On Tuesday, January 24th, 2023, my group interviewed Jonathan Gamberg about all that he has done with the City Parks Foundation. Jonathan works in all five boroughs at various parks throughout the city. He works closely with the two other full-time workers in his division at the City Parks Foundation.

During the interview, we learned about how the City Parks Foundation offers many different free sports programs in parks around New York City. The City Parks Foundation has there own golf setup for kids only; Jonathan told us there were very few of them around the country. Jonathan gave us a lot of information throughout the interview and answered all of our questions very well. The City Parks Foundation offers free sports programs throughout different parks in New York City. These programs are for children ages 6-18. He told us about how he grew up in New York City in these sports programs. Jonathan had originally wanted to work for a professional sports league or team, but when he was living in New York during school one year, he saw the position at the City Parks Foundation become available and he has been working there ever since. The majority of the people that work for the City Parks Foundation are coaches and do not work full-time hours for them.

Read more

On Tuesday, January 24th, 2023, my group interviewed Luis Hernandez about his work with the City, a basketball program in New York City that works mostly with girls. Luis has worked at various schools and basketball programs throughout New York City. He has worked at a few different private schools and he currently works for LREI and he also is a coach for the City. Luis talked to us about how the City has evolved over the years.

Before Covid, the City offered programs for both boys and girls basketball. Now, the City primarily focuses on girls’ basketball, with only one boy’s team. He told us that the main reason behind dropping boys teams was that girls would stay at the City through highschool while most boys ended up leaving and trying out for a more well-known league. After the boys would try out for a different team, if they did not get a lot of playing time, they would try and re-join the City but at that point, the City would not have spots left. Luis thought that it was a better use of his time to work with kids who would stay with him throughout middle and high school. Luis also told us about the two national championships the City won just a few years ago.

Read more

On Monday, January 23rd, 2023, my group met with Chris Klein. We talked to Chris about his experience playing youth sports in New York City. He went to a test into public school in Manhattan and played basketball throughout his time there. He played for his school and many club teams throughout the city.

Chris told us about how he has coached different types of things,, including; LREI sports (boys varsity basketball an,d girls volleyball) and a basketball summer camp. He told us about his opinions on the economic diversity in youth sporris told us about how kids can and should play sports with economic diversity and should not just be able to play with kids who can affordograms as they can. We also talked to Chris about how there are youth sports programs that exist in New York City that cost money and some that do not cost any money. He also told us that often in youth sports the quality will increase as the price also increases. This means that some of the more affordable sports programs or free sports programs are not always very high quality.

Read more

Last Thursday, January 19th, 2023, my group met with Coach Macky. Coach Macky is the founder of a nonprofit organization called Steady Buckets in downtown New York City. Coach Macky told us about how he founded Steady Buckets. He founded Steady Buckets because he felt there needed to be a free sports program that was high quality. Coach Macky started Steady Buckets after working at various Basketball programs in the city. Steady Buckets was originally located at the Chinatown Y.

Over Covid, Steady Buckets had to switch to be online. Directly before Covid, Steady Buckets reached its peak of participants. Over Covid, Steady Buckets online workouts became very popular as they were available at any point throughout the day and kids who had participated in the in-person version of Steady Buckets, spread the word about the workouts. Coach Macky talked about how proud he was that he never really had to advertise it, it advertised itself. Being a high quality, free basketball program in downtown Manhattan, Coach Macky knew that the fact it was free meant it would get the attention it deserved and that people would find out about the quality if they decided to participate in it.

Read more