As Minneapolis Park Board changes registration for youth sports, preexisting teams are out

A big shift is coming to Minneapolis’ youth park leagues.

For the first time this spring, the Park and Recreation Board will move to “central registration” for youth sports in what some laud as a long-overdue overhaul of a system wracked with inconsistencies that had boxed some kids out from park leagues.

With the shift scheduled to start on March 5, unhappy coaches and families representing teams from the city’s Black and American Indian neighborhoods confronted park commissioners at their two regular meetings this month. Their fear: Established teams would be broken up, and critical relationships disrupted.

For as long as many people can remember, families registered for youth sports through a mishmash of neighborhood parks, four park councils — all in south Minneapolis — and more than a dozen third-party organizations whose relationships with the Park Board have ebbed and flowed over the years. These include the Boys & Girls Club, Hospitality House, Little Earth of United Tribes and the Minneapolis Police Activities League.

When a family registers their child to play in a park league through one of these outside agencies, they pay fees to that agency, not the Park Board. The agency creates the rosters, ensures everyone is the right age and lives in the city, assigns coaches and performs background checks on them.

In contrast, kids who try to register solo at their neighborhood park often find there aren’t enough others to form a team for the sport they want to play. Sometimes, even if they manage to form a small team, no one volunteers to coach. At this point they get sent to the next park to look for a team, but they aren’t always successful.

Responses to a survey given to youth sports teams last year detailed a litany of problems.

Under the new central registration system — done online or at any rec center — every child will sign up directly through the Park Board and pay what they can afford. They’ll be assigned to a local team with a guaranteed coach, and they’ll get to sign up with one friend.

In theory, no child wanting to play any of the 11 sports offered through park leagues will be excluded.

“I cannot express to you how important this is and what it means for this organization,” Park Board Superintendent Al Bangoura told recreation staff during a board meeting last summer.

When Bangoura’s son was growing up in Minneapolis parks, his team was trounced in a couple basketball leagues because some of its opponents were “really stacked and it wasn’t a fair place to play,” Bangoura said.

“I look for simple wins, right? We have a very challenging job in this park system, and we do some amazing things. This, for me, is so significant because of what it’s going to do along equity.”

Park Board commissioners have given staff directions to implement some kind of central registration system since 2023. However, they have not voted on the matter nor are expected to before changes take effect.

Best intentions aside, the fact that the vehement pushback from Black and Native coaches surprised park staff is a testament, some feel, to a lack of proper engagement.

Under the new system, long-established and deeply bonded teams, including those from the city’s most marginalized neighborhoods, will no longer be allowed. And to those teams, central registration feels like an existential threat.

When coach Al Flowers Jr. of the Inner City Ducks tries to explain the point of his sports program, he talks about virtues beyond competition. The Ducks, of north and south Minneapolis, are like a family. The coaches are coaches at life — sports are just the lens through which youth development happens.

Under central registration, the Ducks would be split up, and the coaches wouldn’t be guaranteed to coach the same players they’ve mentored for years.

Many of the Inner City Ducks' more than 100 athletes are African American children from households led by single parents or grandparents with limited resources, Flowers said. So it’s the coaches who step in, registering them to play and driving them to their games.

The Park Board has had community meetings about central registration, but their tone hasn’t emphasized gathering input, Flowers said.

“It was more of letting us know this is how the process is going, and either you guys get with it or you won’t be able to participate,” he said.

Charles Moses, executive director of Hospitality House Youth Development, said his organization would rather keep its teams intact and travel to a suburban league than stay with Minneapolis parks under central registration.

He said that’s the case even though some games would mean longer drives that would be a strain on the north Minneapolis nonprofit and on parents.

“I’ve reached out to other leagues and organizations outside of the city of Minneapolis and have been wholeheartedly welcomed to have my children join and participate in those leagues,” Moses said.

“But then, why should I have to travel to a suburban league ... when our youth and kids could have just been participating in our own backyard, right in our own city?”

Coach Muck-Wa Roberts’ Southside Red Bears are predominantly kids from the Little Earth of United Tribes. He said their attachment to their team is rooted in their shared experience of growing up in the Native housing complex, where they use sports to withstand the external pressure of guns, drugs and the streets. Winning games really isn’t the point, he said.

The Red Bears name is significant, Roberts said, because it’s an homage to Trinidad Flores, a beloved teammate who died from a heart condition in 2013. His Native name was Red Bear Standing.

Last year, Park Board youth leagues had 806 teams and a total of more than 10,200 athletes. About 10% of the teams were preformed, with about 925 participants.

The Park Board is rolling out central registration this spring for baseball, softball, track and field, and flag football because those sports have the fewest preformed teams. Seeing how central registration plays out may inform changes later.

Jack Bartsh, the Park Board’s director of athletics, aquatics, ice arenas and golf, said he was optimistic that central registration would improve participation in park leagues over time, but he acknowledged there would be growing pains in the near term.

“I’m willing to go to great lengths to try to get the kids participating and to get the coaches involved,” Bartsh said, promising to go door-to-door at Little Earth to help sign up kids if necessary.

“We’ll get a better idea of how things look after we run through this first season. And if we have to make adjustments, we’ll make adjustments. But I do believe we’re heading in the right direction.”

St. Paul Parks and Recreation spokeswoman Clare Cloyd said teams formed by outside organizations are welcome in St. Paul.

However, families choosing to sign up through a third party should note they may have to pay fees, while St. Paul kids have registered in competitive leagues for free through the city‘s park system since 2022.