The whooshing sound of a soccer ball hitting the back of the net. The crack of baseball bat as a white-and-red stitched pill gets sent into the outfield. The swish of a game-winning three-pointer as it sinks through the hoop. Those are just some of the moments that drive thousands of youngsters to signups each year to play their favorites sports with friends.

And the droves of kids who want to play year-round has driven Cranston’s League for Cranston’s Future (CLCF) to become one of the largest youth sports organizations in Rhode Island, providing leagues of all kinds, from baseball to boxing to chess, for kids in Rhode Island.

After being around for nearly 65 years now, however, the CLCF board hasn’t been growing as much as Steve Marocco and Bill DiNuccio, two former CLCF presidents and coaches, would like.

“We’re trying to get that new generation to buy into CLCF,” Marocco said. “We’re always looking for new ideas. We want to see new faces at our meetings. With new faces you get new ideas.”

The CLCF board currently has 11 voting board members, but many of them have remained the same over the years, despite the fact that they’ve seen hundreds of coaches, former players, and involved parents come through the many sports they have.

Founded in 1953, CLCF has grown to serve almost 5,000 youths across all its sports in the Cranston area, which go all year-round. They now have half a dozen locations across the city of Cranston, from soccer to baseball fields, including the John Chafee CLCF complex in western Cranston.

The real strength for CLCF, according to the board members, is the diversity in sports they have teams for, including boxing, track, cheerleading, and lacrosse, as well as all the “usual” ones.

In its early years, the price for each kid to join a league was a mere $1. Now, parents pay closer to $100 or more for their kids to join a CLCF league, with a more expensive fee for their competitive leagues, but DiNuccio and Marocco said that a kid will never be turned away because they can’t afford to play.

Mike Prew, the treasurer of CLCF, said that the reason they can help kids in financial need is the Pastori Foundation, which donates around $7,000 a year in funds designated for league fees. Donations and corporate sponsors help fund CLCF, along with the fees paid by parents for each of their sports. The money is used to pay for gym rental times for practice, league entry fees at sports complexes around the state, and equipment for the year-round sports CLCF participates in.

In forming the now powerhouse sports organization that CLCF is, both DiNuccio and Marocco made sure to point out how integral the city of Cranston has been, especially Parks and Recreation Director Tony Liberatore.

“The partnership with the city has been amazing,” Marocco said. “Having Tony Liberatore around is almost like having him on our board. He’s getting stuff done, taking care of the fields. The city owns all of the fields and he has been such a great partner. When he wants something done he gets it done. He does it for all the leagues.”

The city has been helpful throughout all the years since its founding, according to DiNuccio, as they have been integral in helping CLCF establish locations around Cranston. The building that CLCF currently operates out of on Pontiac Avenue was built by board members, but the land is owned by the city.

The issues in involvement, however, are becoming more apparent to the two past presidents.

“Volunteerism is down everywhere,” DiNuccio said. “Most people across the state pay their coaches to coach and we don’t. Expansion of sports into multiple season also, volunteers tend to be single sport people and follow their sport year-round. Common information is not shared because people only care about their one sport. People simply don’t know what’s going on.”

Parents of kids just focusing on one or two sports is a problem, along with the trend in most sports leagues of parents coming and going as their own kids do.

Another challenge may be awareness of the organization and all its leagues.

“I think it’s a hidden jewel and some people don’t really understand it,” Marocco said. “There’s nobody like us in the country that encompasses as many sports as we do under one umbrella.”

The “hidden jewel” funds itself, has a great relationship with the city of Cranston, and has been recognized nationally with honors like the Cox Communications Steering Kids Straight award. And participation in the leagues, from kids signing up to play to former players becoming coaches, is still comparatively high.

But Marocco and DiNuccio know that they need to evolve with the times in order to keep CLCF running on the right track, so they want more people to come to board meetings, held at their Pontiac Avenue location once a month, and give them more ideas to better themselves at an organizational level.

Their optimism about the kids they provide teams for, especially the ones who aren’t necessarily all-stars, has remained high, though.

“You go up to Chafee complex on a Saturday when there’s soccer and fall softball and fall baseball going on, there’s a thousand cars up there. And who’s out their cooking hamburgers. It’s just a really nice place to be,” Marocco said.

But if CLCF wants to continue getting better and serving more athletes around the city of Cranston, the board thinks they need increased involvement at an organizational level.