Join us this fall for the 2018-2019 Recreation Basketball season. Registration is open for 3rd through 8th graders.
Flag Football Registration Open
Join us this fall for Flag Football. Registration is open for 4th to 8th graders.
FAQ
- Our goal is to support 8 teams (up to 64 players) in the 4th, 5th, 6th grade and 7th-8th grade divisions.
- The league will start in September with an introductory skills evaluation clinic before. Games will begin the 3rd week of September.
- We’re looking for coaches and referees
Santa Cruz SPIN Tryouts
Santa Cruz SPIN fastpitch softball tryouts are scheduled for Sunday, May 6th at 9AM. Tryouts are at San Lorenzo Valley High School in Felton.
If you are a student-athlete who wants to have fun and grow in a positive environment then consider trying out for the Santa Cruz SPIN fastpitch summer team. SPIN is for high school aged players who want to improve their skills and knowledge of the game. Our focus is a “TEAM FIRST” attitude and we expect each player to give maximum effort.
We focus on the following:
- Fundamental and Advanced Skill Development
- Hitting and Short game mechanics
- Pitcher development
- We work on improving overall athletic fitness. Great for summer and fall sports development.
- Tournaments are relatively local to keep our costs down. However, we plan to travel to Tahoe at least once. We take advantage of fundraising opportunities to keep players costs as low as possible. Historically these range between $300 and $400.
- We do not plan on traveling to showcase tournaments.
Check out http://santacruzspin.org for details or contact info@spinsoftball.org
Verified Volunteers
SLV Youth, Inc. is proud to partner with Verified Volunteers, the only background check platform tailored to the specific needs of youth sports organizations.
Verified Volunteers is designed to make background screening of volunteers faster, easier and less costly for nonprofits.
Benefits of screening through Verified Volunteers for nonprofits:
Added peace of mind – Volunteer information is updated for you free of charge each month for the first year so you have the added security of monitoring your volunteers for new criminal records.
Secure and compliant – Verified Volunteers background checks are housed in a completely secure environment and are fully Fair Credit Reporting Act compliant.
Easy ordering and administration – Volunteers enjoy paperless, self-service ordering and volunteer managers administer their volunteer screening online, significantly reducing administrative time.
Customized payment options – SLV Youth covers the cost of background screening but volunteers have the option to contribute to the cost of his or her screening.
A volunteer community – Volunteers can own and control a copy of their background checks in secure volunteer accounts and profiles.
The volunteer fast-pass – Free, up-to-date background checks are shared securely with you when previously vetted volunteers with another organization on Verified Volunteers share their checks with you.
Benefits of Verified Volunteers for volunteers:
Verified Volunteers saves time and money by eliminating the need for multiple background checks. Once you complete an online background check with Verified Volunteers, your screening status is current and you have the option of reusing it with any other Verified Volunteer member organization.
Verified Volunteers allows you to own, control, maintain and share your background check through the Verified Volunteers self-service online platform.
Flag Football Registration Open
Join us this fall for Flag Football. Registration is open to 9-11 years.
FAQ
- Our goal is to support 4 teams (28-32 players) in the 9 to 11 year old age group. The age cutoff date is September 1st.
- The league will start September 11th with an introductory skills evaluation clinic. Games will begin September 25th during a 2 hour window each Sunday for 6-8 weeks.
- We’re looking for coaches and referees
SLV Flag Football
We’re looking at the feasibility to support a new flag football league in the San Lorenzo Valley and Scotts Valley area. Preliminary planning is underway to support teams in the 9-11 year old age group with games beginning in early fall. Join the mailing list below and we’ll keep you in the loop.
Youth Softball Forum
To anyone interested,
Could we get interested parties in the same room and change our youth softball culture? Maybe not. But isn’t it worth the effort to try and get on the same page and put kids first? There is a reason we have declining numbers in youth sports and it’s not the kids. Let’s discuss the issues and work together to solve them. Rumors are rampant and we need a forum to clear the air.
Monday, May 23rd – 6PM – Ben Lomond Fire Department
Agenda PDF: Softball Forum May 23 Agenda
Using the blind draft
When we sat down to define the structure of our youth league we began with a blank sheet of paper and quite a few experiences we didn’t want to see repeated. We began with a few guiding principals:
- Kid focused
- Keep it fun
- Skill development
We knew we had to listen to the community and remain teachable through the process. When the discussion came to the draft process we generally had a few guiding goals:
- Reduce or eliminate manipulation in the draft
- Stacked rosters suck for kids
- Balanced rosters are good for kids and player development
- New coaches often get slaughtered in the draft
The result was our own version of a blind draft. We felt a group of knowledgable community members and coaches could evaluate the talent and rank each player by their abilities and experience. This ranking would be used to draft players on each team. Once the process was complete the coaches were assigned to the teams based on where their child fell.
To take this one step further we need to identify our coaches before the draft to include them in the process. Maybe we let coaches draft all the teams before knowing which team they are assigned. Once the draft is complete the coaches will draw lots to see which team they are assigned. This would ensure that coaches do a good job of making the teams balanced and avoid any dominant or stacking of the rosters.
Generally, we feel our competition level is balanced and the blind draft was a success. We’re looking forward to feedback from the community and improving the process next year.
SLV Hoops Site Launched
Our new SLV Hoops site has been launched creating a standalone destination for everything youth basketball. Over the next few weeks we’ll be expanding its content and list of features.
Skills Evaluation Set
Skill evaluations for the upcoming 2016 SLV HOOPS basketball season will be held on December 5th at the SLV Middle School gym. Please make sure your child shows up 15 minutes prior to their designated tryout time:
9:00-10:30 3rd/4th Grade Boys
10:30-12:00 5th/6th Grade Boys
12:00-1:30 7th/8th Grade Boys
2:00PM – 3:30PM All Girls
Registration for the 2016 season will close on December 4th. Those wishing to participate will be placed on a waiting list.
