We are always looking for great pictures for our website and other publications. Send us your favorites to cbellecourt@seattleymca.org and we will try and get them on here!

If your practice or game is scheduled at the YMCA, we ask you follow YMCA policy for the upcoming season.

If you are a YMCA Facility Member, you must scan your card,your childs card, and anyone who is also attending practice with you before you enter the facility. You will no longer be able to go right into the facility by saying you are here for your practice/game.

If you are NOT a facility member, the participant will be receiving a card at practice that must be shown to the front desk before entering for the practice or game. Any adult who is NOT a member must show PHOTO I.D. to the front desk to be allowed entrance into the building.

During our busy times this may delay entrance into the facility, so plan in advance for this. This policy is in effect to provide a secure facility for all members and participants. If you have any questions about the new policy, please contact the YMCA.

To ensure that YMCA sports can continue to grow, everyone must be respectful in regards to the use of school district facilities. If damage to school property occurs, the future use of school district facilities will be in jeopardy. Please make sure the following rules from the school district are followed at all times:
 Adult supervision of children not associated with the teams who are playing is needed at all times. Children should be kept inside the gyms and not allowed to run the hallways and rest rooms or on stages.
 Food or drinks are not allowed in School District Gyms. If you enter the school with any beverage you will be asked to dispose of it prior to entering the gyms. Please give out snacks to the players outside of the gym.
 Please clean up after yourself. Leave it the way you found it!
 If school is out due to bad weather, or there is not school that day for any other reason, all practices are cancelled for that evening. Remember, no school……….no practice.
 In cases of severe weather on your practice or game day, call your child’s coach, visit www.ymcayouthsports.com.
 Schools have priority on gym usage. If we are cancelled for the day, we will notify your coach as soon as possible.
 Parents do not just drop off your child outside the school before a practice or a game. It is possible that the activity has been cancelled and the coach was not able to contact you. When the activities are over, please see that your child has a ride home immediately.
 We are not allowed to use equipment found in the facility. Balls and equipment provided by the YMCA is all we can use.

The YMCA Youth Sports Leagues are made up of volunteer coaches, volunteer assistant coaches and volunteer officials. At ALL TIMES, the YMCA expects all people attending any YMCA activity to follow the following basic standards of conduct in order to support these three fundamental goals of the league:
1. To teach the players teamwork, self-esteem and sportsmanship.
2. To ensure the players have fun.
3. To teach the fundamentals of the game of basketball.

• Volleyball was invented at the Holyoke (Mass) YMCA in 1895, by William Morgan, an instructor at the Y who felt that basketball was too strenuous for businessmen.


• Racquetball was invented in 1950 at the Greenwich (Conn.) YMCA by Joe Sobeck, a member who couldn't find other squash players of his caliber and who did not care for handball.


• Professional Football began at the YMCA. In 1895, in Latrobe, Pa, John Brailer was paid $10.00 plus expenses by the local YMCA to replace the injured quarterback on their team.


• Basketball was invented by James Naismith during an international YMCA Training School in December of 1891 at the demand of Luther Gulick, the director of the school. Not only was basketball invented by a YMCA institution, but the game's first professional team came from the Trenton (NJ) YMCA.


• The first YMCA "swimming bath" was built in Brooklyn (NY) Central YMCA in 1885.


• The Peace Corps, founded in 1961 by order of President Kennedy, was patterned after the YMCA's program of World Service Workers, which had started in the 1880's.


• The Associated Press was first established in 1907 as the YMCA Press.


• Black History Month was first observed as Negro History week in February 1926, at the Wabash Avenue YMCA in Chicago, Il.


• Toastmasters International was invented in 1903 as an older youth public speaking program by Ralph C. Smedley, education director of the Bloomington, (Il) YMCA.


• Father's Day in its present day was created at a meeting at the Spokane, Washington YMCA in 1909 by Louis Smart Dodd.