Hello Arizona Soccer Community,
Welcome to the new Arizona Soccer Association website. This has been in the works since May and we hope that you are as excited about it as we are. This newly designed website will enhance the user experience, the organization of information, and as you can tell, it is mobile friendly.
In addition to the website unveiling, you may have noticed the new Arizona Soccer Association crest above. We'll still be keeping the traditional logo; however, you'll be seeing a lot more usage going forward with this crest.
As we enter another soccer season, I wanted to highlight some of our achievements from the past year. One of our major initiatives over the past season was coaching education, and I'm happy to say that this year we believe we were able to make an impact. Overall, 555 coaches received U.S. Soccer Coaches Training from Kingman to Yuma to Flagstaff to Sierra Vista to Lake Havasu to Phoenix and Tucson.
- 57 coaches attend a D License Course
- 69 coaches attend a 7v7 Grassroots Course
- 41 coaches attend a 9v9 Grassroots Course
- 127 coaches attended a 11v11 Grassroots Course
- 261 coaches attended a Condensed Module.
Additionally, with our partnership with Clemson University, we issued 10 Grassroots Licenses to disabled veterans as well as the introduction of Adaptive and Paralympic Soccer. In the coming months, we will be offering a C License Course and we've teamed up with U.S. Soccer to offer free Grassroots Courses to our Academy coaches.
It was another great year for our leagues and the newest league to join the fold, the Arizona New Mexico Development League, saw 30 teams from Arizona and New Mexico participate in 11U & 12U age groups. Our staff is always working hard to improve these leagues and the success of the past year is a testament to what our staff has done.
On the communications front, it was another big year. As we continue the coverage of our leagues, players, and professional clubs, we have started to cover soccer as a whole in Arizona - stories on our college programs, former players playing pro, and general soccer news. It is our goal that when anyone thinks of soccer news, they think of the Arizona Soccer Association.
Additionally, on our social media efforts, we had:
- 36 different clubs from around the state featured in our Arizona Advanced Leagues and Open leagues Games of the Week.
- 38 different clubs featured in State Cup and Presidents Cup highlight videos.
- 100 videos published that tell the Arizona soccer story through features such as the Max In Motion Player of the Month, AZKicksIt Show, Club Spotlights, ODP, and more.
- Numerous clubs were featured on the National US Youth Soccer social media accounts.
The 2019-20 season kicks off this weekend with ODP Tryouts and then heads into the fall with league and club tournament play. We have some great things in the works and in the coming months we’ll be able to provide more information, but for now, be on the look out for our the upcoming announcements of the Scrimmage Fest and the Referee Development Program.
On behalf of the staff at the Arizona Soccer Association - Derek Yen, Chris Blundell, Garrett Cleverly, Michelle Golowatsch, Dolores Abernathy, Michelle Hudson, Stacey Drinon, and Janelle Castillo - we'd like to wish you a great 2019-20 season!
Sincerely
Rick Kelsey