My son is rough on his cleats. He’s also growing like a weed as are most kids his age. So we never spend much beyond $15/$20 on his cleats for soccer since he out grows them so quickly. But now he’s wearing the cheap ones out before he outgrows them. His last pair he wore the material off the toes (or they just fell apart). His current pair, we recently noticed, are missing 3 cleats that were torn off during play/practice. He cuts hard so I wasn’t surprised - they were cheap cleats. He had wanted some cleats that were a little snazzier than the plain black cleats we normally get him for $15. So I figured I’d take a look at some from Nike or Adidas, etc. I was surprised to see what some of them were made out of.

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All sports leagues have to deal with unruly parents from time to time.  Some more than others, but we all face it. Youth sports leagues come up with a variety of ways to handle it with varying results.  Our worst moment was when a grandparent at a U6 match came onto the field and grabbed one of our coaches by the neck.  Yes, a grandparent.  But we are not alone.  Other sports in our city have had their share of parent conduct issues too.  So we take a fairly tough stance.  Police are stationed at the field complex gates during every competition which was mandated by our city government.  The rules are very clear to our parents - if you physically assault or verbally abuse the coaches, or officials, you will be thrown out of the complex and depending on the severity, possibly not allowed to return for the rest of the season. I can’t say it prevents ALL parental problems, but we make it very clear each season that this is the penalty and parents understand the consequences. We send very detailed and frank information to parents each season about proper conduct, though we don’t yet have parents sign a parental code of conduct, but expect to do this soon.

So that’s just one way of trying to cope with the small minority of parents who would cause trouble. But a youth football league in Raleigh has taken it to the next level, for better or worse

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When our league started out, it was due to a handful of coaches who desperately wanted a soccer league for their kids to play in. They took what they could get, which was the baseball field outfields at our local community center, some goals generously purchased by our city’s Recreation Dept. and ran with it. None of us expected the league to grow as quickly as it has. But as it grew, our city leaders realized they had underestimated the popularity of soccer and quickly moved to accommodate the growing need. We were extremely fortunate to have them approve the construction of a new soccer complex, which is due to be completed next year. This will allow us to practice in April and May after baseball starts (we had to relinquish the ballfields during the week once baseball began) and should allow us to bring in soccer events for our players to watch or participate in.

As anyone involved in an organization will tell you, once a large capital project is built, there are all sorts of new expenses that go along with it. Rapid growth can also present funding challenges. With goals costing over $1500 a pair, you can be faced with the need for additional funding in a hurry if you need more fields.

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Everyone knows that soccer fans are fanatics - but usually in a good way, not like the hooligans the U.S. press likes to focus on all the time. But I’d say this group of fans took things to the next level:

A chartered jet carrying 289 Gambian soccer fans pretended it needed to make an emergency landing so they could watch their team compete in the FIFA Under 17 World Championships, officials said Wednesday. The plane, claiming to be low on fuel, landed Tuesday near the stadium in Peru’s northern coast city of Piura. "It truly was a scam," said Betty Maldonado, a spokeswoman for Peru’s aviation authority, CORPAC. "They tricked the control tower, saying they were low on fuel."

No, this was not a good thing to do since they scrambled emergency crews, etc. But you have to give them an A for team spirit. I’m glad the Peruvians let them watch the match after all even if they may penalize the airline. I somehow expect the Gambian president would cover it for them! Of course its a good thing they didn’t try to do this here in the U.S. - they probably would have been shot on the tarmac or sent to Guantanamo!

For reasons which aren’t entirely clear to me, our league started out using 6′ x 12′ goals for U8 and U10. When we added a U12 division, well, we used what we had. As our players learned and improved, it became clear the smaller goals were a problem. One team in our U10 division had 8, yes, 8 ties last fall. So it was clear we needed to get 6′ x 18′ goals for U10 and above. We got some VERY nice goals from PEVO Sports for the Fall season (They are the CastLite Competition Series). We are also working towards affiliation with the NCYSA, which required us to move to smaller fields and smaller rosters. The combination of less players on the field and bigger goals has led to higher scoring games, which was expected. But when you have higher scoring matches, you’re also bound to have more pronounced lopsided results.

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This is one of those posts where those of you involved in youth soccer will understand in a heartbeat what I’m talking about while those who aren’t will probably wonder "Its just kids playing soccer - you’re exaggerating" or worse "Are all sports parents psychotic?"

In the short time I’ve been involved with our local soccer league, it has amazed me how youth soccer is so much more than just a youth sport. Because we play two seasons each year, many of us with kids who stick with it get to know each other very well. Game days are as much social events as they are sporting events. Many parents come as much for the social benefits as well as for their kids and thats not bad. Parents need to get out too! But its not just a place for parents to get together - oh no. Its a place for them to chat, rage, speculate, fume, cheer, laugh, and more all within the time frame of an hour!

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It seemed so simple at first. While the MYSA hadn’t had any serious dental injuries (knock on wood…), we figured it would be a good idea to have the kids start wearing mouthguards. A number of kids already had them and better to be prepared than not. During our organizational meetings for the Fall 2005 season the coaches discussed requiring mouthguards for U8 and above since that was the age when they started to get adult teeth. We agreed to mandate them for the upcoming season, but then started to look into it deeper and discovered what seemed on the surface like a simple decision, wasn’t.

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I’ve coached the U6 kids for a while and had a LOT of fun doing it. We had a great sponsor (our local McDonalds), great parents, and had developed a reputation as a tenacious team who played hard, even at such a young level. I had four assistant coaches back when our U6 teams were way too big (12-14 kids a team). I came into U6 with no coaching experience and tried to learn as much as I could while simultaneously trying to teach the kids the basics of soccer. I had a great group of kids assigned to me and as they moved up with my son, we developed a core group of parents and kids who moved up into U8 and formed a new team that has also done well (U8 All-State lost the Championship match 2-1 after finishing the season in 4th place but having an excellent time in the end of season tournament) I was an assistant coach for the U8 team which was coached by 3 of my assistant coaches who moved up from the U6 team. We had a lot of fun and I hope we taught the kids something as they moved through our teams.

So with my oldest son approaching 8 years old (how time flies!), we knew he would be moving up with a few teammates and we weren’t sure where he would end up. I had had a LOT of fun in U6, but the excitement of the matches in the older divisions was infectious. While I’m not a soccer expert by any stretch of imagination, I’m learning and I figured maybe it was time to move up with my son and try coaching at a higher level. OK OK - in reality the soccer mom’s forced me talked me into it Kidding!

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When I first started helping to organize our soccer league, I remember thinking ‘there has GOT to be an easier way’ I was using an Excel spreadsheet to try and assign kids to teams and track average age. It was tedious, but I was able to do it. But that experience prompted me to start writing code like crazy to move the league administration online. I was able to add features each season with the hope that it would be easier each season and certain tasks like registration, assigning kids to teams, tracking scores, etc certainly are. But I think this season I finally realized that while we’re able to do many things much easier, the overall task of running the league is getting more complex. So any efficiencies we gain through online tools, better organization, more volunteers, etc is offset by the league growth and complexity. Not complaining, just an observation.

As always we had our last minute scramble to gets things ready in time. Late dropouts, late additions to waiting lists, trying to squeeze in as many matches as the calendar and fields would allow, etc. But we somehow managed to have things ready in time. OK so the new bigger goals for U10 and U12 didn’t arrive in time, but OTHERwise…

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I’ve had an ongoing crisis at work that has consumed just about every waking hour for the past month.  We finally got it resolved this past week so I hope to polish off a number of drafts I have stored up and get new posts up soon!