don't care, because his parents already paid the registration fee.
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