Spring Branch-Memorial Sports Association

Based on 20 reviews

4.0

“Edited.... It's come down to parent behavior in kids sports.... The association does a great job with great volunteers. High degree of dedication and care. Our family experience has vastly improved with exposure to different sports in the association. I'll leave my previous comments to justify the four star rating. It's the parents that make up the maybe 5% of the population in this community that cause what would otherwise be a five star rating.... Behave yourself moms and dads.... For the kids. Too much emphasis on winning and not enough on development. Too many games and all the less developed players are just non-playable characters to feed to egos if the more advanced players. Parents are nuts here. Like bonkers loaded with ego and money.... Kids end up quitting on the regular as a result. Toxic environment where the fix is in at the beginning of the season with uneven talent distribution. Too many occurrences where I would have to explain the poor behavior of parents to my kids on the way home after a game. Great facilities... that is about it.”

5.0

“We love SBMSA! The Spring Branch Memorial Sports Association in Houston offers baseball, softball, soccer, basketball, flag football, lacrosse, and volleyball - something for every age and skill level. Amazing volunteers and coaches create a fun, positive environment that's all about growth and teamwork. Our two kids grew up playing here. If you want your kids active and playing different sports year-round, SBMSA is the place to be!”

4.0

“Edited after getting more information about others from out side of the organization about 5-6 yr old league baseball. It turns out the issues I had are because the league doesn't fix schedules for coaches so number of practices is variable. Additionally, some local school dads are holding tryouts and preventing kid's who aren't good enough from signing up, and passing out information for 5 year olds to not sign up. I heard that SBMSA s goal is for a fun positive league but I think some parents are ruining that opportunity for everyone else, especially the parents who are actively discouraging players from their own elementary schools children for signing up. I would encourage SBMSA to crack down on this behavior , but practically to consider breaking up the 5 and the 6 year olds to prevent a subset of parents from displaying a childish lack of sportsmanship. Original: We played one season of kids baseball under 6 and would not recommend this league. The one star is only because the coaches are amazing, the parents are kind and helpful, and the fields are brand new. This league overdoes games, to the point where there are more games than practices. This is made worse by the fact that the u6 division breaks with surrounding baseball leagues in exclusively having coach pitch for kids under 6, despite some little leagues offering both tball up to 7, and hybrid coach pitch, such that kids who are not developmentally capable of hitting a 25 mph ball (which is most kids under 6) can still learn to play. My experience is that this has led to coaches burning themselves out by throwing 100s of pitches in games and spending the bulk of the minimal practices on hitting, ignoring other fundamentals such as baserunning and defense. It also creates a monumental skill gap for a division which combines two years of baseball, leading to many blowout's and lots of frustration. One of the selling points of this league is the ability to connect with friends from their elementary school, but we haven't even seen 75% of the kids from our school during our games, halfway through the season, given the sheer volume of teams in the league. Given the number of children in this division (we're talking 40 teams), it would make sense to separate the pre-k and k divisions, but that doesn't seem to have happened, creating a league which is really fun for some kids as they blow out teams by double digits, and really dismal for kids on the other side.”

5.0

“Went to watch my grandson play flag football. Fields are well maintained. It is great to see sports in person. Lots of youth games going on and even a men's soccer match.”

1.0

“If you are not one of the white kids or the coach favorite then you will not get the same opportunities as the other kids. 3 children were consistently getting pulled out of the game every other play, can you guess what race these 3 kids were..... 2 mexican and 1 black. These boys were frustrated stating it was unfair and every game they were allowed to play the other boys refused to throw them the ball even when they were the only ones open they tend to stick to their own friends and the coaches encourage it. So sad that these kids were treated this way. the coaches scream at them really bad, it Broke my child's confidence , thankfully my son recently attended king cooper's camp and those teenage boys were great they are everything a coach should be patient, informative and kind my son loved that camp the sbmsa coaches can learn a thing or 2 from this kid. The coaches that were horrible were coach Bruner and Craig and one more I don't remember his name unfortunately.”

5.0

“My 3rd grade grandson had a very positive experience with his soccer team. He had basically no experience starting with the team and the coaches were very encouraging and patient. I saw no negative yelling and screaming, only cheers of encouragement and appropriate coaching. They were also taught good sportsmanship, shaking hands with opposing team at the start and finish of each game. The only improvement I would recommend is better communication at online sign up with the organization. I found information lacking on their website and did not receive a list of required equipment until meeting with the coach at the first practice when we were told my grandson would need soccer cleats. Since this was a new experience for us, we were not aware and by the time we went to Academy, all soccer cleats in my grandson's size were gone so he had to make due with a pair of sneakers with good traction. But hey, this is third grade, not the world cup and he did just fine.”

5.0

“My 12 year old daughter had never played softball before. Her coaches where lovely and the girls have her lots of encouragement. She had a great season. Thank you”

5.0

“My kids have grown up playing every sport SBMSA offers. Always a great time.”