If you grew up in the United States, chances are you participated in organized sports sometime during your childhood. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control, just over 60 percent of all American kids aged 7 to 18 suit up to play or perform as part of a team at least once a week. As we get older, however, life—work, kids, etc.—tends to get in the way, leading most adults to abandon their passion for team play in favor of hitting the gym. And since we all know how uninspiring that can be, it’s no wonder that, also according to the CDC, only about 28% of Americans get the weekly recommended 150 minutes of aerobic exercise and two muscle-strengthening sessions per week. What’s more, many Americans suffer from loneliness, including a whopping 79 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds, a condition estimated to have the same negative impacts on life span as smoking 15 cigarettes per day.
Now the good news: an antidote to a sedentary, lonely life may be as simple as signing up for a weekly kickball league. The physical benefits of team sports are obvious: the sprints, bursts of intense action, changes in direction and acceleration and muscle loading provide an efficient combo of aerobic, endurance, and resistance training. But as Dave “Beehive Dave” Marquardt, owner and founder of Beehive Sports & Social Club, has observed, the mental health benefits offered by team play may be even greater. “I can’t tell you how many times someone in one of our leagues told me that they had recently moved to Utah, couldn’t make friends and were considering moving away until they joined one of our leagues,” he says. “Playing an adult sport is a great way to get outside and get some exercise, but the people who play in our leagues love it for what it does for their mental health.”
For Ben Smith, a Salt Lake City high school teacher and longtime rec league hockey player, the physical benefits he’s reaped from getting on the ice regularly are certainly a plus, but it’s the community he’s built through his rec league that’s kept him at it for the past 25 years. “I think the way team sports are different from exercising on your own is that you are focused on doing your best for the whole group, not just yourself,” Smith says. “My hockey community has been a huge support for me as I have navigated changes in my life. It’s also brought me closer to people whose lives are vastly different than mine in a way that few other community connections can.”
Marquardt, a Utah native, launched what would become Beehive Sports soon after moving back to Salt Lake City 15 years ago. “I wanted to reconnect with my high school friends and so that summer I started a kickball league,” he says. “We had so much fun that we decided to start a flag football league in the fall.” Now, Beehive Sports & Social Club’s spring, summer and fall leagues include basketball, softball, soccer, sand volleyball, cornhole and pickleball, as well as kickball (“Our most popular league, by a wide margin,” Marquardt says) and flag football. In the winter, Beehive Sports’ leagues go inside with volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, futsal (indoor soccer), darts and billiards.
Beehive Sports welcomes whole teams and single players alike and runs play on pitches from Murray to North Salt Lake. Because the teams often meet up at local bars after games, the minimum age to join a team is 21. There’s no age cap, but most players range in age from mid-20s to mid-40s. Last year, 15,000 people played in Beehive Sports’ leagues, all of which are made up of co-ed or women-only teams. “All-male teams tend to bring out the worst parts of sports,” Marquardt says. “The women temper the men on co-ed teams, and everyone has a good time.”
Adult Rec Leagues
Beehive Sports is far from the only adult rec league in Utah. Other resources include:
- Salt Lake County Parks & Rec, ultimate frisbee, pickleball, indoor volleyball, racquetball and hockey.
- Sport City, indoor adult soccer and volleyball in Draper.
- Stonewall Sports, LGBTQIA + Allies-friendly bowling, pickleball, kickball, and dodgeball.
- Utah Adult Soccer, men’s and women’s teams play in Salt Lake City, Herriman, Sandy and Park City.
- Park City Recreation, volleyball, softball, kickball and cornhole leagues.
Alt sports
Maybe you never took to “sportsball” and the idea of kicking, bumping, throwing or hitting one around with a bunch of strangers seems terrifying. Rest assured that no experience is required to join a rec league (versus a competitive league). But to give you a little background before you hit the field, the following is a brief rule rundown of the most common rec league sports.
- Kickball: Rules almost exactly mimic baseball or softball, except players kick a big, friendly rubber ball rolling on the ground to them by the pitcher versus hitting one that’s airborne with a bat.
- Cornhole: Two teams, each with one or two players, take turns throwing bags at a board. The goal is to score points by getting bags through the hole or onto the board.
- Flag football: Same rules as football, but no contact is allowed. Instead, players wear flags that hang along their sides by a belt. To “tackle” a player in possession of the ball, the opposing team needs to pull one or both of their flags off.
- Ultimate Frisbee: The object of this fun, non-contact sport is to pass the frisbee to your teammates to score goals. The person with the frisbee is not allowed to run, just pass.
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