If your child plays competitive/travel soccer, you know it can be stressful come tryout time for you AND them. I often think the parents stress over it more than the kids do. But as a league administrator, it’s even worse – for different reasons.

Most league administrators also coach. So as the season winds down and you’re wanting to catch your breath, here come tryouts! Then sifting through all the evaluations. Creating the team rosters in an environment that at best can be described as ‘tense’ since many of the evaluators will also be your most experienced coaches – all with their own agendas. Then ‘the calls’ go out and you inevitably get the calls from parents upset with the results from tryouts. Or you have teams with barely enough kids and you try to do whatever you can to find a couple more to fill out the team so the rest can play. Then you have to get them all registered, get uniforms ordered, reams of paperwork in order, and so on. There is no off season!

Needless to say, June and July are my least favorite time of year when it comes to youth soccer. It was such a relief to finally get back on the field with my girls travel teams for our informal summer workouts. They’re bored out of their minds with summer vacation and the coaches just want to lace up their cleats again. Only downside was the temps in the upper 90’s for two weeks straight. Let’s just say my new U9 girls team kicked my butt the first session – Soccer Dad is out of shape!

Here in NC, things get rolling in early August with games starting after Labor Day. Looking forward to it and happy to put yet another tryout season behind me.