BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Bradford Sports United is a reality.
It has a board of directors and an athletic director. It’s currently registering children for baseball and softball.
Board member Danny Riddick, who’s also a Bradford County commissioner, admitted he sometimes can’t believe it, though, but then he has to ask himself, “Why are you doubting? You’ve been praying about this.”
Yes, Riddick is part of a group of people who are passionate about providing athletic opportunities for youth, but that passion is only part of the reason Bradford Sports United exists.
“The main reason this is having success is because of God,” Riddick said.
Riddick said he began talking with former Jimmy Crosby — the city of Starke’s former chief administrative officer/city clerk — about creating a youth sports organization around Thanksgiving in 2024.
“Then, we actually brought it up in a (Tourist Development Council) board meeting,” Riddick said. “He and I kept talking about it. The next thing you know, we got other people involved.”
The exploratory stage of creating such an organization included talking to community members who are or were involved with youth sports.
“We started putting names together of people we thought would have some good input and influence,” Riddick said.
A couple of informational meetings were held to address how to create a good youth sports program. The most important question, though, was: “Will it work?”
Riddick said once he and others who were involved began to feel confident that they could create an organization that would indeed work, it was time to make presentations to the Bradford County and Starke commissions. The city and the county voted to enter into a memorandum of understanding with each other to provide financial support of Bradford Sports United.
Bradford County’s Tourist Development Council is also providing financial support.
Next came putting together a board, which, besides Riddick, consists of Cathy Bradley, Clint Collins, Josh Davis, Joann Jackson, Gene Melvin and Mary Shaw.
“All seven board members are Christians,” Riddick said. “We all pray about this. We pray before every meeting. We pray during the week. I get text messages all the time: ‘Hey, man. Praying for this, that we’ll make the right decision. God will lead us.’”
Board members, of course, prayed during the interview process for selecting a recreation director. Deana DeSiena was chosen out of six finalists (see related story).
More sports
Riddick’s two grandsons play in youth flag-football league hosted by Trinity Baptist Church of Keystone Heights.
“I think there are 250 children (in that league),” Riddick said. “If you ever go there on a game night…probably half of Bradford County is there.”
One of Riddick’s grandsons also plays soccer in Keystone. Youth soccer, as is the case with youth flag football, isn’t offered in Bradford County.
“I know what a burden it is on the parents to have to go drive to another county for practices,” Riddick said. “I was like, ‘Why can’t we have that here?’”
That’s where Bradford Sports United comes in — providing youth sports opportunities and adding to what’s been offered in Bradford in the past.
DeSiena wants to be able to say that Bradford Sports United offers “something for everybody.”
No child left behind
DeSiena said she wants to do more than just be a part of helping provide sports opportunities for youth. She also wants to remove barriers to children playing a sport, saying she wants to ensure that “kids have equipment and the support that they need to be able to play because we are very keen on saying, ‘No child left behind.’”
If Bradford Sports United has the funds to provide equipment to a child, it will do so. If it can create a stockpile of equipment through donations, it will do so.
“If we’re not giving it out for them to keep, at least they have something to use that’s theirs for the season,” DeSiena said. “Then, it can get passed down to the next kid.”
Programs and organizations exist to help with financial barriers to playing youth sports. For example, as a part of its Facebook post regarding baseball and softball sign-ups, Bradford Sports United is providing a link to Every Kid Sports. Through donations and sponsors, Every Kid Sports helped more than 19,000 children access sports opportunities in 2025.
Community support
Bradford Sports United hasn’t been in existence long, but DeSiena said the organization has already received donations as well as hearing from people who want to know how they can help.
“Anything helps,” DeSiena said. “Your time helps. If you want to come work at the snack stand for an hour, wonderful. If you want to donate a bat or a glove or cleats or pants or something like that, that works, too. You want to do soccer balls?
“Whatever it is, anything helps. We’re just happy that people want to help kids.”
Riddick said, “It’s awesome. Even people who were skeptical or hesitant about this whole thing — I’ve seen a lot of them come around and really wanting to get involved in it now because they see the passion of everybody involved.”
Besides donations and volunteers, Bradford Sports United also needs ideas and opinions.
“All feedback right now is good feedback because we’re coming off the ground,” DeSiena said, while Riddick added, “We definitely need input to help us.”
For more information about Bradford Sports United or to help in any way, please call 904-454-0125 or send email to [email protected].
