This is Grant Smith, Director of Coaching for the Arlington Travel Soccer Club. Welcome to our tryout process for the 2009-2010 season. I look forward to seeing your children on the soccer field competing for spots on our teams.
I plan on taking a few minutes at one session of each of the U9-11 age group tryouts to talk a little bit about the club and answer any questions you may have about ATSC. I am sure some of you will not be able to attend, so I also wanted to send out a brief e-mail about ATSC’s team and player expectations.
Soccer, like any other sport, demands commitment and dedication if you want to become a good player. The ATSC is the competitive branch of the Arlington Soccer Association and because of that we have a different set of expectations for our families, teams and players. I want to mention a few of the expectations we will have for you should you be selected for and accept an invitation to join one of our teams.
Soccer is a demanding sport, so if you choose to accept a spot on one of the teams you are also expected to make soccer your priority sport for the fall and spring seasons. The fall season begins in mid-August and goes until mid-November and the spring begins in mid March thru mid-June. That means that any other sport your child participates in should be secondary to the soccer training sessions, games and tournaments. Your coaches will provide a very challenging and fun environment for your child to learn and love the game. They will also require individual work on your child’s own to accelerate the development process. Hard work and commitment are qualities in young players that are required to participate in this select program ASA offers. The top teams also generally commit more time and money because of the extra tournaments and travel that can be involved. Each top team can differ with the budget, but generally the teams pay more than the second and third teams in the age group over the course of the year to participate in their approved yearly plan. The costs are shared by the individual team.
ATSC strives to have the very best top teams in every age group the competition is open to any player (resident and non-resident of Arlington). The club allows coaches to select players from outside Arlington to improve and round out their rosters. You will find that the majority of the players in ATSC (currently over 75%) are Arlington residents and we want to try to keep those numbers high. The programs offered by the ASA Recreational side of the club have been critical and highly effective in developing the Arlington players for the travel club. Those programs keep growing and will help us continue to have very strong teams moving forward.
ATSC is committed to developing the talent we have here in Arlington County. One way we will show that commitment is that with our second and third teams in an age group we will take mostly Arlington residents to create our rosters. We want to give as many Arlington players as possible the chance to play competitive soccer at home. The job of every coach for our supporting teams is to develop players to compete for spots on our top teams in each age group. These spots can become available in between seasons (winter) and when the Club holds its yearly tryouts in May and June.
I wanted to get some information out to you before this weekend and the U9 boys and girls tryouts. I will be there to talk about the club and to answer any questions you may have about the ATSC.
I look forward to seeing you then.
Regards,
Grant Smith
