Registration PVYSC is currently registering players, ages 4 to 19, for the 2009 summer soccer season. Information on fees, age groups and nights of play can be found at our website www.pvysc.org. Online Registration will continue until teams are filled. Fees will increase after Nov. 1 and Dec. 1.   New Board Members PVYSC held its annual meeting in August and elected new officers and board members. New board members elected at PVYSC’s annual meeting include Tina Wiswall, Holly Lifke, Marti Coan and Jerry Mortimer. New officers include Phil Therrien as vice president and Jerry Hameister as treasurer. Click here to see a complete listing of board members and their area of responsibility.   Remember When... It seems everyone has a story about a player who came out PVYSC who went on to do great things in soccer, whether it was a college playing career or a successful coaching career. We’d like you to send us those stories. One of PVYSC’s newest projects is to collect stories of former players and where they are now. If you can tell us where they are and what they are up to, we will share it with the club. Pictures are also a plus.   Contact Us Sean Johnson Administrator phone: (920) 720-9318 secretary@pvysc.org PVYSC PO Box 173 Neenah, WI 54957-0173   Welcome... to issue #1 of Paper Valley Youth Soccer Club's electronic newsletter. We want to use this new tool to keep you abreast of the latest news and development in the club. We will be sending the newsletters out regularly, so watch your e-mail for them. If you have suggestions for items to include, please e-mail them to us at secretary@pvysc.org. Playing State League This month, one of PVYSC’s coaches shares his experience as a coach and parent with a state league player. The club has experienced some great success in qualifying teams to compete at this top level of state competition. But it can be a tough decision for parents and players to take the plunge, since it is a relatively new experience for all of us. Tom Wanamaker shares his experiences in the following story. The State League Experience by Tom Wanamaker I have been a coach in the PVYSC for over ten years, since my oldest child, Dan, started playing at U5. Much of that time, I have been a rec coach, but when my second child, Maddie, was 9, she had the opportunity to follow the pathway into Classic soccer – the competitive branch of the game. Classic soccer begins with the U11 age division, but the PVYSC and many clubs in the state have what are called U10 Developmental teams. These teams are made up of the more advanced players who have a strong interest in becoming classic soccer players. U10 teams are formed in the late summer and compete in 8 versus 8 soccer at the U11 level for the following 12 months. In our district, East Central, there may be two to three levels of classic soccer at which a team can play. National is the highest and American may be divided into upper and lower divisions. (East Central clubs range as far north as the Green Bay area, south to Fond du Lac, east along the Lakeshore, and west to New London and Winneconne.) The PVYSC is usually able to field at least one U10 team that competes at the National or American level. In 2004, Pete Ansems and I assumed coaching duties for our daughters’ team, the Red Wave, and began working with them in the fall. When the time came to decide upon a level of play, we felt the team was strong enough to make a go of it in the National division. Playing against older and more experienced teams made for a challenging season – even the best U10 teams that elect to play in the National division finish in the bottom half of the standings. The payoff comes the following year, when the team is playing against U11 (and some U10) competition. The Red Wave finished the U10 regular season at 3-5-1, but came back the following year to win the U11 division with an 11-1 record. One thing that quickly became apparent as we began our U11 season was that over half of the teams in our division did not provide a level of competition that was appropriate – we won games far too easily against U10 teams and weaker U11 teams. We tried to seek out challenging competition for the girls in tournament play, but that was hit and miss. The girls had fun scoring a lot of goals and winning most of their games for a change, but to Pete and me, it felt in a way like a wasted year. There are several factors that make the PVYSC such a strong club for its size, but one of them is the fact that teams are encouraged to seek out a level of competition that challenges their players. Player development stagnates if they can easily win games by playing at their current level. As long as a team is not hopelessly outclassed, it is virtually inevitable that they will reach a higher level more quickly by playing against tougher competition. If they are put in a setting where they have to play better, then they will play better. The state’s premiere club, FC Milwaukee, draws the best players not just from a metropolitan area that is 60 times bigger than Neenah, but from as far away as Madison, Stevens Point, Green Bay and the Valley. Although this advantage puts FC in a dominant position within the state, PVYSC teams are still able to compete respectably against them and the other top clubs in Wisconsin. That success also carries over into high school. Neenah teams are always at the top of the FVA conference and this past fall, the Neenah boys defeated Marquette (a team made largely of FC Milwaukee players) for the State Championship. As the Red Wave looked ahead to the U12 season, we felt there were a couple of options open to us. One was to “play up” at U13 against older, more experienced teams in East Central. The other was to enter state league. State league, as the name implies, draws the best teams from around the state. There are two divisions of state league, Premier and the lower First Division. There are generally 7 – 10 teams in Premiere and more in First Division. Teams must apply for state league in June and be accepted by a committee of the Wisconsin Youth Soccer Association or WYSA. The committee places teams in state league based upon their record in league play and at tournaments. Teams that finish below 2nd place in league play are usually not considered for placement in state league. Although we had talked about getting into state league, the application window snuck up on us and we hastily applied days before the deadline. To our parents, the decision to apply seemed to come quite abruptly. Many had questions about the travel and time commitments. They wondered if their family lives would suffer. Some worried that their girls may be getting in over their heads. The state committee was ready to place the team in Premier, but we had not done a great job of preparing our parents. Rather than have good players consider leaving the team, we withdrew our application and played up at U13 the following spring. At U13, our girls got to play against kids who were bigger, faster, and more experienced. As we had hoped, they rose to the challenge and learned how to deal with the pressure. Our games were much closer and we seldom won by more than one or two goals. The team ended up with a 9-1-2 record and finished on top of the league, in a strong position to get another offer to play in state league. This time around, we had done a better job of educating ourselves and our team. With our more ambitious tournament schedule, we had encountered many of the teams in state league and it was obvious that we could play with them. As we moved from 8 v 8 to full sided soccer, we also made the jump into the premier division of state league. Before kids reach high school, state league is divided into two seasons – fall and spring. The fall season runs from the second week in September until the first week in November (although northern teams try to get their seasons completed by the third week in October). The spring season starts in early April and ends after the first week in June. State league games are played on weekends – generally one home and one away game each day. Depending on the number of teams in the league, the state league season could be completed in as few as four weekends. Teams are allowed to block out two or sometimes three weekends to compete in tournaments, which extends the season over a couple more weekends. There are positives and negatives to being in state league. On the negative side, there is the travel. The teams in state league tend to be concentrated around the Milwaukee, Madison, and Fox Valley regions of the state. Half of the games are at home, but our away games this spring were at Cedarburg, Appleton, Whitefish Bay, and Kenosha. With the current price of gas, our team did more carpooling than ever. On the positive side, it seemed much less hectic getting to a Saturday afternoon game in Kenosha than to scramble to a 5:30 match in Howard on a school night in May. Our kids could compete in track and perform in concerts in the spring without worrying about soccer conflicts. On the other side of the coin, weekend games meant we lost one of our normal practice days and we sometimes had to practice weeknights after the girls had finished track practice. Another mixed bag in the spring is that the state league season is over so soon. We played at a tournament in Madison in mid April but our first state league game was not until May 3. Even with a couple of weekends devoted to the State Cup Tournament, our season ended on June 8. When league play ended, part of me missed looking forward to a weekly league game, but I also enjoyed the more leisurely pace that came when school ended. We planned to compete in two June tournaments and end our season at the Schwan’s Cup in Blaine, Minnesota on July 13. When one tournament was shortened due to weather and the other was cancelled, we entered the Upper Midwest and finished up our season here in Neenah on July 20. Now the team has several weeks off to play and vacation with their families before we begin preparing for a tournament in late August. The best part about playing in state league is the level of play. There may be one team at the top that wins all or most of their games and a team at the bottom that loses in a similar fashion, but even then, the games are still competitive. Going against better players has helped to keep our girls focused because they know that they can lose if they don’t play up to their potential. Our players have gotten the opportunity to play with the best the state has to offer and they have shown that they belong at that level. When they meet a stronger team, they know that they will have to play better if they want to keep up. They can’t sit back and be satisfied with themselves. It’s that level of expectation that will help them become the best players and the best team they can be. The main reason we devote the time and energy to youth soccer is not to develop professional players. Being part of a team teaches kids about the values of teamwork, dedication, self-discipline, and hard work. It can be scary to face new challenges, but by continuing to aim high, kids get used to facing them. After rising to the occasion time and again, they come to understand their power to contend with obstacles both on and off the field. It is these life lessons that make youth sports worthwhile.