an introduction to the Changes for the Fall 2020 seasON
It’s been a crazy few months as we’ve been trying to determine whether it was safe to hold a Fall soccer season. Our board members have attended informational webinars, pored over guidance documents, and debated whether we could safely manage a season amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
We arrived at the decision to make Fall 2020 a “GO!”after very careful consideration as it will require us to adhere to new health and safety measures and involve much work to figure out how we implement and train our coaches, players, and parents on the new requirements. We will communicate these changes clearly and often through email, the website, our Facebook page, and at our practices.
PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT
PAYSL has always been a club dedicated to offering our local kids the chance to play soccer without having to drive to Corpus or Flour Bluff to join a club. We operate with a small board of directors (currently 5 parents) who have to organize everything from registration, fields, schedules, coaches, and referees, all in accordance with directives from our league, the Coastal Bend Youth Soccer Association.
We depend upon parental involvement to make all of this happen. In recent seasons, we’ve struggled to recruit enough coaches and board members to keep our club running. Now, we are adding an additional role, Team Parent, to help the coach manage the sidelines and ensure that safety protocols are being followed by each team. This season we are going to need parental involvement – YOUR INVOLVEMENT – like never before. So, as you fill out your child’s registration form, please indicate your interest to volunteer as a coach or team parent. We will not be able to run this season without YOU!!
TEAM STRUCTURE
As we planned for what the season would look like, we listened to feedback from our older players and their parents from last season, who indicated that they missed playing competitively against other clubs. We had a strong group of 16 middle school players last fall and hope that they will return this season to form a U15 team to travel and play area clubs in Ingleside, Portland, and Rockport. This age plays 11v11, so we’ll need 14-15 players to field this team. We have a solid group of 4th and 5thgraders who are ready to play competitively as well. They will form a U12 team that will play 9v9, so we’ll need 12-13 players to field this team.
For our younger players, we decided to continue the format used last season. These players will participate in a developmental program designed to teach foundational skills and prepare them to play competitively. We made the difficult decision to not offer soccer to our Pre-K (4 year old) children this season. This is a particularly tough age to coach and requires at a minimum 2, but preferably 3 coaches, to instruct and direct the children on the field. Unfortunately, we have previously not had enough parental involvement needed to successfully manage this age, so board members had to step in. Given the new health and safety requirements, the board will not have the ability to support this age group this season.
REGISTRATION
Our registration just opened up yesterday, so we encourage you to sign your child up. For our travel teams, we are required to submit team rosters by Fri. 9/18, so we’re under a tight deadline to form those teams. We apologize for the short registration window, but the “Go / No Go” situation on the season has been very fluid due to the constantly changing information around COVID-19. Having made the decision to hold the season last Thurs. 9/10, we’re working as quickly as we can to get you the information you need.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at portaransasyouthsoccerleague@gmail.comor reach out to us via our Facebook page. We’re looking forward to a fun AND safe fall season!!
