During our annual mail campaign, donors often ask about our telephone solicitation practices. Rest assured that San Francisco Police Activities League never solicits money by telephone. Other organizations with similar sounding names claim to represent SFPAL. San Francisco Police Activities League never receive a penny from these organizations that solicit by telephone. Be aware!
Our conditioning program will help participants of all sports improve their agility, skills, endurance, and confidence. Boys and girls from 7 – 17 of age are welcome to participate. Transportation to St. Ignatius will be provided CYO (for participants only). Bus pick up and drop off will be at Kimbell Field.
When: Friday, April 26th, May 3rd, May 10th, May 17th, and May 24th
Time: 5:30pm-8:30pm
Where: St. Ignatius High School
Bus Pick Up & Drop Off Info: pick up will be at 5:30pm (please arrive 15 min before pick-up time as the bus will leave promptly at 5:30pm) & drop off will be at 8:30pm at Kimbell Field.
If you are interested in participating in our Spring Conditioning Program, please complete THIS FORM and bring with you to Kimbell Field, or fax it to the PAL Office at 415-401-4670. Participants will need this form in order to ride on the bus and participate. Parents are welcomed to attend but must provide own transportation. Parents will not be able to ride on the bus.
If you have any questions about the condition program, please feel free to call the office at 415-401-4729.
“Giving Tuesday” is a campaign to create a national day of giving,
focused on helping people think about giving amidst the frenzy of
Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
As an official partner of Giving Tuesday, FirstGiving is waiving all
fees on any donation made through this site today, November 27th.
Every dollar goes to give San Francisco youth healthy activities!
So… why not join this first ever, nation-wide day of giving
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and SF Police Chief Greg Suhr were the star attractions at the event in Harding Park on Thursday, May 24. As the event’s honoree, Mayor Lee rode around the course in a golf cart and greeted all of the golfers. Later he met with the cadets at the Sandy Tatum Club House. Police Chief Suhr spoke at the dinner immediately following.
Congratulations to the winning foursome, which included Bill Johnson, Pete Johnson, Rick Schiller and Chris Thompson. PAL “participation medals” go to our last place (but honest and enthusiastic) finishers Dennis Callaghan, Tom Cordes, John Hallisy and Dan Linehan.
Thank you to our “chief” sponsor, San Francisco Police Officer’s Association (POA), and our five “head coach” sponsors: City Nights, IBEW Local 6, Laborer’s International Union Local 261, Northern California Carpenters Regional Council, and PG&E.
Sophia Isom with 14-year-old son Donald. Now she and her husband can spend more time at his football games.
Seahawks President Greg Isom is retiring from the program to spend more time with his son.
Two longtime Seahawks volunteers are retiring after more than three decades of service to the PAL football and cheerleading programs.
Seahawks President Greg Isom and PAL Board Member and former Cheer/Dance Program Director Sophia Isom have been a critical part of the programs since the early 1980s. The husband-and-wife team is considered by many to be the backbone of the Seahawks. They helped to build the Seahawks programs into two of PAL’s strongest and most popular offerings, and their departure is viewed with great sadness.
“They are two of the most amazing volunteers,” says Lorraine Woodruff-Long, Executive Director of PAL. “They are going to be greatly missed. This program would not be what it is were it not for Sophia and Greg. I cannot praise them highly enough.”
Greg and Sophia can’t remember a time when PAL wasn’t a part of their lives. They both grew up around PAL coaches and PAL sports. Greg’s father, Hugh Isom, was a PAL baseball coach when Greg was 12. Sophia’s dad, Bill Garrick, coached Seahawks football alongside PAL Hall of Famer Kelly Waterfield for many years. Along the way, brothers, sisters, cousins and friends have all joined in the effort and volunteered for PAL. In fact, the Isom-Garrick participation has been described as something of a “dynasty.”
“I used to help wash uniforms and work in the concession stands when I was younger,” Sophia says with a laugh.
In fact, Sophia and Greg knew each other as kids. Her half brother, Rodney Garrick, lived across the street from Greg and the two were best friends.
“There were always a lot of kids around,” Greg says. “Knowing Rodney, I knew the whole [Garrick] family. We all grew up playing PAL sports.”
In 1981, Rodney asked the 21-year-old Greg to help him coach the boys football team. Greg quickly got hooked, or as he puts it, “invested” in the kids. Soon he was head coach of the younger boys. His role grew year by year, and in 2003, after more than 20 years, Greg was named Seahawks president.
Sophia’s tenure started accidentally in 1983, the year she and Greg got married. She showed up at a Seahawks game to watch Rodney and Greg coach, and found herself scrutinizing a ragtag group of cheerleaders.
“I saw this group of girls on the field who didn’t have uniforms. It looked like a lot of chaos,” she says. “I thought, Who’s in charge of these cheerleaders?”
Sophia knew a thing or two about cheerleading, and she also knew something about coaching, having done both things in high school. Before she knew it, Sophia became the lady in charge — not only coaching the girls, but overseeing the entire Cheer/Dance program.
When she stepped down in 2003 after 20 years, the Seahawks Cheer/Dance was attracting 120-130 girls annually and winning national dance titles. In 2001, she became the first Seahawks coach, male or female, to have a team win a national Pop Warner championship. Her girls took tops honors in the Dance category. Her accomplishments led to her being inducted into the PAL Hall of Fame.
TENDER REASON FOR RETIRING
Despite such heady success, Sophia and Greg had reason to be thinking about retiring. In 2003 they adopted a 5-year-old boy, Donald.
Today Donald is 14 and Sophia says he’s “never once complained” about their long hours spent tending to the Seahawks. Nonetheless, they know it’s been hard on their son. Their long commute from their home in Vallejo to jobs in San Francisco means that, during the football season, they would often not get home until late in the evening.
Greg admits to feeling guilty at times. He says he realized his son had played 50 football games with his local Benicia league, but as a father, he had only been to see about six of those games.
When they decided to retire “It’s like a big weight has been lifted,” Greg says. “Now that my son is going into high school, now that can just be my focal point. I can just go and watch his game and just sit there.”
A SAD GOODBYE
Nevertheless, Sophia and Greg say the decision to retire was a hard one.
“It’s been such an important part of our life,” Sophia says. “We really got a chance to see how important this program is for these families and these kids. You’ve really got families that deal with a lot. They look at you for support. I’ve just become very attached and very protective of the program.”
Greg and Sophia tell story after story about the kids they’ve coached, many of whom are exposed to violence, broken homes, economic hardship, and more. The two have done more than just coach, they have also mentored and care for these kids — giving them rides, feeding them, counseling them, sometimes even bailing them out of jail.
Years later, players have come back, often to sign up their own children for the Seahawks, and to say how much Greg and Sophia meant to them when they were kids, struggling to figure out their lives.
Greg remembers how one young football player lamented he would never be able to play varsity football in high school because his grades were so poor. Greg talked to him.
I said, “You’ve got to change your perspective on the way you approach school. You can’t go sit in the back of the room. You have to understand — the teachers work for you… All of the kids who sit in the front, those are the same people you’re going to have to ask for a job in a few years … Don’t get disrespected in the classroom. Tomorrow go to school and sit in the front and make the teachers answer your questions.”
After that, the student “pulled straight A’s” every year and ended up being recruited by Washington State. But the story doesn’t end there, because the young man ultimately quit playing college football because he didn’t want his grades to suffer. Today he has a master’s degree and works at a university.
“When things like that happen, it rejuvenates you,” Greg says. “It also lets you know the significance of everything you say around the kids … I was always trying to get the point across [to volunteers]. This is so important — what you’re doing right now. … Just don’t disrespect a kid … it will have an impact on them.”
The PAL Seahawks program has joined the American Youth Football League, severing its ties with the Pop Warner Football League for the first time in more than 30 years.
The move was undertaken to better serve kids in the football and dance/cheer programs and to provide more kids with the chance to play.
“The decision to make the move out of Pop Warner was very difficult and emotional,” says Lorraine Woodruff-Long, executive director of PAL. “But we’re very excited. We believe the AYFL will help us expand our programs and include more San Francisco kids, which is really what PAL is all about.”
The new league provides more flexibility in managing the programs, she says, which ultimately will lead to a better playing experience for Seahawks kids.
Children, coaches, and families in both the football and the cheer/dance programs will notice few major changes. The new league offers all five levels of teams and a guaranteed 8-10 games per season against different teams.
One important change, however, will be a registration proceess that is simpler and less restrictive. For example, paperwork with cross-outs/white-outs are not automatically eliminated. In the past, even a minor correction on the registration form might result in a child being denied the opportunity to play.
PAL Executive Director Lorraine Woodruff-Long, shown here with her dog and PAL office mascot, Sparky, hopes to offer more support and recognition for more than 800 PAL volunteers.
Second in a series of interviews with PAL Executive Director Lorraine Woodruff-Long, examining the challenges that face PAL in 2012 and beyond.
Lorraine Woodruff-Long worked in the Peace Corps when she was fresh out of college. She spent two years in Kenya working on small-business development.
That experience taught her that, for people to be motivated to volunteer a big chunk of their time, there has to be “something in it for them” — a way to build new skills, enhance a resume, meet new people, make a difference in a kid’s life.
What they don’t want is to be stuck doing paperwork or wasting time on petty administrative tasks. They also don’t want to be ignored or overlooked.
So when she took over as executive director of PAL three years ago, Woodruff-Long set out to revamp the PAL volunteer program, in big ways and small — in short, to make PAL more volunteer-friendly.
“It’s painful to me that people do so much for PAL and don’t get recognized for it,” she says. “We’ve just got to recognize people more. … We need to be making sure our programs are supporting the kids, and we need to be really supporting those volunteers.”
A Giant in Volunteers
PAL may be a small organization, but on a volunteer basis, it is a giant. More than 800 coaches, mentors, program directors, and team managers donate countless hours to making the PAL programs run every year.
Getting those 800 volunteers to sign up — and keeping them happy and free to focus on the kids — is one of the big challenges that Woodruff-Long faces. She hopes to hire another staff person to help volunteers and to grow the volunteer pool. She also wants to find ways to acknowledge and appreciate the coaches currently on board, many of whom have been with PAL for years.
For example, Woodruff-Long looks at the Seahawks football and cheerleading programs as examples where more volunteer support is needed. These two programs, which operate out of the city’s Western Addition, are central to PAL mission’s of reaching all kids, especially those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. Many of the 50-plus Seahawks volunteers are men and women who serve as role models and parent figures. Many have also been longtime PAL volunteers, some for decades. Some even participated in the program as kids themselves, and are now back, volunteering as adults.
“Those volunteers are miracle workers,” Woodruff-Long says. “They’re there because they care deeply about these kids. They don’t want to be doing administrative stuff. … That’s the biggest place where we can make a huge difference for kids. Do something to support those amazing volunteers.”
Lorraine Woodruff-Long addresses the 2011 graduating class of cadets.
Operating at Max Capacity
To create a truly volunteer-friendly organization, as well as meet other goals, PAL has to generate more funding and create new and more reliable sources of funding.
“This is really the big theme for my work right now,” Woodruff-Long says. “We are operating at max capacity. Our staff can’t do any more than they’re doing right now. We’re trying to find ways to be more efficient and generate the resources. But we need another staff person.”
PAL gets most of its funding through individual donors, business and institutional donations, and grants. The recession has put pressure on all nonprofits as they compete for funds from a shrinking revenue pie. It has forced PAL to work harder.
“We still charge among the lowest fees. We also restructured some things so we can provide more scholarships,” she says. “And we have more people who gave more. It’s a perfect example of what you keep reading about happening in the country. You have the haves and the have-nots. We’re asking the haves to do a little bit more and they are, and it’s really allowing us to serve more people who can’t pay.”
To donate to PAL, become a corporate sponsor or sign up as a volunteer, visit our how-to-help page. You can also make a cash donation by visiting our donation page.
By Steve Symanovich
Steve Symanovich is editor of the San Francisco Business Times. This article appeared in April 2011. He reffed his first PAL soccer game a short time after, and reported no incidences of fan abuse. He hopes to ref PAL games for many more years.
Some time ago, during a period of supreme contentment, I realized something was missing from my life. What could it be?
I contemplated my life, surrounded, as it were, by goodness and niceness. I confided in my wife. I explained how living a utopian existence of continual affection and approval had left me with an empty feeling.
“Maybe you should become a PAL soccer referee,” she said.
Suddenly a lightbulb went on. She was right. I don’t have nearly enough abuse in my life.
That’s not a problem for youth soccer refs. Parents and coaches often treat them like verbal punching bags.
I had stood on the sidelines long enough watching my two daughters play soccer to hear screaming moms and dads hammer referees for good calls, bad calls and no calls. “Wake up ref! Are you blind?”
Parents can be brutal, and why wouldn’t they be? Eight-year-old Dylan’s or 9-year-old Sophie’s future professional soccer career depended on it.
My daughters are teens now, and I’m proud to say I’ve never yelled at the refs. If I don’t like a call, I prefer to emit a tortured, multisyllabic grunt: “Aaarrrrgggggrrr-guh-guh-guh-rrrgh!”
I guess that’s not good. It was time to atone for my transgressions.
“I’ll do it,” I told my wife.
Soccer duty calls
Soon after, I got an email from my wife. “So you’re going to do the PAL ref training, right?” she wrote.
“When?” I wrote back.
“Saturday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.” she replied.
I winced. Eight hours on a Saturday. “I’m on the fence.” I wrote. “I’m leaning toward no.”
“Chicken,” she wrote back. “Turncoat. Traitor.”
“OK, sign me up,” I wrote.
“I already did,” she replied.
Still sleepy, I showed up for the training session. About 25 other would-be refs had already taken seats in the classroom. Like me, they were there to fill a need — a shortage of refs in a high-turnover profession. Unlike me, their average age was 13 years old.
The instructor, a big guy with the air of one marinated in soccer for a lifetime, looked me up and down. “How did you get here?” he said.
At the end of the day, I took the 50-question multiple-choice test and squeaked by with a “B.”
The referee has arrived
Word got out that I had nabbed my PAL referee credential.
I’d see my familiar circle of soccer moms and dads. They treated me with the reverence of one who has lost his mind.
“PAL soccer ref, eh?” said one dad. “You need the money?”
Another said, “I guess you like getting smacked around.”
A soccer mom assured me that I would look good in a shiny yellow shirt, black shorts and knee socks. She suggested I audition for a “Men of Youth Soccer” calendar, and laughed.
It worked.
I haven’t reffed my first game, and already I feel abused.
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Sign Up Now for March 3rd PAL Soccer Referee Clinic
Do you love soccer? Interested in expanding your horizons and becoming a PAL soccer referee? Sign up today to become a Grade 9 soccer referee for the PAL spring league and earn $20 to $40 a game. You must be 12 or older to participate. This is the only referee clinic for the spring session, so don’t miss it!
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