It’s Sunday morning on the field behind A. Holly Patterson in Uniondale and four games are running at once. Your kid has played there two seasons, free or close to it. Someone on the sideline mentions that the neighbor’s boy did a tryout and now plays with a referee, a standings table and a real uniform. You nod, and you keep the question that actually matters to yourself: what does that cost, and who do you even ask? Here is the map for Hempstead and Uniondale. What exists, what each door charges, how to ask for a scholarship, and which number to call this week.
Written by Fernando, founder of Tiempo Soccer Academy (Rockville Centre, NY). Last reviewed: August 2026.
The short answer for Hempstead and Uniondale families
These two towns have real competitive soccer, and it is some of the cheapest in the county. What they don’t have is anybody explaining the ladder. Two clubs headquartered right here play in the island’s big league: Hempstead EOC Soccer Club at 134 Jackson Street, and New York Soccer Latin Academy in Uniondale. Neither advertises. Both have run more than twenty years.
That big league is the Long Island Junior Soccer League: roughly 60,000 players, 97 member clubs, 3,500-plus teams and more than 1,600 travel teams (NY Red Bulls / LIJSL, 2026). If the vocabulary is still fuzzy, the system map is in the Long Island youth soccer development guide. And it’s worth saying up front: Hempstead and Uniondale are in better shape than Freeport, where the ladder stops inside the village and the family has to leave town to find the next rung (that case is written up here). Here the ladder exists. Nobody signposts it.
What “a real team” actually means
When a parent says “I want my kid on a real team,” they mean four things: a league, a referee, a standings table, and a spot that belongs to the kid. Separating the words is worth two minutes, because each costs differently.
- Clinic. Six or eight Saturdays of drills. It teaches, it doesn’t compete. Nobody is cut and nobody keeps score.
- Intramural or rec. The program’s internal league: whoever registered gets split into teams and they play each other. No entry test.
- Travel. The team that plays other towns on weekends in LIJSL, with divisions and promotion. You get in through a tryout.
- Academy. Individual or small-group training. It doesn’t play Sunday league. It sits next to the club, not instead of it.
Tryout does not mean exam. It means a coach watches your kid play for two hours and decides which group fits. The tier-by-tier breakdown with prices is in the rec vs. travel vs. academy vs. ECNL comparison. Keep those four words. They’re the ones you’ll use on the phone.
The five real doors, with phone numbers
This is what the programs and the local press publish, checked in August 2026. Fees change every season, so the phone call outranks the table.
| The door | What it actually is | Ages | Cost | How you get in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hempstead EOC Soccer Club | The club inside the county’s community action program, running twenty-plus years. Competes in LIJSL, the USYS National League and the LI Cup, with teams from U9 to U18 plus intramurals. | 6 to 19 | Built for low-income families. No published fee, so you ask. | 134 Jackson Street, Hempstead. 516-292-9710 or 516-486-2800 ext. 1230. Practices Tuesday through Friday evenings. |
| New York Soccer Latin Academy (NYSLA) | Neighborhood academy founded in 2002, run in Spanish and English, competing in LIJSL. It plays behind A. Holly Patterson in Uniondale. | 5 to 19 | “We just charge basic fees to cover our expenses,” its founder said in April 2025. A 2022 report put it around $400 a year in two payments. | nysla11550@gmail.com. Summer weekend league, July through mid-August. |
| Community SC / Blue Sky Soccer Club | Uniondale club founded in 2020, recreational and competitive. Works with the John J. Byrne Community Center, the school district and NYCFC. | U8 to U14 | No published fee. Its own site advertises scholarships and need-based discounts. | 715 Hempstead Blvd, Uniondale. 516-582-6361, U.communitysc@gmail.com. |
| NCPAL Uniondale | The local Nassau County PAL unit. Seven sports, soccer among them. Town program, not a travel league. | By school grade | PAL fees, confirmed at registration. | 516-668-0958, uniondalepal@gmail.com. Register through LeagueApps. |
| Village and Town recreation | Two different offices people mix up constantly. The Village runs its recreation office at Kennedy Park. The Town runs soccer clinics with the Long Island Rough Riders. | 6 to 14 for the Town clinics | $20 for a Town clinic, no refunds. | Village: 335 Greenwich Street, 516-478-6247. Town: 516-489-5000, register online. |
Two warnings about that last row, because they cost gas money. The Town of Hempstead and the Village of Hempstead are not the same office. The Town covers half the county and its clinics land wherever there’s open field: the October 2026 one is at Oceanside Park, twenty minutes from Jackson Street. And West Hempstead isn’t Hempstead either. Different town, different club. Ask which park before you pay.
What a year actually costs, annualized
A single receipt tells you nothing. What decides the budget is the full year, and these are the local numbers.
- The local door. Between a $20 Town clinic and a neighborhood academy charging what covers expenses, the year can land under $500. That isn’t second-tier soccer. That’s LIJSL soccer.
- Travel at a club in another town. $2,000 to $5,000 a year with dues, uniform, tournaments, referees and gas. The breakdown is in what youth soccer really costs in Nassau County.
- Private training. Starts around $50 a session (CoachUp, 2026). At thirty sessions a year that’s $1,500 to $3,750 on top of whatever the family already pays.
Now the uncomfortable number, with a source. The Aspen Institute counted roughly 250,000 kids playing organized soccer across New York City and New Jersey, and about 150,000 more who want in and can’t get there; 32% of families name fees as the main barrier (Aspen Institute Project Play, April 2026). Pay-to-play comes tilted: about 70% of participating families earn more than $50,000 a year and a third clear $100,000 (SFIA, 2018). That’s the structure. It isn’t your kid.
So let me say this before somebody sells you something: if your kid is six or seven, don’t buy private training. At that age what works is ball time and messy games. The neighborhood league gives you that for a fraction. Paying fifty dollars an hour to put a first-grader in front of a line of cones is spending in the wrong year.
6 questions to ask on the phone before you pay
These are the ones I’d ask, in this order, calling any program in Hempstead, Uniondale or a neighboring town. They work on the EOC, on NYSLA, on a travel club, and on us.
1. Is this a league or a clinic?
A clinic teaches. A league competes against other towns every weekend and keeps a table. Both are useful, for different things, but paying for one thinking it’s the other is the most expensive mistake of the first year.
2. Do you play in LIJSL, and in which division?
It separates town soccer from island soccer in ten seconds. The EOC and NYSLA both say yes. If a program says no, that doesn’t make it bad. It means your kid won’t play other towns this year, and you need that in August, not October.
3. Is there a scholarship or a payment plan, and who handles it?
Straight question, no throat-clearing and no embarrassment. Almost no club puts it on the registration page, and almost every club has something. The person who knows is the registrar. Get their name and number on the first call.
4. What’s the full-year fee, including uniform, referees and tournaments?
The number on the flyer is rarely the final number. Uniforms bill separately, tournaments bill separately, and referee fees sometimes come per game. Ask for the whole-year figure, then ask what’s excluded from it.
5. What language will someone answer in when I call?
Legitimate and practical. NYSLA has run in Spanish and English since 2002, and its founder puts it plainly: what matters is that the Spanish-speaking community knows they’re there and can bring their kids. In another town the answer may differ, and it already tells you how the season will go. Why the system costs more for a family that doesn’t operate in English is in the guide for Spanish-first families on Long Island.
6. What is my kid missing, in one sentence I can repeat at home?
The acid test, and it works on any program. If the coach says “more confidence” or “more effort,” they haven’t watched your kid play. If the coach says “he receives everything on his right foot and loses half a second when pressure comes from his left,” there’s a plan. Specific. Repeatable.
Most training builds technique. Tiempo builds skill.
Scholarships and payment plans: the exact words
In these two towns this isn’t a side conversation. It’s the conversation. And there’s more help than gets advertised.
Hempstead EOC Soccer Club was born inside a county community action program aimed at youth ages 6 to 19 from low-income families, and it still competes in LIJSL and the USYS National League. Read that again: the club whose mandate is access is also one of the clubs playing highest. Community SC advertises scholarships and need-based discounts on its own site. NYSLA has spent twenty-three years charging what covers expenses and turning nobody away.
For clubs in other towns the script is short. Call, ask for the registrar, say the sentence: Is there a scholarship or a payment plan for the season? Nobody will make you explain your life. Have three things ready: the kid’s date of birth, a proof of address, and the season you want. It’s a two-minute call that decides a year.
And the cheapest option is still the most underrated one: a public field and a ball. Uniondale and Hempstead have open parks, and your kid needs nobody’s permission to be there three afternoons a week. No paid program will give you more touches than that.
What a tryout actually is
This is the scary word, almost always because of a wrong picture of the day. A tryout is two hours on a field. Numbered pinnie, short drills, then small-sided games while two or three coaches watch from the sideline and take notes. Nobody tells you anything at the end: the answer comes days later, by email or phone. No written test, no fee to walk in, and it isn’t permanent, because it happens again every year.
The part that really costs a year is the calendar. LIJSL travel tryouts run in May and June, for the team that plays in September. It runs ahead of itself, gets announced at no game, and looks nothing like the school year or like how it works in most of the countries these families came from. The parent who decides in October has already missed that year’s door. The next one opens in May. Put it in your phone today, and build those six weeks with the fall tryout preparation plan for Nassau County.
One more thing, and it needs saying out loud if you have a daughter. The Long Island Advocate reported in April 2025 that NYSLA’s roster had carried two girls over seven years. That isn’t a knock on the club, which took them in and kept them: it’s a portrait of girls’ soccer in this pocket of the county. Ask directly whether there’s a girls team, at what ages, and who it plays, before you register her. The wider picture is in the girls’ youth soccer guide for Long Island.
Where Tiempo fits, and when we’re not the answer
We’re not a club. We don’t run LIJSL travel teams, we don’t go to tournaments, and we don’t compete on Sundays. We’re the individual development layer that sits next to the club your kid already plays for: we work with kids who stay at the EOC, at NYSLA or at Community SC, and we don’t ask them to leave anything.
What we do is close the application gap: the space between what a kid does alone, unmarked, in a drill, and what shows up on Saturday with a defender on his back and the game tied. Technique first. Skill after. Most youth training stops at the first and charges as if it delivered the second. We work in age stages through the PaC Method, and the academy-versus-club distinction is here: academy vs. club on Long Island.
Now the part that doesn’t help me: there are families in these two towns we’re going to turn down. If your kid is six, not yet. If they haven’t finished a full season anywhere, not yet. If the budget covers one thing this year, that thing is the season with a team, not us. We’d rather lose the sale than watch you spend in the wrong order. We’re in Rockville Centre, twenty minutes down Peninsula Boulevard, and the call costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to speak English to register my kid in Hempstead or Uniondale?
No. NYSLA has run in Spanish and English since 2002, and the EOC has served this neighborhood for more than twenty years. For clubs in other towns, arrive with the system words in English exactly as they’re used: rec, travel, tryout, registrar, scholarship. Those are the ones the person on the other end recognizes instantly. With us, the call happens in whichever language you think in.
Is there an LIJSL club inside Hempstead or Uniondale?
Yes, and it’s the good news almost nobody delivers. Hempstead EOC Soccer Club at 134 Jackson Street competes in LIJSL, the USYS National League and the LI Cup, with teams from U9 to U18. New York Soccer Latin Academy in Uniondale also plays LIJSL and takes kids 5 to 19. Your kid does not have to leave the area to play other towns.
When are tryouts, and why do I always find out late?
May and June, for the team that plays that same fall. It isn’t announced at games or through the schools, and it looks nothing like the calendar most families grew up with. If you decide in September, that year’s door has closed and the next opens in May. Set a phone reminder for May 1 and call the club in April.
What if we genuinely can’t pay?
Start with the EOC, aimed specifically at low-income families and still competing in LIJSL, and with Community SC, which advertises scholarships and need-based discounts on its own site. At any other club, ask for a scholarship and a payment plan on the first call. Cost is the number-one barrier in this region according to the Aspen Institute, which is exactly why more help exists than gets published.
Is it too late to start at eleven or twelve?
It isn’t. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against single-sport specialization before about age 12, because early specialization is linked to overuse injury and burnout (Brenner, Pediatrics, 2016), and highly specialized kids showed roughly 2.25 times the odds of overuse injury (Post et al., 2017). Arriving at eleven hungry and uninjured is a good place to be.
Sources
- Economic Opportunity Commission of Nassau County, youth soccer program. eoc-nassau.org
- Hempstead EOC Soccer Club, teams, leagues and practice schedule, 2026. hempsteadeocsoccerclub.org
- The Long Island Advocate on New York Soccer Latin Academy, April 2025 and 2022. longislandadvocate.com
- Community SC / Blue Sky Soccer Club, Uniondale, 2026. community-sc.com
- Nassau County PAL, Uniondale unit. nassaucountypal.org
- Town of Hempstead, youth soccer clinics with the Long Island Rough Riders, 2026. hempsteadny.gov
- Village of Hempstead, Parks and Recreation. villageofhempstead.org
- NY Red Bulls / LIJSL league partner page, 2026. newyorkredbulls.com
- Aspen Institute Project Play, State of Soccer in NYC and NJ, April 2026. aspeninstitute.org
- SFIA, State of the Industry, 2018. sfia.org
- Brenner JS, Pediatrics 2016;138(3):e20162148. PubMed
- Post et al., American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2017. PubMed
- CoachUp, private soccer trainers, August 2026. coachup.com
Fees, dates and coaches change every season, and these programs run on volunteers. The person who answers the phone is the source of truth. This page is the shortcut to knowing what to ask them.
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– Fernando, Tiempo Soccer Academy · Rockville Centre, NY · tiemposoccer.com
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