Ballbarians repeat as Young Lawyers Section kickball champions again

The Ballbarians repeated as Young Lawyers Section Kickball League champions, adding another trophy to a run that has produced five top finishes in the past seven seasons. In a league where the same roster can become a fixture as much as a contender, that level of staying power has turned the Ballbarians into the standard everyone else is chasing.

The club’s recent benchmark came in 2025, when it beat the No. 1 seed, the Public Defenders, 10-1 in the championship game. That win delivered the Ballbarians’ fourth championship in six seasons and showed the kind of separation that only comes when a team keeps enough continuity to sharpen the basics, from defensive positioning to baserunning to kicking under pressure.

The team’s rise was already established before that. In 2023, the Ballbarians won the YLS title after dethroning defending champions The Kickballerz, with seven teams competing for the coveted Golden Kickball and bragging rights. That kind of field gives the league a real competitive edge, but it also keeps the season accessible enough that the title race can turn on a few well-timed plays and a team’s ability to show up together year after year.

The Jacksonville Bar Association has built that environment into a recurring tradition. Its YLS Kickball League returns each season and is promoted as friendly competition, networking and a great excuse to get outside, a combination that fits a professional community looking for something more durable than a happy hour and less formal than a full-scale sports schedule. A 2018 spring league listing put play in Jacksonville, Florida, with start times of 6:00 PM or 7:00 PM and open to all JBA members, a reminder of how low the barrier is to joining in.

That structure helps explain why the league endures. The Jacksonville Bar Association has served the North Florida legal community since 1897, and the kickball league has become another way for young lawyers to compete without leaving the professional circle they already inhabit. John Weedon, a Ballbarians captain and JBA governor, and Kathryn Stanfill, a Young Lawyers Section Board of Governors member, reflect how closely the league is tied to the association itself.