Welcome to 212. Your son is part of the team, and we're glad to have him. This guide is meant to give you the information you need for the rest of the season.
Our program runs a full year — May through March. You've already completed the first step by enrolling in the spring and summer portion. This guide covers what comes next: fall and winter.
Sundays are intentional. Saturdays stay completely free. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's are off, and the calendar has built-in breaks so your son can rest, be with family, and come back excited.
Our program uses two home fields across the year. Spring and summer sessions are held on the turf at Trailside Elementary; fall and winter sessions are indoors at the Basin Recreation Fieldhouse. Both are in Park City, a few minutes from home — no unfamiliar gyms, no GPS surprises.
All sessions run Sundays, 1:00–2:30 PM, at Basin Recreation Fieldhouse. The four grey rows below are intentional off-weeks, not cancellations — built around Thanksgiving, the Christmas/New Year holidays, and one early-November break so the schedule respects family life.
| # | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sunday, October 4, 2026 | Training |
| 2 | Sunday, October 11, 2026 | Training |
| 3 | Sunday, October 18, 2026 | Training |
| 4 | Sunday, October 25, 2026 | Training |
| 5 | Sunday, November 1, 2026 | Training |
| — | Sunday, November 8, 2026 | Off — program break - (Ski Swap at Basin) |
| 6 | Sunday, November 15, 2026 | Training |
| 7 | Sunday, November 22, 2026 | Training |
| — | Sunday, November 29, 2026 | Off — Thanksgiving weekend |
| 8 | Sunday, December 6, 2026 | Training |
| 9 | Sunday, December 13, 2026 | Training |
| 10 | Sunday, December 20, 2026 | Training |
| — | Sunday, December 27, 2026 | Off — holiday break |
| — | Sunday, January 3, 2027 | Off — holiday break |
| 11 | Sunday, January 10, 2027 | Training |
| 12 | Sunday, January 17, 2027 | Training |
| 13 | Sunday, January 24, 2027 | Training |
| 14 | Sunday, January 31, 2027 | Training |
| 15 | Sunday, February 7, 2027 | Training |
| 16 | Sunday, February 14, 2027 | Training |
| 17 | Sunday, February 21, 2027 | Training |
| 18 | Sunday, February 28, 2027 | Training |
| 19 | Sunday, March 7, 2027 | Training |
| 20 | Sunday, March 14, 2027 | Training |
| 21 | Sunday, March 21, 2027 | Training |
| 22 | Sunday, March 28, 2027 | Training |
Twenty-two training sessions · 33 total coached hours.
This winter schedule will also be posted to our online training calendar at https://212lacrosse.teamapp.com/fixtures?_list=v1
| Spring/Summer 2026 — already paid | $1,250 |
| Fall/Winter 2026–27 — balance | $1,745 |
| Full-year all-in | $2,995 |
The two tournaments in the base program are part of the season, not optional events. Your son is expected at both. That said, life happens — if a genuine scheduling conflict comes up, there's no penalty, and a family on our waiting list will be offered the roster spot for that event. If your son misses one, you receive a $205 credit against the fall/winter balance. If he misses both, the credit is $410. We'd rather return what wasn't used than keep it.
Beyond the two included, additional tournaments can be added at $295 each. These decisions aren't made from the top down. The families and 212 talk it through together — the parents weigh in on scheduling and appetite, and we share what seventeen years of coaching has taught us about which events are worth the ask at a given age. The answer gets decided collaboratively, and if an add-on tournament isn't the right fit for the group that year, we don't do one.
A plain-language accounting of what's been paid, how tournament credits work, and what's due for the fall/winter half — so there are no surprises and no guesswork.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 15 hours of coached skills training (summer sessions) | $1,160 |
| Tournament 1 — included | $205 |
| Tournament 2 — included | $205 |
| Team uniform kit — included (no separate purchase) | — |
| Spring/summer total — paid in full | $1,250 |
If your son can't attend one of the two included tournaments, we credit that value toward the fall/winter balance. Credits are applied automatically — no action required from the family. If a credit applies, fall/winter registration is completed via Venmo at the adjusted amount; families with no credit register through the 212 platform at the standard amount.
Because every parent looks around at their options — and should — here is what we've observed about club lacrosse in Utah, stated as plainly as we can.
Most other Utah clubs build their programs around travel. Between out-of-state tournaments, flights, hotels, meals, and weekends on the road, families at other clubs tend to spend an additional $3,000 to $5,000 per year beyond the published club fee. National-level programs can run meaningfully higher.
That isn't a judgment we enjoy making, but we'd be less than honest if we pretended to agree with how most clubs in the state have chosen to operate. A calendar built around out-of-state tournaments, coaching staffs that cycle through year to year, and a schedule that asks a nine-year-old to keep the pace of a college athlete — in our view, that misses the mark on what young players actually need to develop. We've watched lacrosse in Utah for seventeen years. What consistently produces good players — and, more importantly, kids who still love the game at sixteen — is steady coaching, age-appropriate pacing, and a program designed around the child rather than around the travel schedule.
If the published numbers matter to you: our all-in, fully transparent cost for the year is $2,995. That figure includes uniform, bag, two tournaments, 48 hours of coaching, and zero travel. We mention it only because pricing across the sport can be hard to compare, and we'd rather you have the real number.
212 was founded 17 years ago around one idea: lacrosse should be something kids love to do, not something they survive.
At 3rd and 4th grade especially, the point isn't tournaments in other states or a packed calendar. The point is that your son enjoys his Sundays, learns the game well, and still wants to play when he's 12, 14, and 18. That shapes almost everything about how we run the program.
Sundays, 1:00–2:30. That's it. Kids this age need time to be kids — to play other sports, to have weekends.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends 2–3 months away from a single sport each year. Our October-to-March calendar makes that possible without your son falling behind.
Two are part of the program and your son is expected there. A real conflict carries no penalty — we'll pull from the waiting list for that event. Additional tournaments are decided together, as a group, with our guidance.
The staff your son meets this spring will be there next fall, and the fall after that. Continuity matters, especially early on.
Spring and summer on the Trailside turf; fall and winter at the Basin Fieldhouse. No juggling addresses, no surprise venues.
Parents often ask why our program looks the way it does — so few days on the calendar, so many intentional breaks, so little travel. The short answer is that we've spent a long time reading the research on youth sports and an even longer time watching it play out in real kids. What follows is a quiet version of the longer case.
Up to half of youth sports injuries are overuse injuries — the kind that come from repetitive stress without enough recovery, not from contact or accidents. Youth lacrosse specifically runs about 6.3 injuries per 1,000 athlete-exposures. When heavy travel is layered on top of training — long drives, hotel beds, early mornings, disrupted sleep — the physical toll compounds. A child who drives eight hours on Friday and competes on Saturday isn't a rested athlete. Our twenty-two-session schedule, with deliberate breaks, exists so that your son's body gets what the science says it needs.
Sources: American Academy of Pediatrics clinical report on overuse injuries; AOSSM Sports Medicine Update (Spring 2024).
Roughly seventy percent of children quit organized sports by age thirteen. The reasons they give, over and over, are the same: they stopped having fun, the pressure was too much, they were burned out. Burnout at this age is not a flaw in the child — it's a predictable response to overtraining, over-scheduling, and the absence of a real off-season. We don't want your son in that seventy percent. The single biggest thing we can do to keep him out of it is protect the love of the game at this age, even when it means doing less, not more.
Sources: Frontiers in Sports and Active Living (2023); Project Play / Aspen Institute State of Play 2025.
Larger travel clubs face a quiet structural problem that rarely makes it into their marketing: coach burnout and high turnover. When a program demands that volunteers and staff spend weekends in Nevada or Pennsylvania, the personal cost to those coaches adds up, and many don't last. The result is a different coaching staff year to year — new voices, new drills, new expectations for your son to adjust to. Kids between roughly eight and fourteen benefit enormously from consistent adult mentorship. Continuity, at this age, is developmentally meaningful. It is also genuinely rare in the club world. Our staff has been together for a long time, and that's not an accident.
Sources: USA Lacrosse coaching data; TeamSnap research on coach burnout.
The research on early specialization is consistent and, frankly, a little uncomfortable for the single-sport club industry: children who specialize in one sport before age twelve are roughly twice as likely to quit by age fifteen as their multi-sport peers. Multi-sport kids report higher enjoyment, lower stress, and — perhaps surprisingly — are more likely to end up on college rosters. Our season is structured so that your son can do other things the rest of the year. Play basketball. Ski. Take a season off. He won't fall behind. He'll probably get better.
Sources: AAP policy statement on sports specialization; PMC meta-analyses on early specialization and dropout.
Most programs build a schedule around what's competitively optimal for the program and then communicate it to families as a requirement. We've tried to reverse that logic. The Sunday-only time slot exists so Saturdays stay whole and family mornings stay intact. The intentional breaks around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's exist because family holidays matter more than another training session. The single location per season exists because a parent managing multiple kids shouldn't have to juggle unfamiliar addresses. None of this is a marketing position. It's the actual design intent — and, we believe, the reason families stay with us.
Mike Acee founded 212 and still runs practices himself. He came up through the UNC program and has coached here for seventeen years. In that time he has missed exactly five practices — all during a single week in Philadelphia, on national-team duty coaching the 212 Girls' National Team. Beyond that, he has never missed a day.
Fred Acee, who serves as Curriculum and Recruiting Advisor, has been in the game more than 40 years — Division I, Team USA, and a few Hall of Fame inductions along the way. He works mostly behind the scenes on long-term player development.
Around them is a small group of longtime assistants — several of whom are former 212 players who went on to play in college. We don't hire and replace coaches year to year. At this age, kids do better with familiar faces.
We try not to lead with this, because it isn't the point at 3rd and 4th grade, and we don't want to set expectations for outcomes that are still many years away. But parents ask, so here it is, quietly:
Over seventeen years, ninety-five 212 players have gone on to play Division I lacrosse — at schools including Johns Hopkins, UNC, Notre Dame, Princeton, Duke, Harvard, Cornell, Virginia, Syracuse, and Maryland — and a handful have played professionally. A partial list and full context are available on our site.
What matters more at your son's age is a different number: our players tend to still be playing at 14, 16, and 18. That's the outcome we're actually designing for.
My family has been a part of Mike's 212 lacrosse program since 2010 in Park City. This program was established to address a void in the club experience here in Utah. Despite previous fleeting attempts by other organizations, 212 has remained a steadfast presence, catering to Utah's youth players. The scarcity of coaches possessing Mike's credentials and connections in this region makes his continued commitment to the program much more fortunate.
Having personally coached at the youth level for a decade and played a substantial role in overseeing the PC boys' program for nearly as long, I often find myself fielding inquiries about lacrosse clubs. Notably, parents seek guidance on navigating the sport amidst the many expensive options available today. While I don't possess all-encompassing answers, I believe a crucial starting point lies in distinguishing between mere game-playing and comprehensive training. The summer training sessions hosted in Park City have undeniably facilitated my son's development of skills and field awareness that extend beyond the scope of spring ball. A testament to the efficacy of this training emerged in last night's High School State Semi-Final game, which showcased approximately ten players who had dedicated significant time to summer training under Mike's guidance. These individuals assumed starting positions and often comprised the core of their respective teams. When juxtaposed with the costs associated with participating in a three-day tournament with any other club, the value of Mike's training becomes evident.
Moreover, Mike has played an invaluable role in my son's pursuit of a college lacrosse career. He has consistently advocated for Dylan and has adeptly mediated with interested schools. His familiarity with numerous prominent Division I coaches, despite our location in Utah, speaks volumes about his network.
In an era when many national club coaches strive to secure college placements for many players, it is reassuring to have a local coach who dedicates his attention to a select few — a mere dozen kids at a time.
Beyond his on-field focus, Mike's commitment to broader issues has garnered my admiration for years. His efforts to shed light on health challenges faced by former players serve as a poignant reminder that lacrosse transcends the confines of a mere game.
The foundation established within the 212 program continues to benefit my son as he progresses in his lacrosse journey.
— Greg Bauer, father of Dylan Bauer (Johns Hopkins University), 05/2017
Additional testimonials are published at 212lacrosse.com/testimonial.
Nothing is required today. Read this over, take the weekend with it, and come back to us with any question — large, small, or awkward. If something isn't clear, that's on us, and we'd like a chance to fix it.
When you're ready to complete the fall/winter portion, you can do so at our registration portal.
Thank you for trusting us with your son's season. We don't take it for granted.
— Mike Acee