News

Germantown Legends Wrap-Up to the Fall Season

Date Posted: 12/5/2015

 

December 2015

I thought this would be a good time to catch up and look back as the Fall recreation season has come to a close and our competitive teams are wrapping up their Memphis Shelby Soccer Federation (MSSF) and tournament season.  The fall season started like a whirlwind with families moving into town, school starting and of course Legends soccer.  This has been a mixed blessing year so far.

Our competitive teams have really come together and have played some great soccer as showcased by the number of teams who have won games, reached the finals and won championships in a number of tournaments at the Mike Rose Soccer Complex.  All the credit goes to our coaches who have done an excellent job of teaching, mentoring and coaching.  From a Directors point of view, I am confident that we have the best coaching staff in West Tennessee.  Our kids in our Saturday Skills program are all showing fruit from their dedication and hard work.  Director of Coaching, Carey Talley and his staff have really done an outstanding job, and again the results of this hard work is showing up as all our teams finished the fall season on a high note as they concentrate on their skills and ball manipulation.

At the recreation level our Wednesday evening Skills Club is really starting to pay dividends as they young players are really soaking it up.  Our coaching staff has done a great job sharing their knowledge, love and passion for the game with them.

The recreation league has just wrapped up the fall season and though we hit a few speed bumps in the beginning, we are using the lessons learned to build a better product.  We started off with a difficult situation a week before the season when the split came at Soccer U.S.A. as our recreation uniform supplier was unable to guarantee delivery on time of our order.  We had four days to scramble and provide over 400 uniforms for our players.  It was not an easy transition, and we heard from a number of you of your dissatisfaction. We understand your frustration and appreciate your patience as we along with TeamTruk worked hard to work out every problem that came our way. There can always be a lot of blame and finger pointing, but in the end we were all able and work together with our friends at Soccer USA and TeamTruk to provide for all of our players.  I appreciate so much the cooperation and understanding of our parents and coaches who worked through the bumpy start of the season to provide a great atmosphere for our kids.  

A lot of our success is due to the parents who stepped forward to volunteer to coach and manage our teams.  Without our parent coaches and managers, it would be near impossible to run a recreation league.  So THANK YOU coaches, we appreciate you and know your kids do too.

On another positive note, we have gotten excellent feedback about our staff coaches and their work with our young teams at Cloyes Soccer Park as well as our U10s.  The coaches have done a great job of working with our youngest players in helping them develop their touch and their love of the game.  They are out there to teach skills but also to help our players have fun.  We hope to be adding a couple more coaches this spring to further enhance our recreation training program.  Thanks to Ted Bartels and his crew for their work.

Even before the fall season was over, we were already taking some of our coaches and parents advice to improve the league and making plans for the spring that will be a boost for everyone.  Keep an eye on the key dates for the Spring season.  Our plans are to put together teams two days after Late Registration begins (February 1, 2016), and get them out on the fields early with our staff coaches to get as much practice time in as possible before the Spring season.  We also hope to have the first couple weeks of games already scheduled for those players and teams that register before the deadline.  We will still be adding players and teams after late registration but we want to reward those families that register on time to be able to get an early start.

You never know what Mother Nature will bring in the spring and I am hoping that the Farmer’s Almanac is going to be wrong but we will be prepared for whatever comes our way.  I was very happy that we only suffered through one rain out this fall and pray that we will be blessed with a mild spring.

I wanted also to let you know that we are in discussions with the Tennessee State Soccer Association (TSSA) to host the 2016 Spring Friendship Cup in late April.  This is a recreation only state tournament, and we are excited to be the host.  What a great opportunity for our recreation players to compete in a first class tournament situation with players from all over the state, on our facilities.  Keep your eye on our Facebook Page and Legends' Website for information as well as our own Friendship Cup Facebook page.

If you have any suggestions for the spring season, please let us know.  You can email us at info@germantownlegends.com and let us know how we can make your child’s soccer experience even better.

For all our coaches and staff, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and looking forward to a very Merry Christmas.

Chris Bartels
Executive Director
Germantown Legends