GBYSL Report

By Richard L. Jay, Great Basin Youth Soccer League

Greeting from Great Basin Youth Soccer League. Where do I start? There have been so many changes and new faces over the last months.

We are sad to see Tony and Gloria Filicchia leave the High Sierra Recreational program after many years of dedication. Tony remains in the area, assisting us with coaching education. We now have a pure recreational program from U5-U14, and this Fall season we have 170 teams with over 1,750 new players to our program. Gloria is taking some much-deserved time off. Thank you so much for all of your dedication and hard work over so many years; you will be missed. By Spring 2009, we hope to have over 200 teams in the Recreational program.

Our competitive program is experiencing the same growth; the U10-14 will have over 50 teams, representing an increase of 20 percent over Fall 2007.

We have hired Jeff Cade as our League Technical Director and his work is cut out for him. Jeff’s first task will be to create a training curriculum for the recreational division and to ensure those coaches are ready. Jeff will be focusing a majority of his time working with the recreational coaches. Jeff just completed a highly successful pilot summer program, the Signature Program. This allowed players to be trained during the summer months and improve their skills. ODP tryouts for the younger kids are right around the corner.

If you have not logged onto our new website please do so at www.gbysl.org. This state-of-the-art site allows for almost instant posting of events, training material/documents, calendars and any other messages we need our league members to see and/or download. You can visit us and download any of the material listed.

This year, we hosted the U13 and U16 State Cup in Northern Nevada. For the second year in a row, Mother Nature cooperated with us and provided perfect conditions. Many thanks to all of you that assisted in the planning and implementation of State Cup. We had a BBQ for the referees during the games and I think the chicken/apple sausages were a hit; glad you enjoyed them.

We continue to build our referee pool and this year we had a record number of Grade 8/9 training courses, bridge courses and recertification classes — the number of classes held was well over 30. The youth referees are doing great and learning as they go forward.

We held election in May — Dean Kasparian was elected as Vice President, Stacy Ojers re-elected as Treasurer and Jimmy Huynh was re-elected as Recreational Commissioner.

We are working with the various governmental agencies on a new field complex that will encompass 12-15 fields. More information will follow as we go forward.

Enough for now — more to follow in future issues. Have fun!