When The Saints Go Marching In

Baseball! Soccer! Basketball! For kids, Queens is seemingly the sports capital of the world. But lately the sun hasn’t shined so bright for some groups.

CYO Sports, known as Christian Youth Organizations view sportsmanship and character development as an integral mission to the community. In each Catholic parish, a CYO organization will form to administrate competitive sport programs for students and children from the neighborhood.

In its heyday, the lush parks across north Queens were filled to capacity with scholarship bound baseball players from St. Kevin’s or rising basketball stars from St. Anne’s. But not just them, many parishes were involved. In general, CYO was the largest organization because Catholic school enrollment was up, way up. It’s a recent thought that their epoch in time seems to have come to a bitter end.

Catholic elementary schools have been experiencing declining enrollment and rising operating costs for longer than a decade. The trend has forced them to shut their hallowed doors. Queens was hit hard with school closures and downsizing. Without a parish, the sports organizations vanished. There were no children to play, no students in their desks or parishioners in the pews.

To witness your alma mater close or become at-risk is an emotional experience. But hope is not lost. Young parents that realized the moral value in a Catholic education with it’s strict education standards and cliché uniforms are taking baby steps into a new parish, or combined Catholic school, or soon to be Academy.  Some parents are not so quick to turn down the free quality education in NYC public and semi-public schools. But this doesn’t mean anyone should turn down the opportunity to play for a CYO team, after all you don’t have to attend the school to play. Could it be that they didn’t know about it? Perhaps they did but forgot.

Like the ailing parish, the CYO programs atrophied, because for some reason the children couldn’t find their way back. Maybe it was a lack of outreach on behalf of CYO leadership, or a general communication failure. Maybe both parents have to work two jobs and don’t have the time to pitch in. Either way, some parents looked at private programs as an alternative only to be waitlisted until the next season.

Looking inward, the volunteers that run CYO programs are reminded of childhood memories, weekends playing ball, our moms cheering us on while dads argued with the umpire (we’d see each other at Sunday mass and all was forgiven). We formed the bonds of a healthy and vibrant Catholic community and those bonds have stood the test of time. The memories are priceless.

While the future seems dreary, the volunteers will work harder to spread the message of what CYO does. Many schools do not offer sports programs, so we’ll remind parents in the community that the fees are low and the quality of programs is excellent. The payoff is not a monetary number or a title of prestige, the reward is in our hearts, to plant a small seed in the soil and water it until it reaches the sky.

Giving the gift of competitive sport in a CYO league is like leaving a legacy to your children. You can find many quality programs at your local parish or at the CYO website. If you would like to learn more about enrolling your child for soccer, baseball, basketball, swimming, softball, or track for St. Kevin’s Parish, please email me, Director of Outreach Adam Lombardi, at AdamC.Lombardi@yahoo.com.