# Let’s Play Boston Strategic Initiatives Manager, Mayor’s Office · 2023 · City of Boston ## From a broad commitment to a clear set of goals Youth sports was one of my first assignments as a Strategic Initiatives Manager in the Mayor’s Office. The City already had a budget, a vision for a full-time youth-sports hire, and an intention to work across departments. The broad ambition was there, but the priorities and approach still needed definition. My role was to help turn that starting point into a practical strategy and get the work underway. Boston has a huge range of programs run by City departments, schools, neighborhood leagues, nonprofits, and volunteers, and no one had a full picture of it. Families mostly found programs by word of mouth. Smaller community organizations struggled to get access to facilities and grant funding, and many felt the larger nonprofits got most of both. I started with a listening tour: School and City facilities and program staff, community sports providers, nonprofit and state partners, coaches, and others working directly with young people. I wanted to understand what was getting in the way and what the Mayor’s Office could do that nobody else could. The common thread was **access**: to information, facilities, funding, and each other. That set the shape of the work. The Mayor’s Office could do the most by helping the whole system work better: making opportunities easier to find, making public resources easier to use, getting flexible money to community providers, and bringing organizations together around goals none of them could reach alone. ## Make what already exists easier to find The strategy became a set of projects rather than one flagship program. ### Youth Sports Directory ![Actual Boston Youth Sports Directory with filters and organization listings](https://gideon-emmanuel.com/assets/cases/sports-directory.jpg) The current public directory. When I got involved, the City was exploring a much bigger idea: a citywide registration platform for youth sports, which had started as the Mayor’s idea. After a few conversations with providers, it was clear they didn’t want it. They each had their own systems, and a shared registration platform would have asked a lot of them for little in return. I proposed a simpler alternative: **help people discover what already existed.** Then I built [a directory](https://www.boston.gov/departments/human-services/lets-play-boston). The directory lets families search for programs, and so can teachers, coaches, and other adults looking for opportunities for the young people they work with. It also gave the City its clearest view yet of who was providing youth sports in Boston. [Project Play later profiled the directory](https://projectplay.org/news/2024/11/25/how-boston-created-a-youth-sports-online-directory) as an example for other communities. By November 2024, it listed more than 300 organizations. ### Recreation Facilities Map ![Boston Sports Facilities map centered on Jamaica Plain, with facility markers and filters for space, sport, access, owner, and accessibility](https://gideon-emmanuel.com/assets/cases/sports-map-jamaica-plain.webp) The Sports Facilities Map showing facilities in JP and available filters. Access to fields, gyms, and other athletic spaces came up again and again. Knowing what existed, and how to go about booking it, was an insider game. We built a citywide [Recreation Facilities Map](https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/eba3939a97004459979fabaab6405ac2#data_s=id%3AdataSource_1-1906f020124-layer-6%3A4071) so residents and providers could see what was available across city, state, and private organizations and how to get access without already knowing who to call. ### Mayor’s Youth Sports Grant Many of the community-based sports programs in the city, which provide the majority of sports opportunities, have access for all as a core goal, yet philanthropic dollars go mostly to larger nonprofits. I proposed directing the City’s funding toward small grants dedicated to these community-based programs. Small amounts could fund scholarships for families who couldn’t pay fees, shared equipment, or travel to tournaments. I wrote the proposal for the [Mayor’s Youth Sports Grant](https://www.boston.gov/departments/human-services/mayors-youth-sports-grant) and built support for it. Human Services took on administering it, and still does. ## Bring the soccer community together The part I found most interesting was also the least programmatic: what could the Mayor’s Office accomplish just by getting the right people working toward the same goal? Youth soccer became the test. It’s the most popular sport in Boston’s public high schools, and the 2026 World Cup was coming to the region. The City didn’t have much more money to put into soccer than it already did through its grants. What it could do was convene. We brought together City departments, Massachusetts Youth Soccer, and community soccer organizations and aligned on shared goals: more kids playing, better experiences for them, and stronger connections across the city’s soccer community. We then worked to identify ways we could forward these goals together. One opportunity was travel soccer. Established neighborhood programs mostly left the city to find competition, while neighborhoods without formal programs faced steep requirements to form a team at all. A city-based league could lower that barrier for new teams, cut travel for existing ones, and build friendships across neighborhoods. We also tried something smaller: a youth soccer celebration as part of the existing Mayor’s Cup tournament. It was an experiment, and the start of building something together with the soccer community. That coalition kept going after I moved to my next City role. In spring 2025, the Mayor’s Office, Massachusetts Youth Soccer, and BAYS launched the **Boston Soccer League**. The work now lives in Human Services under the brand [Let’s Play Boston](https://www.boston.gov/departments/human-services/lets-play-boston), the City’s hub for youth sports. ## Explore the work [2024 youth-sports strategy memo](https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2024/05/Youth-Sports-Initiative-2024.pdf) [Let’s Play Boston](https://www.boston.gov/departments/human-services/lets-play-boston) [Sports Facilities Map](https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/eba3939a97004459979fabaab6405ac2) [Mayor’s Youth Sports Grant](https://www.boston.gov/departments/human-services/mayors-youth-sports-grant) [Project Play: building the directory](https://projectplay.org/news/2024/11/25/how-boston-created-a-youth-sports-online-directory) [Project Play: the people behind the work](https://projectplay.org/news/for-bostons-youth-sports-leaders-the-work-is-personal) [Boston’s youth-soccer strategy](https://www.boston.gov/departments/mayors-office/expanding-youth-soccer-boston) ## Scope of my work I helped define the overall strategy, refined the planned full-time role, and initiated and led four connected pieces of work: the Youth Sports Directory, Recreation Facilities Map, Mayor’s Youth Sports Grant, and soccer coalition. I built the directory myself and wrote the grant proposal, working with City colleagues and community partners throughout. --- [Gideon Emmanuel](https://gideon-emmanuel.com/about/) · [Let’s talk](mailto:gideon.m.emmanuel@gmail.com) Canonical page: https://gideon-emmanuel.com/work/play-boston/