Roanoke Council Backpedals on Abolishing Its Youth Athletics Review Board

Roanoke no longer appears poised to abolish a citizens panel meant to advise City Council on how youth sports programs should be run. 

Members of the Youth Athletics Review Board were caught off guard last month after the city attorney floated a proposal to do away with the three-year-old commission. 

Roanoke’s parks and recreation department has long worked with four private recreational clubs that provide youth sports to each of Roanoke’s quadrants. 

After pandemic-era lockdowns prompted a reassessment, Council created the Youth Athletics Review Board and tasked it with providing feedback on how the city and clubs work together and serving as a “sounding board” for residents' grievances about youth sports.

City Council had been expected last month to vote on disbanding the Youth Athletics Review Board, known as YARB, but the matter was never brought up.

“We anticipate YARB to be amended from a permanent board of council to an advisory board of council,” Cindy McFall, the city’s parks and recreation director, said in an email.

It was not yet clear what they will mean in practice. 

Mayor Sherman Lea said he had heard concerns from parents whose children play recreational sports about how the board operates.

“They got a board that they try to govern themselves by, and there are complaints about coaches being on that board and so they sway things in a way that will help them,” Lea said in an interview. “We want to resolve that.”

Jaime Mather, a member of the board who also coaches, said he is not sure why those connections would be a conflict of interest.

“If anything, I would see it as a benefit because board members were actively involved in the day to day operations of youth athletics and were in direct communication and contact with participants and families,” Mather said in an email. “The reality is, the city is already spread thin in regards to volunteers who are able to coach as well as serve on executive boards, so it would be likely that those that were the most passionate about youth athletics would likely end up serving "double duty" to help fill those needs.”

Mather acknowledged numerous “deep-rooted issues that still need to be addressed and fixed” when it comes to youth sports in Roanoke.

While some families spend significantly for traveling sports leagues, the option for most residents is amateur, recreational sports.

The city works with private clubs to provide these sports to each of Roanoke’s quadrants: Star City in Northwest, Williamson Road in Northeast, Southeast Rec Club in Southeast and Greater Southwest Athletic Association in Southwest.

The city maintains playing fields and does background checks on coaches. The private clubs, meanwhile, fundraise and provide equipment and uniforms, which has perpetuated existing inequalities among Roanoke’s quadrants.

Greater Southwest provided more than half of the nearly 200 teams offered in 2023, according to a data sheet provided by Mather and prepared by the city’s parks department.

Star City did not offer any soccer or softball teams that year, the report shows, while Greater Southwest had 32 soccer teams and eight softball teams.

Mather noted that youth participation has increased each year since the youth athletics board was formed. He said the board has also incorporated practice standards like Little League Baseball and USA Football as well as mandated health and wellness training for coaches.

Data show overall participation in recreational youth sports increased from 1,818 participants in 2022 to 2,289 last year.

“We need a real consistent board that will review and make sure those young men and young boys are ready to go on to middle school and high school to play whatever athletics they want to do,” Lea said.

City Attorney Tim Spencer said last month the proposal to do away with YARB was meant “to come up with a solution that addresses the needs of our youth sports while still looking for the efficiencies that Council had hoped to achieve by combining some of the needs into the parks and rec advisory board.”

But the mayor also stressed that he thinks the city needs a board focused on youth athletics and for that subject not to be folded into the parks advisory board. 

“My position was that the youth athletics should be separate, should be people who are focused on athletics,” Lea said.