The Estevan Youth and Mini Soccer Association has enough players and coaches to proceed for the 2017 season.
The organization put out a call for volunteer coaches following its annual general meeting in March. At the time, they said that if they didn’t have enough people in place by April 10, they wouldn’t be offering youth soccer in Estevan this season.
But they had a really good response, according to association president Stacy Murphy.
“We have enough volunteer coaches for each of the age groups,” said Murphy. “There’s one age group where we could use a couple of more (coaches), but I think we’ll be able to figure something out.”
That age group is the six-and-under division, which is their second-youngest age group.
They have also had people step forward to be on their committees, including the volunteer committee, the field maintenance committee and the team assignment committee.
Murphy is a little surprised they have had so many people step forward to volunteer, because they have had trouble finding volunteer coaches in the past.
“The biggest factor why people weren’t stepping forward is just that fear of not knowing how to coach soccer, because not everybody knows how to play soccer,” said Murphy.
“I think the big difference this year as to why we’ve had so many people come forward is we will be hosting a mini coaching clinic to help those people who have never played soccer before understand just the basics of the game … so that everybody’s on the same page as to what should be happening during a game.”
Approximately 115 youths have registered for the association’s different leagues so far this season, as of Thursday afternoon. The deadline to sign up is April 20.
“We would love to have more kids registered,” said Murphy. “It would be fantastic to get the youth soccer as popular as it was a few years ago.”
They selected April 20 as the cut-off date so they would have enough time to create the teams, assign the coaches for each team and allow the coaches to contact the kids who are on their squads.
The four-and-under, the six-and-under and the eight-and-under age groups have had the strongest registration numbers. The association is seeing a decline in registrations for the under-10, the under-12 and the under-14 age groups.
The season will start on May 8 and continue until June 16.
