Hampton youth soccer gives kids chances to play

Hampton Youth Soccer leagues are getting ready for the start of the 2023 season. All three leagues will start games on August 26. Joslyn Stock, the board president of Hampton Youth Soccer said that this year the leagues have 304 players. 

Practices started on the 13th and Stock said that they usually play games on Saturdays but the second grade-fourth grade league has the most teams in it so they will also have games on the weekdays this year.

Stock said that over the last six years the organization has seen an increase in players.

“Last year I think we had 310 so this year we are really close,” Stock said. “So it has been a really popular program in the community.”

Stock said that she thinks the program has been a good way for different parts of the community to come together.

“And one thing I have noticed since I have been on the board and I think I have been on the board for five years, is that over those five years there has been an increase in involvement with some of the Spanish speaking parents taking on roles as coaches,” Stock said. “Hampton has a pretty significant Spanish speaking population but there are not always opportunities for the Spanish speaking and English speaking populations to come together. This has been one of them where there has been a good response from both parts of the community supporting the program.”

Stock said that one of the main goals of the program is to let every kid play and improve their skills.

“One of the requirements we have for coaches is that all of the kids play at least half of the game,” Stock said. “We do keep track of that, we do check that coaches are playing kids fairly. So the kids that have really strong skills are not taking over playing time from kids that are still learning some of the skills.”

Stock said that they get kids from Hampton as well as from nearby towns such as Geneva, Alexander, Latimer, and Coulter and more.

“We know we get kids from the West Fork district, so Sheffield and Chapin,” Stock said. “We get kids that come in from Dumont. This year I know we have some kids coming from the Belmont school district that are coming over to play in our league. I think when we counted it last year we had 10 different communities represented. So it is not just Hampton kids.”

The youngest league which is kindergarten prep through - first grade is focused on teaching the kids to try out soccer and learn skills and there is no score keeping. But in the second - fourth grade league and beyond they do keep score and there are tournaments.

“This year we have 10 teams in that league and the fifth grade - eighth grade league we have tournaments and we have eight teams playing in that league this year,” Stock said.

Stock said that it is required that the kids be at least five years old when they start and that the program goes all the way to eighth grade.

“That decision was made before I was on the board,” Stock said. “To continue to go till eighth grade because Hampton has a lot of kids that are interested in playing, but because the conference we are in for the middle school age group there is not any other school that has middle school soccer. So we provide that for those who are still interested in playing soccer.”