Did you know that children adjust to heat more slowly than adults? Their bodies are less effective at regulating body heat than adults’ bodies. Now since most kids can walk outside on a hot summer day without any issues, why do youth athletes need to be so concerned with heat illnesses like cramps, exhaustion and heat stroke when participating in summer sports? What causes heat illnesses?

In honor of Mother's Day, SportsSignup would like to take a moment to thank that indispensable figure of any youth sports program---sports moms. Some may thinks that youth sports are really more of a “Dad thing,” but you can’t deny the fact that sports moms across the country are driving players to their players to games or practices every night, make sure everyone is getting a healthy dinner or pre-game snack, have an extra water bottle stashed in the car, fill the bleachers with a cheering section at every game, organizes team dinners, volunteer at league events and much, much more.

Below you will find a few of our favorite blog posts that are related to youth sports, youth sports coaching and sports parenting from the past few weeks. Please feel free to visit each and we hope you find them as helpful as we do!

Here is a scary statistic: the CDC reports that approximately 17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese. That’s triple the rate of previous generations! Most experts agree that a combination of poor diets and increasingly sedentary lifestyles (children 8—18 spend 7.5 hours a day using entertainment media) are the main causes of childhood obesity. However, childhood obesity, unlike many other health issues, is practically 100% preventable! The CDC recommends that children get at least 60 minutes of aerobic activity each day, and there is practically no easier way than to get great aerobic exercise than with running!

We are proud to have Sarena Williams on board with SportsSignup.  Sarena is a lifelong Arizona resident and comes to us from Direct Alliance Corporation.  Sarena’s previous experiences as a Sales Engineer and her great personality will fit in perfectly with our corporate culture and help us achieve our company goals.  Sarena is poised for success and we’re happy that success will be with us!

Bullying in youth sports is, unfortunately, nothing new. Many of us who have played on a youth sports team at any point in the last 50 years can probably think of at least one instance where we were picked on, or we watched another player get teased/bullied. For many years, coaches and volunteers have dismissed bullying as just “kids being kids,” but in the last few years bullying (not just in sports) has gotten a lot more serious attention from our government, schools and communities. While good natured teasing has always been a part of sports, there is no room for bullying and it’s up to coaches and volunteers to ensure a safe environment for your players.

A few weeks ago, SportsSignup published a blog post entitled “What Makes Someone a Great Youth Sports Coach?” We were happy to hear from you, our readers, about what qualities you believe make someone a great youth sports coach. Many of the comments outlined patience, enthusiasm, understanding and keeping the sport fun as important attributes a great coach possesses. But that got us thinking, if that’s what makes a good coach, what makes a bad coach? Can enthusiasm make up for lack of knowledge? Can a winning record overshadow poor communication skills?

Just the other day, SportsSignup’s CEO, Anthony Bruno was on Rodger Wyland’s Fox 980 Sports Show talking about the upcoming Freihofer’s Junior 3k Run, which SportsSignup is a proud sponsor of.

We understand the importance of helping your organization save time, and maybe more importantly, money.  That's why we are constantly improving our online sports registration system with ways to track money owed to you and providing you the tools to help collect payables from outstanding accounts, along with helping your members view and manage their finances.      

Competitive youth sports aren’t for everyone, and there is nothing wrong with that! However, just because your child doesn’t want to take their athletic career to the next level and join a high-powered travel team, that doesn’t mean they have to give up sports all together. Intramural sports are a great way to keep kids active and healthy, but don’t require the same time and monetary commitment that belonging to a more structured youth sports organization might require.