Dear Players and Parents:
Welcome to our Spring 1999 season! Pinelanders is an instructional soccer league. We take great pride in offering a program that nurtures young players, and helps children develop their skills over time. Our program feeds into the Howell United Soccer Club and has also brought some outstanding talent to the Freehold Regional High School District soccer program.
It seems like our Fall season just ended and here we go again. Well, it never really ended, as we had a very successful indoor session during January and February. Special thanks to Lou Napolitano, Tony Valenziano and Gary Strucke from Howell United Soccer Club for running this quality program; I know fun was had by all, including the many adults who participated.
Your board has been very busy throughout the winter months. Many of our board members attended the NJ State Youth Soccer Association annual convention and show and learned an awful lot that will have a direct benefit to your club.
We have a record number of players for a Spring season this year and I would like to extend a special welcome to all our new players and their families. I am certain that you will find out real fast that we are more than a club, we are a family, dedicated to our youth members and the advancement of the game of soccer and more importantly, sportsmanship. A big welcome also to our returning players, hope you had a wonderful winter and we all look forward to seeing you again at the fields.
I would like to ask all of you for your continued support by volunteering; the board cannot possibly do it alone. This is your club and we need all of you to make it even more successful. So, if and when you are asked to do your turn in the snack bar, fold a newsletter, or pickup trash, do it with pride in your club. We also need help with our fields and various projects with our building. If you have a special trade or craft or administrative talent and can volunteer some time, please let us know, there are plenty of small items that need attention.
I hope you all have a wonderful Spring season and please remember, cheer the players on with enthusiasm, let the coach's coach and the refs ref!
Sincerely,
Ken Kinelski
President
The club held a school for referees over the winter. 42 people from throughout the state took the 19-hour course. All 42, including a number of PYSC members, passed. As a result, you'll be seeing some new referees doing our games this season. As always, I'd like to remind you that our club is an educational program and all of our referees are working on their skills. I ask you to understand when an occasional mistake happens. And as always, no coach, spectator or player abuse of referees will be tolerated.
Bob Hoenig
Referee Coordinator
In addition to the referee school (a cooperative effort between the Referee and Education committees), the Education committee sponsored another F-license course this winter. 7 Pinelanders’ coaches obtained their licenses.
We're working on possible plans for a more advanced E-license coaching course later this year.
By the way, feel free to ask us at the fields if you ever have a soccer-related question. If we don't know the answer, we'll get it for you.
Bob and Lynn Hoenig
Education Coordinators
If you've ever wondered how your child gets assigned to a particular team, read on...
A major part of the preparation for each season is the work of taking in registration forms, entering them into a computer database, analyzing them to determine the number of teams we need, and then finding the coaches and assistant coaches to manage the teams.
The number of coach volunteers we have never exactly matches the number we need in each division, so in some cases we have to disappoint prospective coaches, and in others we have to go looking. Usually we get lucky, and we can fill most spots after a few phone calls, although this season we do still have some coaches who are going it alone. Our thanks to everyone who volunteered - if you didn't get tapped this time, please help your coach out anyway, and don't forget to volunteer again next season.
Once we have the teams organized, we assign players to teams using a custom-written computer-drafting program. The program tries to produce balanced teams, taking players' age, sex and ability into consideration, but, in accordance with club policy, assignments are not influenced by requests, either from parents or from coaches. The coach's and assistant coach's own children are the only players automatically assigned to their team. The Division D6 policy is different, of course - in that division we try to keep coaches and teams together for continuity, and where possible we do honor parents' requests.
The objective of "balancing" teams is to do our best to give each team the chance to be competitive on the field, without anybody hand-picking the players. There are, of course, many factors that will determine team's performance over the season, including the ability and attitude of everyone involved with the team, the players who drop or get added, injuries - and, of course, luck! Regardless of who won or lost, if a game was decided by one or two goals, the teams were well balanced and you watched a game that was much better than if it had been a blowout.
As you may know, we always hold the last few players who registered on a waiting list. The reason for this is that every season a few players drop out even before the season starts, and it's important for everybody that we can replace those players - otherwise some teams may have to play the whole season under-strength.
If we still have players on the waiting list after a reasonable period, we try to assign them as extra players. Again, the coach doesn't influence the assignment - we do it the old-fashioned way, by writing names on strips of paper and pulling them out of a hat. In recent seasons we've managed to assign almost everybody who wanted to play, so if you're one of the few parents with a child on the waiting list as we start the season, be assured that although we'll wait-and-see for a while, it's highly likely that the call you're waiting for will come before long.
If you've wondered, we hope this was helpful - if you have questions, feel free to ask. Have a great season.
Jem Treadwell and Tom Brandli
Draft and Registration Committee
This event takes place during June, and there will be 4 matches at Giants Stadium, on June 19th & 26th. The Howell United Soccer Club is organizing a trip to the June 19th double-header game. The cost is $62, including the bus, parking and tickets for both games. The bus leaves the Middle School at 11 a.m., and you should bear in mind that it will be a long day! If you're interested call Joe Cadott on 919-0586.
Eric Hlava
Secretary
All Sports Photos will be back this spring to take your children’s team and individual pictures. Team Picture Night is currently scheduled for March 29th and 30th, 6:00 p.m. at Land O’ Pines School. Package prices remain about the same as last year. We'll have more details for coaches and team/picture moms as we get closer.
Lynn Hoenig
Fund Raising Committee
Goalkeeping Camp: Howell United Soccer Club (our traveling club) is running a goalkeeping camp during the Spring season. The camp runs every Wednesday evening for 10 weeks, and the cost is $10 per session - you must commit to the whole camp. If you're interested please contact Gary Grimes on 840-4986 for more details.
Howell United is looking for coaches for the 1999/2000 season, primarily for U-9 boys and girls, and is encouraging Pinelanders coaches who might be interested in coaching a traveling team in the future to get involved with the program early. If you'd like to get involved, please email Gary Strucke at husc@monmouth.com.
Eric Hlava
Secretary
In an effort to ensure quality and fairness to the PYSC and all involved in it, we are initiating a Division Commissioner Program. We will ask a coach or assistant coach from each division to observe games within that division and file a game report that Chris Hunt and I will read and react accordingly. Hopefully this will ensure all teams will be playing according to the Rules of Play and Conduct prescribed by the PYSC. The Division Commissioners will also help with the rating system we use to draft players the following year.
We're trying to make sure all players in all divisions have an equal chance to play. There are times when we get a little too wrapped up in winning. Let's remember this is an intramural league. We want to make sure we always keep fun & learning soccer over winning & losing.
Let us also remember sportsmanship. As parents and coaches, the kids look up to us. They learn sportsmanship, be it good or bad, from us.
Hopefully our weather holds and we have another great season.
See you at the field!
Tom Brandli
Commissioner