Sports schedules · July 10, 2026 · 6 min read
The pediatrician's next opening is after tryouts
Fall sign-ups land in the sleepiest weeks of summer. What comes due when, plus a printable tracker for each kid and sport. Book the physical first.
The league email leads with parking instructions. Somewhere in the fourth paragraph it mentions that sign-ups close Friday and that nobody gets on the field without a current sports physical on file. You read that part at a red light, and then the light changes.
Nothing about mid-July feels like sports. No practice schedule, no team, no group thread, and last year's cleats are in the garage possibly still fitting. Then the season opens, and it opens with forms. Most state high school athletic associations require an annual sports physical for a kid to take part, and plenty of rec and club leagues ask for one too. No physical on file, no tryout. It's also the only item on the list you can't finish tonight at the kitchen table, because it needs an appointment.
Two or three kids in different sports multiplies every piece of that: separate portals, separate closing dates, separate fees, and one pediatric office that's about to be booked solid with back-to-school visits.
Nobody is going to remind you
Once the season's going, a coach texts when practice moves and the group thread lights up when a game gets rained out. Before the season, there's no team yet, so there's no one sending reminders. The only thing keeping track of your registration deadline is the deadline itself, sitting in an email you've already scrolled past.
There's nothing to put on the calendar yet, either. Once the practice and game dates exist, you'll want them all in one shared family calendar. Right now there's only paperwork, and it lands in the slowest, most vacation-brained weeks of summer. It tends to arrive in this order:
| When | What's happening | Your move |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-July | Sign-up portals open, deadlines arrive by email | Register, pay the fee, write down the closing date |
| Late July | Physical forms come due, pediatric offices fill up | Book the appointment before the slots are gone |
| Early to mid-August | Tryouts and first practices begin | Confirm dates, order uniforms, watch the roster |
Miss the registration window and your kid watches tryouts from the fence. A missing physical does the same thing more quietly: registered, paid for, and standing on the sideline. The season hasn't started, and you can already be behind.
One page per kid, per sport
What helps is one place that holds every moving part, so none of it lives only in your head or in a half-read email.
Fill it in on a computer, or print a copy and write by hand. Put down what you know today and leave the rest blank until it lands. You don't have to finish it in one sitting. One glance should show you what's still open.
Download the printable registration tracker (PDF)
Print it for the fridge, or fill it in and keep it on your phone. Star the physical line. Everything else on the page is a form you can finish in five minutes, while the physical runs on an appointment somebody else controls. Leave room on the fee line, too, since the sign-up cost, the uniform, and an equipment deposit often show up as three separate charges.
That doctor's visit is also a good moment to make sure the rest of your kid's health info is current. If you keep a one-page kid health sheet with allergies, medications, and your pediatrician's number, update it while you're booking the physical, since the two cover a lot of the same ground.
Stop retyping dates out of the league email
Filling in that tracker still means copying dates out of a long email and off a paper form by hand, which is exactly where things slip. The deadline is real. It's also still sitting in the fourth paragraph of the message you read at the light.
If your family already plans in Mavo, you can skip the retyping. Forward the league's registration email straight in, or snap a photo of the physical form the school sent home, and Mavo reads what's printed on them into plan items for your shared calendar: the deadline, the fee, where the form goes back. Add from Anywhere takes a forwarded email, pasted text, a link, or a photo the same way. You review what it pulled before anything's final, so the deadline stops living in a buried inbox.
The reminder has to come from you
A date on the calendar is only half the job. A registration deadline doesn't help much if you notice it the morning it closes.
Ask Mavo to remind you ahead of each one: a few days before the sign-up deadline, again before the physical form is due, once the night before tryouts. Mavo sends reminders and notifications for the things you ask it to watch, and July is when you still have the attention to set them.
If two parents are splitting this, put an owner on each kid's registration so it's clear who's booking which physical and who's paying which fee. Otherwise you both assume the other one handled it. Once practices start, that same habit carries into who drives which day.
Questions that come up every August
My kid hasn't committed to a sport yet. Do I register anyway?
If the deadline lands before the decision, register, and read the withdrawal terms while you're still in the portal. Pulling out before the season usually turns into a refund question at worst. Getting into a sign-up that already closed depends on a volunteer having room for you.
Do rec and club leagues need a physical too, or just school teams?
Plenty of rec, travel, and club programs ask for one, so don't assume it's only a school-team rule. Check each league's requirements the same week you register, because the physical takes the longest no matter who's asking for it.
Our physical is from last spring. Does it still count?
Often yes, if it's dated inside your school or league's window, which is usually sometime earlier in the same year. Confirm the exact cutoff before you assume it carries over, and make sure the finished form actually reaches the office that keeps it on file. A physical nobody turned in won't clear your kid to play.
Three kids, three different leagues. How do I keep it straight?
One tracker block per kid per sport, and if you can, book all the physicals as a single clinic trip. It's one waiting room instead of three, and it beats calling back in August when the calendar's already full.
Book the physical this week
If you do one thing after reading this, book the sports physical. Every other line on the tracker is a form you can finish in the time it takes to make coffee, but the physical runs on someone else's calendar, and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends booking it six to eight weeks before the season so there's room to follow up on anything the doctor finds. Every sports family in town is calling that office in the same two weeks.
Once that appointment is on the books, everything else on the list is typing you can do from the couch. Call the office first, then go find the cleats.