It’s the last week of August and your kid just turned twelve. Merrick PAL’s fall registration closes September 10. Bellmore’s window runs August 1 through September 11. The modified soccer season at Merrick Avenue and Grand Avenue starts September 1 and is finished on October 31. And somewhere in your phone is the number of a trainer another parent handed you at a game in June. Three doors, three different deadlines, and nobody has mentioned that they don’t all fit inside the same week. Here’s what each one actually is in these two towns, what it costs, and how to choose.
Written by Fernando, founder of Tiempo Soccer Academy (Rockville Centre, NY). Last reviewed: August 2026.
The short answer for Merrick and Bellmore families
By seventh grade the three-way choice isn’t really three-way, because one of the doors closes by itself. Merrick PAL’s intramural program runs kindergarten through sixth grade and stops there. In Bellmore the fall flyer opens registration to birth years 2013 through 2021, but the divisions the club actually published for spring 2026 topped out at third and fourth grade, with Senior Girls as the only older group on the schedule. Town rec disappears at almost exactly the age school soccer arrives. What’s left is a travel team, a school team that lives for two months, and whatever you build in the other ten.
The league those travel teams play in is enormous. LIJSL runs about 60,000 players across 97 member clubs and 3,500-plus teams, including more than 1,600 travel teams (NY Red Bulls / LIJSL, 2026). What decides most of these choices isn’t talent, it’s money. In the Aspen Institute’s April 2026 read on youth soccer across New York City and New Jersey, roughly 150,000 kids want to play and can’t get in, and 32% of families name fees as the main barrier (Aspen Institute Project Play, 2026). If the tiers are still fuzzy, start with the Long Island youth soccer development guide and the rec, travel, academy and ECNL breakdown. This page assumes you know what those words mean. You just need to pick.
What each town actually runs, and where the rec ladder stops
Every number below is what each club published itself for 2026. None of it is borrowed from a neighboring town.
| Merrick PAL | Bellmore PAL | |
|---|---|---|
| Youngest | Clinic and Pee Wee, 3.5 to 5 | First Kicks at 4, clinic at 5 and 6 |
| Rec ages | Intramural, K through 6th grade | Intramural, birth years 2013 to 2021 on the flyer |
| Rec day and field | Boys Saturday 9am to 1pm, girls Sunday 12 to 3:30pm, Harold D. Fayette School, 1057 Merrick Avenue | Sundays 11am to 3pm, Nassau BOCES, 2351 Jerusalem Avenue |
| Published rec fee | Not published | $105 first child, $100 second, plus $45 uniform |
| Season | 8 weeks, mid-September to mid-November | 8 weeks (spring ran March 29 to May 31) |
| Registration | Closes September 10 | August 1 to September 11 |
| Travel | LIJSL teams, ages 9 to 18, tryouts in May and June | Bellmore Bulls, tryouts were May 19 and 21 |
| Published travel fee | Not published | $1,500 per year on the 2026 flyer |
Two lines matter more than the rest. The first is that Merrick doesn’t publish a price for anything. Not the clinic, not intramural, not developmental, not travel. To see a number you open a LeagueApps or GotSport account, and by then you’re inside the funnel. That’s a volunteer board using the tools it was handed. It’s still worth naming: a family comparing towns on a Tuesday night can price Bellmore in thirty seconds and can’t price Merrick at all.
The second is the Bulls number. The club’s May 2026 tryout flyer, for boys born August 2012 through December 2013, lists $1,500 per year, covering professional trainers for spring and fall plus an indoor winter session. It’s the most honest published travel figure I’ve seen from a Nassau town club this year. Note what it buys: the year, not the season. Travel is the only door still open in February.
One caution. Bellmore’s flyer reaches birth year 2013, which on paper is an eighth grader, but the six divisions the club posted for spring 2026 topped out at 2016/2017, third and fourth grade, 9v9. Senior Girls was the only group above that. Before you assume a division is waiting for your twelve-year-old boy, call 516-679-5990 and ask which ones are actually running this fall for his birth year.
The school team is the door nobody explains to you
Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District belongs to the Nassau County Public High School Athletic Association, Section 8 of NYSPHSAA, and runs 29 middle school sports in each building (BMCHSD, 2026). Grand Avenue Middle School serves Bellmore and North Bellmore, Merrick Avenue serves Merrick and North Merrick, and both field four soccer teams every fall: boys 7th, boys 8th, girls 7th, girls 8th.
Read that again, because it’s the most useful fact on this page. The teams are split by grade. Your seventh grader isn’t competing for a spot against an eighth grader who grew five inches over the summer. On a travel team he’s in a two-year band with the older half. At school he isn’t, and for a lot of kids that’s the difference between playing and watching.
Now the limit. The Section VIII modified fall season runs September 1 to October 31, 2026. Nine weeks, and that’s the whole year. No middle school soccer in winter, and the spring lineup is baseball, softball, lacrosse, track and tennis. From November 1 until the following September, school soccer doesn’t exist.
Inside those nine weeks it’s dense. In the district’s own words, students “may be required to tryout, and they should expect to practice five days a week after school, typically from 3-5.” Five afternoons a week for two months, coached by a certified teacher, for zero dollars. In contact hours per dollar nothing else in either town is close. In months it’s the weakest of the three. That’s the trade, and nobody at the building will call you in December.
What the three doors cost here
| Door | What you pay | What you get | When it runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Town rec | Bellmore $105 plus $45 uniform. Merrick not published. | One game a week, practice at the coach’s discretion | 8 weeks, and not past 6th grade in Merrick |
| Travel club | Bulls $1,500 per year, published. Merrick not published. | LIJSL play, professional trainers, indoor winter session | Most of the calendar |
| School team | $0 | Practice five days a week 3 to 5, games against Nassau middle schools, rosters split by grade | September 1 to October 31 |
| Private or small group | From about $50 a session (CoachUp, 2026), $75 to $125 at LI academies | One named gap, worked on directly | Whenever you schedule it |
Run the last line all the way out, because almost nobody does. At 30 sessions a year, $50 to $125 a session is $1,500 to $3,750 on top of everything else. That’s not a line item, it’s a decision about the family’s year, the parent’s driving hours and the kid’s weekends. Our Nassau County cost breakdown itemizes what club fees leave out.
One local wrinkle. Manfred Kapper, who runs Merrick PAL’s Developmental program, also runs a private training business. He’s genuinely qualified, so that’s not a criticism. It does mean the club option and the private option in Merrick can be the same staff in two hats. Ask which one you’re buying.
Most training builds technique. Tiempo builds skill.
4 questions to answer before you register anywhere
1. “Is he going to make the school team, and what if he doesn’t?”
Four soccer teams per building and grade-split rosters make the odds better than a travel tryout, but nobody guarantees a spot. Answer this before September 1, because if the answer is no, your kid has an empty fall in a town where rec ended in sixth grade. Line up the second option now instead of scrambling on October 2.
2. “What happens to us from November through August?”
This is what separates families who look organized from families who feel behind, and it has nothing to do with talent. School soccer covers nine weeks of a 52-week year. Travel covers most of it, at $1,500 in Bellmore. Pick school only and you’re choosing to build the other ten months yourself. Legitimate, as long as you choose it on purpose.
3. “Should my seventh grader be testing for varsity?”
If he’s genuinely ahead, the Athletic Placement Process exists for this. It’s for grades 7 and 8, it needs a Physical Maturity Form from a medical provider plus a fitness test, and the district ran testing on July 27 and August 3, 2026 at Calhoun. Passing “does not assure your child a place on a Varsity team, rather, it solely provides the opportunity to participate in the try-out process.” Note the dates. They’re in July. Reading this in August means you’re planning for next year.
4. “What am I actually buying with $1,500?”
Bellmore’s flyer tells you: LIJSL play in spring and fall, professional trainers, an indoor winter session. A full calendar and a real answer. In Merrick you have to ask, in writing, before accepting a spot. Sessions per week, who runs them, league games, tournaments, uniform cost on top. Choosing a club in Nassau County has the full list.
The fall collision, and how to survive it
September here is a pile-up. LIJSL’s fall season and the modified season occupy the same nine weeks. Merrick rec closes September 10, Bellmore September 11, the modified season started on the first, and Section VIII varsity soccer opened August 24 with tryouts at Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham that week. Two kids in different bands means four decisions in ten days.
Three things make it survivable and none cost money. Do the school physical and the Rank One forms in the spring, not August, because every year families miss the first week of a season they qualified for over an uncleared form. Ask the middle school coach in week two, not week eight, what he’d want to see by next August, and make him say it specifically. “Be more aggressive” isn’t an answer. “Left foot, first touch under pressure” is. And decide before September whether this is a one-sport fall. The AAP has recommended delaying single-sport specialization until roughly age 12 for most sports (Brenner, Pediatrics, 2016), which makes twelve the start of that conversation. When to specialize on Long Island goes deeper.
Where Tiempo fits, and when we’re the wrong call
We’re not a club. We don’t run LIJSL travel teams, we don’t compete in tournaments, and nobody has to leave Merrick PAL or the Bulls or the school team to work with us. Tiempo is the structured individual development layer that sits next to whatever your kid is already in, at fields in Rockville Centre, Lynbrook and Valley Stream, fifteen to twenty minutes west along Merrick Road depending on the hour.
The work runs on the PaC Method, four stages by age. Twelve and thirteen is the Performance stage, U12 to U14, the whole subject of this article. Every family starts with the Athlete Development Blueprint, a six-week intake whose only job is to name one gap and build against it, so at the end you can tell whether it worked. Confianza, Responsabilidad, Habilidad, Pasion. Those aren’t translated values, they’re lived ones, and sessions run in English and Spanish because that’s how families here talk.
Now the part that costs me money. If your kid makes the seventh or eighth grade school team, don’t add us in September and October. Five practices a week plus games is a full load, and a second structured program on top produces a tired kid in November and a bored one by March. Come find us on November 1, when the season ends and the building goes quiet for ten months. That’s the gap worth filling. Don’t buy a $1,500 travel year as insurance against a tryout your kid hasn’t attempted. And if she didn’t ask for more soccer, more hours won’t make her better. Kids quit at fourteen because it stopped being fun and stopped being theirs (Changing the Game Project), not because they got worse.
FAQ
Can a seventh grader in Merrick still play town rec soccer?
No. Merrick PAL’s intramural program is kindergarten through sixth grade and ends there. From seventh grade on, in-town soccer in Merrick means a PAL travel team, the Merrick Avenue Middle School team in the fall, or something outside the town. Most families don’t find that out until they try to register.
Does the middle school cut kids from the soccer team?
The district’s language is that students “may be required to tryout.” Each building fields four soccer teams in the fall, boys and girls at seventh and eighth grade, so the odds beat a travel tryout and your seventh grader isn’t measured against eighth graders. Still a tryout. Read the tryout preparation guide a few weeks out, not the night before.
School team and travel team in the same fall. Yes or no?
Usually possible, since school plays weekday afternoons and LIJSL plays weekends. Count the week first. Five school practices from 3 to 5, plus travel training, plus a weekend game is seven or eight sessions for a twelve-year-old with homework. Highly specialized young athletes had roughly 2.25 times the overuse-injury odds of low-specialization peers (Post et al., American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2017). Do the nine weeks, then take November off on purpose.
What does travel actually cost in these two towns?
Bellmore publishes it. The Bellmore Bulls 2026 tryout flyer lists $1,500 per year for boys born August 2012 through December 2013, including trainers for spring and fall and an indoor winter session. Merrick publishes nothing. Email merricksoccerclub@gmail.com and ask for the full annual number in writing, uniforms and tournaments included, before accepting a spot.
We missed both registration windows. What do we do this fall?
Call anyway. Merrick PAL is 516-867-6279, Bellmore PAL is 516-679-5990, and rosters lose players every September, so a coach would rather fill a spot than play short. If nothing opens, the fall isn’t lost. Play the school season, then use November through March on one specific thing, so next May’s tryout starts somewhere different.
Sources
- Merrick PAL, soccer program pages and fall 2026 registration notice, August 2026. merrickpal.org
- Bellmore PAL (NCPAL Bellmore Unit), fall 2026 soccer flyer, spring 2026 division schedules and rules, Bellmore Bulls tryout flyer, August 2026. bellmorepal.org
- Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District, middle school athletic program, Athletic Placement Process, and Section VIII 2026-2027 season dates. bellmore-merrick.k12.ny.us
- 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
- Brenner JS, Pediatrics 2016;138(3):e20162148. PubMed
- Post et al., American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2017. PubMed
- Changing the Game Project, why kids quit sports. changingthegameproject.com
- CoachUp, private soccer trainer listings, August 2026. coachup.com
Fees, divisions and tryout dates change every season, and both PAL units are volunteer-run. The registrar is the source of truth. This page is the shortcut to knowing what to ask.
¿Prefiere leer en español? Lea esta guía en español: cómo elegir entre el club, el equipo de la escuela y el entrenamiento privado.
5.0 stars across 140 Google reviews from Long Island families who started here.
DM us. Let’s see if Tiempo’s a fit. Or call 516-548-6810. It costs nothing to find out we’re wrong for you.
– Fernando, Tiempo Soccer Academy · Rockville Centre, NY · tiemposoccer.com
#HereToGetBetter