Newsletters

Over the past two years, we have been sending e-mail newsletters out to an increasing number of the AYSO Beverly Hills community, as we gather more and more e-mail addresses from parents and players.  We thought it would be helpful to publish these newsletters on line.

October 28, 1999:   Special Soccer Safety Edition
July 24, 1999 VIP:   Special Needs Kids/Coach Training/AYSO Day at LA Galaxy/More
May 22, 1999 Registration/Soccer Camps 1999/New Coaching Training and Much More
February 26, 1999 US Women's Tea/Galaxy Doubleheader/Youth Referees and more

1998 Newsletters are now archived on a separate page:

November 19, 1998 Help Wanted/Balanced Teams
October 1, 1998 Picture Day 1998/Coach-Referee Clinics/Higher Altitude Soccer
August 6, 1998 Ten Frequently Asked Questions (and one more)
June 21, 1998 Registration/Soccer Camps and more
April 25, 1998 Spring Soccer in 1999/Volunteers

October 28, 1999 Special Safety Edition

• Goals and safety
• Child protection
• Heading the ball

Every year in the United States, children are hurt by soccer goals. Most of these accidents are entirely avoidable. Most accidents occur for two reasons: Wind blows the goals over or children climb onto the goals and fall off or cause them to tip over.

Here is what we do and how you can help:

All of our practice goals, the six at each of the fields at La Cienega Park as well as the four used for games and practices at the K Field, are staked down by the Recreation and Parks Department. In addition, we maintain a supply of stakes and mallets at each of the fields and periodically check them. Except in extreme weather, when games and practices would likely to be canceled, the goals should not tip over due to the wind. The larger goals at Roxbury Park and La Cienega are also staked down but in fact are so heavy and weighted at the back that they cannot tip over by themselves except in extreme weather conditions.

What you can do to help:

1. Coaches: Don't move the goals from where they have been placed for practices. They have been staked down and the location is varied from week to week to spread wear and tear of the grass. At La Cienega West Tuesdays through Fridays, the teams arriving for the first practice may have to move the goals as they will have been placed on the side of the field by the adult softball teams the night before. Please stake the goals down at the back.

2. Coaches and parents: Do not allow your players to climb on to or swing from the goals or get entangled in the nets, especially from behind the goals. You must be firm about this. Let us be clear - YOU MUST NOT LET PLAYERS CLIMB ON GOALS!

3. If you see a goal is not staked down, locate the stake, two or more of which which should be taped to the back of the net. In most places, you can press the stake into the ground over the bar at the back of the goal using pressure from the sole of your foot. If you don't see the stakes taped, look around - it may have got loose. If that fails, let us know and we will insure that stakes are retaped - we have a supply in the storage rooms at all fields.

4. Coaches of BU6 - when you move the goals at La Cienega West field into place on Sunday at 1:00 pm, stake them down. The storage room near the baseball announcer's booth has a mallet and spare stakes and should be open. Your division directors, Franny Rennie and Eileen Kirk, as well as field director David Zarider and I, all have keys to the room and you can also ask at the Community Center.

Child Protection

A recent Sports Illustrated story has heightened public awareness of the importance of protecting children participating in youth sports. We want you to know that AYSO has taken a leadership role nationally in developing programs to reduce the risks to children from unsuitable or even criminal volunteers.

The umbrella name for the AYSO program is Safe Haven. Our region has worked actively to implement Safe Haven. We have made tremendous progress. The key elements of Safe Haven are:

1. Training, certification and continuing education for volunteers - certification is in fact a form of training in risk management and injury prevention. Our region has now trained 13 regional teachers to help us implement this requirement.

The policy of our region, which we have succeeded in enforcing almost universally, is that every coach (head or assistant) must complete the Level 1 Coach Certification Course, the only course currently on offer by AYSO to coaches on the certification element. Level 1 Coach Certification addresses basic child protection and safety issues - higher level courses will be offered next year. Among the topics covered by Level 1 Coach Certification is injury prevention and to supplement this, we gave a basic first aid kit to every team manager at the team managers' meeting.

In addition, the vast majority of our coaches have received training in coaching soccer because we have made such training mandatory and because we have offered a large number of good quality clinics

2. The development of formal volunteer position descriptions. A copy of our full head coach and assistant coach position descriptions will be posted on our website very shortly.

3. Completion of a volunteer application form by all volunteers. The application requires the provision of references, which in our region are subject to checking procedures that depend on whether the volunteer is the family member of a player, and screening, which will be done on a random basis by AYSO at a national level this year and, as I understand it, universally within the next year or two. Our region has required that every volunteer with significant contact with children fill out a form. Compliance by coaches has been universal; we are a little behind in getting compliance by team managers but we are working on it.

4. Appointment of a Child and Volunteer Protection Advocate, a position I have filled personally to date as I have been unable to find someone to undertake it. I hope someone will step forward soon. AYSO says that Safe Haven will also afford our volunteers protection from lawsuits under the federal Volunteer Protection Act. You can read more about Safe Haven at the AYSO national website at http://www.soccer.org.

In addition to Safe Haven, we are undertaking other measures to protect children, including a policy reducing our tolerance of dissent from referee decisions, especially where the referee is a member of our very successful new junior referee program. We have also tried to cut bad sideline behavior by having parents in Divisions U10 and above stay together on one side of the field. More on this in a later issue of our on-line newsletter.

Finally, AYSO has a policy that a player who is bleeding, even a minor cut or nose bleed, must leave the field (after getting the referee's permission in a refereed game) and may return (again with the referee's permission) only after the bleeding has stopped and any blood on clothing has been neutralized

Heading the Ball

Heading has been an integral part of soccer since the sport began. In recent years, questions have arisen about its safety. I want to make clear that I am neither medically qualified nor have I undertaken significant research on this topic (and I would not be qualified to do so in any event). Each parent has to make up his or her own judgment. What follows represents my own view of a common sense approach, based on the assumption that heading will continue to be part of AYSO soccer.

1. Don't use fully inflated soccer balls to teach heading. Use a beach ball, a Nerf ball or an underinflated ball.

2. Teach good technique - most importantly the need to head the ball with the forehead, and not allow the ball to hit the top of the head.

3. Do only a reasonable number of headers in a practice, unless they are minimal impact headers.

4. Don't worry about heading a ball that has already bounced - the amount of force is minimal.

5. Teaching heading should start later rather than earlier. There is so much else to teach that should come first, especially other forms of ball control.

6. In the event of a head injury, whether caused by an individual act of heading (very rare - I personally have never seen it in 19 years of coaching) or a collision, a fall, a kick or even being hit by a kicked ball, take it seriously if there is any sign at all of disorientation, dizziness or loss of consciousness. We recommend that a player to whom this happens be removed from the game, receive prompt medical attention and advice and not return to playing status until cleared by a physician. These types of injuries are not common in AYSO - soccer is enjoyed safely by virtually everyone in our region - but if it happens, don't take risks.

At the National level, AYSO has recently published its position on heading and I will be putting a copy of this on our website in due course.

July 24, 1999  Special Needs Kids/Coach Training/AYSO Day at LA Galaxy and More

Our season will begin on September 18, less than two months away. I'd like to tell you a little about what's happening and answer a number of commonly-asked questions.

A Very Important Announcement

AYSO has a program called the VIP Program which is designed for children with physical or developmental challenges. We have always tried to accept such players into our regular program but for some children, the problems they must deal with may make the VIP program more appropriate. Area 1-P, to which we belong, has started a VIP program and an information/sign-up meeting was held on Monday July 26 at Veterans Park in Culver City. For more information, call Rick Boisdeau at 310-841-2169. If you know of a child from 5 to 18 who would like to play soccer and is not able to participate in the regular program, call Rick.

Team Formation

Teams will begin to be formed over the next few weeks. Our primary objective is to balance teams. The process varies a little from division to division but, briefly, in the younger divisions (U(nder)6 and U8), players are assigned to teams by the Division Directors. The Division Directors in those divisions will consider any requests but, for a variety of reasons, we cannot promise to grant all requests.

In Under 10 and older divisions, team balance is the key. To balance teams, division directors and/or the coaches draft the teams collectively. The coaches then pick their team out of a hat and trade one player to another team to retrieve their own child. The division director and coaches will have information about player ratings and evaluations, age, and, if you provided it, height and weight and soccer experience. In this process, requests are not even considered, except that requests to place together siblings (and children living in the same household) if they are of the same sex and age group. This selection method prevents anyone from manipulating the selection process because when the teams are being picked, the coach does not know which team he or she will get and will presumably try to make every team equally strong.

Once teams have been formed, we will not generally make changes - with 1400 players the process of making the teams is hard and we can only go through the process once. Moving players is quite disruptive - every time we move a player from one team to another, that means moving another player who probably did not ask to be moved. We will correct our mistakes and we do want to make everyone happy - but we must also keep the burden on the volunteers who administer the program to manageable levels.

Our policies on requests and team formation are set out in detail on our website - we invite you to look at it..

You won't hear about team assignments until the end of August. Please be patient and don't call. We won't return calls about team assignments received before September 1.

Coach Education

Knowing how to play soccer is not the same as knowing how to coach children to play soccer. We want and, as parents and players you should demand, that coaches have learned what they need to know to enable them to teach and develop their players as individuals and as a team and assure the welfare of players on the soccer field.

This year, we are required by AYSO at a national level to insure that our coaches and others with close contact with children are trained both as teachers of soccer and in risk management. We have therefore instituted a new policy of mandatory attendance at coaching clinics for all head coaches and assistant coaches.

For this policy to mean anything, it has to have two elements: Opportunity and teeth. There will be plenty of both. We have already organized numerous coaching clinics offered by our region. These are posted at on our coaching clinics page.  Your division director will tell you which one(s) you have to take. We will be posting, within a day or two, all of the clinics offered by our neighboring regions of Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Culver City, West Los Angeles and Wilshire Hollywood. These clinics are appropriate to the various age groups of the teams.

So far as teeth are concerned, our policy will be one of 100% compliance. If a coach has not taken the required age-appropriate clinic, he or she will not be allowed to coach. Even coaches who have taken approved coaching courses in past years will be required to take a risk management class. Those who have attended our coach-referee clinic will be required to attend a short refresher clinic. We will enforce these rules this year even if it means disbanding teams for want of qualified coaches.

I'd also like everyone to look on the bright side: These clinics are fun and they really will enhance your coaching experience. From personal experience, I can promise you that you can learn something from every clinic, even one you have attended before. So, for yourself and your children, coaches, please attend the clinics you are supposed to.

A final word on coaching: Moms - step up and coach your sons and daughters. You don't need to know that much soccer to coach five, six and seven year olds and we will teach you all you need to know.

Registration

We still have some spaces left if you have not signed up but places are being filled rapidly. I would particularly like to let parents who have signed up their younger children that you should talk to your friends and let them know about soccer and AYSO. At this point the only way to be safe is to sign up on line at http://www.ayso76.org. We do have one more in person registration day, primarily but not exclusively intended for 5, 6 and 7 year olds, on August 28.

Please don't reply to this e-mail by asking me to confirm that you are registered. If you registered on-line, we will have sent you an e-mail confirmation within a couple of days. If you registered in person, you should know this. I simply cannot check the position for several hundred people.

Upper Divisions

On August 12, we must give our Area Director a final count on the number of teams of U16 and U19 teams (the high school age players). Please sign up now if you want to play AYSO this fall. Also, note that AYSO does not conflict with High School soccer. In fact, if you ask your soccer coach, he or she will tell you to play either AYSO or club soccer this fall to prepare you for the high school season that begins in late November.

Frequently Asked Questions

Before you send us an e-mail or call us, please check out our Frequently Asked Questions. Pretty please . . .

AYSO Appreciation Night on September 20 at the LA Galaxy

The Los Angeles Galaxy, LA's representative in Major League Soccer, will be having its AYSO Appreciation Night on September 25 in connection with the game against Eastern Conference powerhouse D.C. United. Discounted tickets and other activities. More information to follow, or e-mail Mike Page at the LA Galaxy mailto:MPage@mlsnet.com. More information will be available on our website in the next couple of weeks.

May 22, 1999 Registration/Soccer Camps/Coach Training and Much More

Registration

If you have not yet signed up, please do so now. You have two choices: On-line or in person on July 11, 1999 at La Cienega Park Community Center between 9:30 am and noon. If you haven’t signed up on or before July 11, the registration fee will rise from the pre-season fee of $85 to the regular season fee of $120, with exceptions only for new players age 5 and families recently moved to Beverly Hills.

Last time we issued this reminder, we got quite a number of calls from people who had already signed players up earlier asking us to confirm that the players were indeed registered. Please understand that we send these newsletter e-mails out to everyone for whom we have an address and we ask you to check your own credit card or bank records (or e-mails from us) before calling us. Remember, just two volunteers handle 1400 registrations a year and we need your help in keeping their workload manageable.

Summer Camps

Thanks to Debbie Held, Regional Commissioner in Pacific Palisades (Region 69), we are able for the second year to post on our website a list of summer soccer camps. The camps are not affiliated with AYSO and we do not endorse any of the camps on the list, which is provided for information only. I would however like to mention specifically the UCLA soccer camps put on by Todd Saldanha, coach of the UCLA Women's team and a good friend of Beverly Hills soccer. A former Beverly Hills AYSO All Star, Louise Lieberman, is a graduating senior on the team and will be joining the UCLA coaching staff next season.

Field Update

It is now clear that there are no fields to replace the upper field at Beverly Hills High School or the playground fields at El Rodeo, Hawthorne and Horace Mann schools. We have therefore made an extensive analysis of how to assure field space for practices and games for all teams. The outcome is this: We will have enough space to provide every team from U8 up a weekly practice slot. However, to fit in all of the games, we will be playing about 15 games a week U6 and U8 games on Sunday afternoons at the K Field, La Cienega Park and Roxbury Park. The exact schedule won’t be determined for another couple of months. Stay tuned.

F(requently) A(sked) Q(uestions)

Please review the frequently asked questions (and answers) at our website . . . before you pick up the phone. Click on the program page or go straight to the FAQs.

Reminders

• Women's World Cup A last reminder! Buy tickets to the FIFA Women's World Cup games at the Rose Bowl on June 20 (preliminary round doubleheader) and July 10 doubleheader featuring the final and third place finals). Go to http://www.wwc99.com or call 1-888-499-2463 for premier packages and 1-800-992-8457 for individual tickets. If you have ordered tickets, theyy should arrive no later than the first week of June.
• Junior Referee Program Information meeting on Saturday June 5, 1999 at 10 am La Cienega Park. RSVP to Viviane Tondeur at vtondeur@aol.com or check out the information page on this website.

AYSO Safe Haven - Protecting Our Children (and Our Volunteers)

AYSO has launched nationally a program called Safe Haven. The program has two key elements: Coach Training and Certification and Volunteer Selection, Approval and Screening. These are designed to protect children, to enhance their experience in soccer and to protect our volunteers as well. The program is going to have a significant impact on Beverly Hills soccer starting this year and I’d like you to hear about it.

A. Coach Training and Certification

All coaches and assistant coaches will have to receive appropriate training and certification. Together, training and certification will assure that a coach knows how to coach soccer and received some key information on AYSO and risk management. Think of it as you would think about teaching credentials: You need to know your subject, you need to know how to teach it and you need to know how to deal with children. We have in the past two years significantly increased the number of the clinics and set mandatory clinic attendance requirements for head coaches. This year, to comply with the Safe Haven program, mandatory training will be extended to every assistant coach and we will enforce, rather inflexibly, a requirement that a head coach or assistant coach who has not been trained and certified may not coach at all.

The full details of this are still being worked out, but here is a table indicating the requirements that we are putting in place. We will start announcing summer coaching clinic dates soon.

A description of each of these courses will be posted on our website in the next few weeks.

Some of these courses are new and we hope you will find them exciting. For example, the Mid-season Refresher Courses for U6, U8 and U10 coaches are short courses that will be designed to give coaches who have undergone training before the season the opportunity to review what they learned in the light of their actual experiences on the field with real children rather than X’s and O’s on a chalkboard. The Mentor Coach Program is an experiment to enable U10 and U12 coaches to be given one-on-one help by experienced coaches in everything from running a practice to creating line-ups to tips on strategy and tactics.

B. Volunteer Selection, Approval and Screening

A second key part of Safe Haven relates to the selection and approval of volunteers, starting this year with coaches and extending in future years to all volunteers. We already have a procedure under which all coaches and assistant coaches must sign a volunteer application form and must be approved by your regional board.

Starting this season, a new standard form will now be used by AYSO nationally. The form is designed to identify volunteers who may not be suitable to work with children. The forms call for references which we have to check and individual forms may be screened on a random basis by the staff at AYSO’s national headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

To implement these procedures, we need to appoint a Child and Volunteer Safety Advocate. We are looking for someone to fill this role this season; indeed we would prefer to appoint more than one person. If you would be interested in helping us with this, call me at 310-859-9663 or send an email to commissioner@ayso76.org.

For those of you who got to the end of this newsletter, thanks for listening and, once again, greetings from AYSO in Beverly Hills.

February 26, 1999 US Women's Tea/Galaxy Doubleheader/Youth Referees

1.  March 28 Doubleheader.  Check out the special Sunday March 28 doubleheader at the Rose Bowl featuring the U.S. National Women’s team in the first game at 2 pm and the Los Angeles Galaxy in the second game at 5 pm. Details are on our website, with an order form you can print out and mail or fax to the Galaxy.

2.   Youth Referees.  We will be relaunching our Youth Referee Program next season. We’d like to hear as soon as possible from players who would like to referee. Our first junior referee clinics are being organized now. Send an e-mail to Viviane Tondeur at vtondeur@ayso76.org with name, date of birth, e-mail address and evening telephone number or call 310-859-9663 and leave a message.  Junior referees must be 12 years old as of July 31, 1999 but we will also train assistant referees who are 10 or 11.  Community Service credit will be available for both training and games.  An information meeting will be held on June 5 at La Cienega Park at 10 am.

3.   Help Wanted.  Our Boys U6 program needs one or two volunteers to run it or it won’t happen. Please step forward and volunteer - you can end e-mail to commissioner@ayso76.org.

4.   Fall Registration.  Registration for the Fall 1999 Season: A reminder that you can register on line at our website or come to our next in-person registration on Sunday May 16 at the K Field (northwest corner of Olympic and La Cienega. Park on Le Doux or in the car park under the tennis courts. (This message is being sent to every family for which we have an e-mail address. If you have already registered, you don’t have to do anything - but tell a friend.)

5.   New Coaches and Parents Pages.  Our website now has separate pages for coaches and parents.  We will shortly be adding lots of interesting materials for coaches as well as publicizing clinics and other opportunities for coaches.  The parents page, which can be found by going to Our Program, has a lot of information about the program, as well as a link to our Parent's Code of Conduct.

6.  Schools Close Fields.  Finally, expect changes in the Under 6 and Under 8 program next year. We will not have access to the Beverly Hills elementary school fields for the next two seasons as school reconstruction takes playgrounds out of use either for portable classrooms or staging areas for the contractors. We are urgently seeking alternative space for Saturday games. Several ideas are being considered. Watch this space.

Last updated July 29, 2008 at 08:38 AM

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