Mays YMCA

My son is in his second round of t-​ball at Mays, and just last spring I would have given this facility a glowing review. Aside from the parking (it’s always packed) the program was well run and I felt like my family was getting a good experience for our money. Now we are in the fall season and I’m amazed at how unhappy we are only one week in. The t-​ball kids have been moved to these makeshift «fields» which are small and poorly maintained (the one we were on was muddy with high grass and the turf was so bumpy that the kids were tripping all over the place while running the bases. Meanwhile, pitch ball games were going on in the regular fields, where parents didn’t have to sit in damp, muddy grass and have bugs climb all over them. It made us (and the other parents there) feel as if the Y was money hungry by accepting too many kids for too many teams — it took us nearly 20 minutes to park before getting to the crappy field we were playing on! They need to have a cut off and stick to it — there’s a reason why sports sign ups have an end date for registration, but this season they kept extending it. It was sick how many kids were there — I’m all for offering opportunities to play but when half of the families are shoved into crappy little spaces because they enroll so many kids that they literally run out of room for them, well, it makes you feel like a second class citizen. For what we pay to participate, the t-​ball parents deserve better!

Finally getting around to writing a review for Mays YMCA on Blanco…
I’ve been a youth sports coach for nearly 20 years and have see the spectrum of facilities, directors, coaches, and referees. We’ve participated in basketball and soccer at Mays for three years now and I’ve been impressed with the two Youth Sports Directors that have served, Heather, and now, Alex. Currently, the soccer fields are in great shape, the referees are well-​trained, and the sponsorship programs run well.
Game days present somewhat of a parking problem, as soccer and baseball often run concurrently, but traffic on Blanco is managed by some off-​duty SAPD dudes at peak hours.
Overall, if you have kids and want to get them into sports, and if you live in the general Stone Oak area, check out Mays.