Sports & Fitness

At SOY, we believe health and fitness are essential to our students over all well-being, academic success, and their future. That is why we offer sports, fitness, and wellness classes supported by volunteers, community collaborations, and generous donations.

Our exercise room is also available to students on their own time to work out, and it’s not uncommon to find groups engaged in a pick-up basketball or soccer game on our soccer pitch or half-court basketball court.

Our classes and programs include:

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Basketball

Soccer

Bike Club

Boot Camp

Yoga

Spin

Monthly Hikes

Tennis

Surfing & Sailing in the Summer

See Summer Activities section.

These programs would not be possible without the community collaborations with the Newport Mesa YMCA, the City of Costa Mesa, the OCC College of Sailing and Seamanship, the Costa Mesa Tennis Center, Newport Board Club, employees of Volcom, and other community organizations and volunteers.

Bike Club

The Bike Club of SOY is a recreational and social cycling club for SOY girls and SOY boys of all skill levels. Led by community volunteer and OC Volunteer of the Year, Jim Erickson, and accompanied by a SOY staff member, students are led on local bike rides in their community. We have been an active club since September 2020 when students were mainly indoors and isolated inside during the pandemic. Our main goals are to exercise and have fun, make new friends along the way, explore the City parks and bike paths of Costa Mesa, and even ride to the beach on the Santa Ana river path. Many students have never ridden to the ocean before—just 3 miles away

We provide bikes and helmets to all students, as most do not have them or a space to keep them in their crowded apartments. Students are welcome to bring their own bikes, if they have them, or we can provide bikes for those that do not have any. Students are welcome to come and see if the club is a good fit for them by going on a ride with us. We are a very social club and think you will enjoy the friendliness and opportunity to spend time with new SOY friends. We also go on bike rides in the summer to the beach or the pool at the Newport-Mesa YMCA.

Please click here to volunteer, get involved or donate a bike.

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Biking to the beach along the river path

Basketball

At SOY there is a half-court basketball court where students are constantly playing pick-up games after school and participating in classes when offered.

Thanks to the help and collaboration of the Newport-Mesa YMCA and local volunteers, we have basketball coaches and weekly classes for students to improve their basketball skills and have fun shooting and playing basketball with peers and volunteers.

They meet new friends while exercising and having fun. When available, we also play on the full-size outdoor courts at Rea Elementary school or take students to the Downtown Costa Mesa rec center with an indoor gymnasium and full-size basketball court. SOY has also provided access to sports teams with competition for the younger players in a basketball league in previous years. Since the pandemic, the access to local basketball leagues has been tough, yet we are continuing trying to organize tournaments and fun events with the students and community members, including 3 on 3 play.


If you would like to volunteer to play with our students, please click here.

Soccer

Soccer or “fútbol” is the favorite sport of our youth, and the soccer pitch at SOY is in constant use. You can find students constantly playing pick-up games or practicing their skills with a friend. We also organize 3 on 3 games and tournaments and often go out to the big grass field that adjoins our facility to play large games of soccer with all of our youth, both boys and girls. Many of our youth improved their skills to try out and make their high school teams.

We also invite professional soccer players to come to do free soccer clinics for our youth. Over the years we have had numerous soccer players play with our teens and during the pandemic we had clinics run by the Orange County Soccer Club! Each week our students were able to learn new tricks, try out some drills, and watch the OCSC professional soccer players demo their talent.

If you would like to volunteer to play with our students, please click here.

Boot Camp

Students need exercise and many students need weight training and physical fitness activities. Thanks to volunteers and coaches from the YMCA, SOY is able to provide boot camp or circuit training in their fitness room. With small weights and other equipment, SOY provides weekly workouts to help students get in shape.

Many of our students come after school because they are not in a sport at their schools, so we help them keep fit. Many of our students want to improve and get better at their sport or try out for a sport, so we also try to help them prepare.


We are always looking for more volunteers to help with fitness activities or running or exercise. Please click here to volunteer.

Yoga

SOY always tries to provide yoga for our youth—a wonderful way to release stress. SOY has provided weekly yoga in their exercise room for years, with the help of volunteers. Sometimes 2 to 3 times a week and yoga on the grass under the trees during the summer.  We even offered Mindful Yoga at sunset for our SOY students! Mindfulness yoga is an exercise to provide a means of exercise that is also meditative and useful for reducing stress. Feeling overwhelmed and stressed is a common reaction to life events, especially with everything that has happened since the start of the pandemic.

Several studies suggest that the practice of yoga & mindfulness leads to a decrease in stress and anxiety as well as an increase in overall emotional well-being. We hope that with these Yoga classes, our students can relax and take a break from school, social media and everything else going on in the world.

If you would like to volunteer teaching yoga or are a certified instructor, please let us know. Click here.

Spin

SOY offers Spin classes to our youth thanks to the donation of spin bikes from the YMCA. Both boys and girls enjoy riding in our fitness studio, and we often take the bikes outside on hot days and during the pandemic we had a continuous outdoor cycling studio. We offer high intensity, full body, cycling classes where our students rock out to the beat of the music.
Our teen SPIN classes are safe and fun. The Teen Spin class will help bring teens to the next level in their respective sport while having lots of fun. Teens play sports, but few people play them beyond high school. But fitness is forever and establishing excellent fitness habits at a young age will lead to a lifetime of great health benefits. We welcome beginners and advanced SPIN enthusiasts every week!

Hiking

Our students are able to go on hikes and connect with the outdoors once a month. They learn the history of trails, gain knowledge and love of nature through monthly Saturday hikes. The hikes are led by local volunteer hiking enthusiasts and accompanied by a SOY staff. We take teens on hikes all over Southern California, in many state and national parks and even do an annual overnight hike in the wilderness. We also take students to the Hollywood sign, which is a favorite among our teens.

We have been providing hiking adventures for our students since 2004. In the early days, this outdoor activity allowed our students to train and get in shape to climb Mt. Whitney. For four years, our executive director at the time, Trevor Murphy and his staff, would take SOY girls on an empowerment trip where they summited Mt. Whitney in a 2-day, over-night trip. Since then, it has been hard to get the permits in the lottery system, and we have not had trained hikers to help volunteer. It would be wonderful to try to start up this program again.

If you are interested in helping with the hiking program, or taking students on longer hikes, please let us know by clicking here.

Tennis

Thanks to the collaboration of the Costa Mesa Tennis Center, we brought tennis to SOY. Teaching them the basics on our soccer pitch, turned small tennis court, students learn the basics of handling the racquet, ball placement, and scoring, from a professional tennis player and coach. We have also been able to take them once a month to play on a real tennis court and play at the Costa Mesa tennis Center. Our goal is to inspire them to think about tennis as a sport, learn the basics and then have them play and try out for their local high school tennis teams.

If you would like to volunteer or help teach tennis. Or if you have racquets or equipment to donate. Please click here.

Other Outside Fitness Activities

Thanks to the YMCA we have had instructors help with other fitness classes including hockey and dodgeball as well as our own staff has set up Ping-Pong and other fun activities to keep kids active after school.

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