When City League Park City launched in 2025, the goals of the youth sports organization were clear: eliminate travel and weekend play and lower the costs of youth sports for their players and families.
City League co-founder Max Valverde and other Park City parents were growing sick and tired of paying premiums to haul their kids around Utah and sometimes even the Mountain West. They also knew of the risk for burnout if they were to have their kids focus too intensely on one sport at young ages.
City League has become a massive success in Park City, with hundreds of kids signing up for each sports season. The only problem: City League was just for elementary schoolers.
That is until this school year, when the league partnered up with the Park City School District to offer middle school sports like soccer, basketball, baseball and softball. Each season will only run 10 weeks, there will be no weekend practices or games. All activities will be held at the Ecker Hill Middle School near Kimball Junction.
The soccer season is the inaugural middle school sports season and started on Monday. Parents and players have been flooding the Ecker Hill fields, enjoying drills, practice games and activities like testing their kick speed on radar guns.
“Parents come up to us and tell us things like ‘You’re transforming people’s lives,’” said City League co-founder Danny Aronson, who has two kids involved in sports with the organization. “So yeah, I think parents are loving it. We make it easy on them, and we’re helping their kids get access to sport at a really good development level.”
Since co-founding City League, Aronson has taken on coaching, hiring and training duties. Most recently, he has been running the soccer league. Whether kids had sprained ankles or just wanted to come up and say hello on Wednesday, Aronson seemed like he knew each and was excited to coach them all.
“(Our goals are to) build their confidence, teach them resilience and teach them how to be great teammates,” Aronson said. “All these things parents want for their kids that, without this program, these kids probably wouldn’t be getting access to.”
Jeff Coleman was one parent at the field Wednesday. His daughter, Leah, is in sixth grade and was sitting and watching as her teammates practiced offense, waiting for her turn. Coleman said he was just happy she was outside and spending time around her schoolmates.
“(Aronson) has been doing a great job getting this whole thing started,” Coleman said. “It’s actually creating a great opportunity for kids. One of the things I’ve seen as a big problem in Park City is they start with competitive teams so young. … This is giving them an opportunity to still learn and play.”
Coleman said he didn’t play soccer until he was about 15 years old but turned out to be pretty good at it. He wants Leah to develop a passion for sports, the outdoors and exercise, no matter where that takes her in life.
“We’re in Park City,” Coleman said. “They need to be outside moving.”
Orion and Nicole Baker said they signed their son, Phoenix, up for the soccer league because of how much fun he had in City League’s elementary school basketball league at the Basin Recreation Fieldhouse and how attentive they thought the coaching staff was. Through two days of practice, they said Phoenix is having a blast and already vowed to be a professional soccer player.
“My hope is that he just has fun, makes friends and wears out some energy,” Nicole said. “And maybe he can become a professional soccer player. Who knows?”
A group of eighth graders including Miles Hoppy said they’re having fun and looking forward to playing together in high school. First, they’re hoping to make the team’s all-star roster, so-to-speak, that will play against other club teams at the end of the season.
“I’m having a ton of fun here,” Hoppy said. “It’s amazing to be able to hone my skills and work with coaches to get my technique better. And it is amazing meeting new friends and having my love of soccer grow.”
More information about the middle school programming and other City League sports can be found on the organization’s website: cityleaguepc.com/middle-school-soccer. The league is still accepting signups for the soccer league.
