GVAA Soccer Parents,

I sent the following out to our coaches today:

Coaches,

Thank you again for the commitment that you made to GVAA Soccer during
the fall season. I hope that the season was an enjoyable one for you
and your players. Once again, I know you served us well as I did not
get a single report from FCYSL league officials regarding poor behavior
of GVAA coaches, players or parents. That is awesome.

I hope your fall tournament went well, if you brought your team. The
tourney games that we held at Heritage Farm went off without a hitch
(the exception being one team whose coach didn’t thoroughly understand
the PK procedure for ties during championship matches), and the weather
cooperated for us (thank goodness!).

I am interested in any feedback that you have regarding the program.
One of the things you should be considering for the spring is the
division/power rating you would like to put your team in and whether you
will hold Div 1 tryouts. Related to this, the league voted to do away
with roster size limits beginning in the spring. I am all for this. I
don’t know why the league should mandate to us how large our roster can
be if we do not need to present rosters/player ID at games. On the flip
side, as a coach I know how hard it is to get all kids into a game when
the roster is too large. Where this rule change helps us is in cases
where we have one or two players more than the old limit sign up for an
11 v 11 team. So, in cases where we don’t have enough players to add
another team, the coach can elect to carry the player rather than tell
the family we are full (repeat this is a coach’s decision for
registrations stamped after the registration deadline). Moving forward,
coaches should consider how large they want their roster to be when
balancing the acceptance of late registrations with getting players into
the game. It will be a good idea for coaches to email team parents with
a gentle reminder to return the registrations once the spring
registrations are sent out to parents. (We will tell you when spring
registrations have gone out.) Getting the registrations back from
families in a timely manner is key for GVAA Soccer to be able to
accurately predict how many teams to place into the league divisions.
This has a major impact on roster sizes.

I will be placing an order for equipment in the beginning of December,
so if there are special needs that you know about-please tell me. I
plan on ordering new practice balls (size 3s, 4s and 5s), pinneys, first
aid kits, ect.

I have served as GVAA Soccer Commissioner for quite awhile now, and it
is time for me to let someone else do it. I would like to be able to
groom someone during the coming season and turn it over to that person
next fall (I’m not going anywhere-I’ll still be around as a consultant
if desired…). Please consider taking this or suggesting a capable team
parent(s). I can be reached at metcalfej@....

Thank you again for your involvement in the program.
John Metcalfe