Coaches,

First and foremost, thank you for coaching this year.  Your time and commitment to the program make the experience for the kids wonderful.  I would like to touch on a few topics that will hopefully make the season go smoothly for everyone. 

1.    The program will be ordering game shirts for you to wear during the season.  Head coaches and assistant coaches are entitled to these shirts.  Please get your size into Tammy Lockhart by Wednesday morning.  We will be placing the order Wednesday afternoon to ensure we have them for opening day, which is September 11th.

2.    Klock Park is currently closed. The hot, dry summer we have had has severely damaged the grass.  We will be reseeding the fields and should have the park open for Sept. 11th.  Until then, we will need to practice at Proctor, Normandy , Emerson(Fridays-Mondays) and hopefully the Fairgrounds.  We are going to share these spots with each other, so please make room if another team arrives.  These are not perfect soccer fields, but this will hopefully enable us to get Klock back to being the premier fields on the North Shore that they are.  I would like to address a much asked question of why Pye Brook has a sprinkler system and Klock does not.  The D.E.P mandates that live growth must cap the cover of the site.  For those of you new to the town, the park sits on a former landfill.  Therefore, the sprinkler system runs up there during the summer to keep the grass in good shape.

3.    Please get your practice night and times to your age group director.  Your AGD's are in charge of coordinating practice times in your U group.  We will try to accomodate your requests for 2 practices, but we have only one U14 field and one U12 field.  We will be setting up practice fields in the outfield of Klock South, so worse case, your second practice might have to be on these fields.  Club trainers will be working with our teams again this fall.   Each team will be getting 4 training sessions.  They will be every other week, starting at the beginning of the season.  We will be using trainers from Aztec, Challenger, NSU, and Viking.  The trainers will continue to work on fundamentals with the children.  Please take this opportunity to learn from the trainers.  We will also be hosting goalie clinics for the kids and possibly a coaches clinic.

4. During the upcoming season, the TYS Board has a few expectations of conduct during games.  Playing time should be equitable for all children.  I know this is one of the more difficult aspects of managing a game, but please give every effort for 50/50 playing time.  Communication with referees should be minimal during the games.  Most of these refs are kids who are going to make mistakes.  We don't want intimidation to possibly scare these kids away from reffing.  It might be our own children out there someday.  I have included ECYSA's Zero Tolerance Policy below.  Lastly, in the case of a lopsided game, please manage the game accordingly.  If you are involved on the winning side of a lopsided game, you will be asked to explain your managment of the game.   In the case of situation where the other team is short players, you are allowed to play a full squad in order to maximize playing time for our kids.