I met last night with the other Academy Coaches and Doug Sena. Doug is the JAWS Board member who is heading up the Academy effort. The other 2 coaches are Mark Schatz and Jenny Sena. Here is a quick update of what we discussed.
We will be having 2 practices per week beginning Sunday, February 11. Our weekly Sunday practices will be from 2:00 to 3:30. This will be a combined practice of all the teams. We plan on having a mixed scrimmage game at the end of practice. This will provide an opportunity for all of the kids to get to know one another and interact with the coaches. The other weekly practice will be on Thursdays from 5:00 to 6:30. This will be a team practice where the kids will spend a majority of the time with their individual coaches. All of the teams will be practicing on adjacent fields at the same time so we will have an opportunity to scrimmage as teams. All of us agreed that the team approach to coaching will offer the kids the best opportunity at getting the best instruction possible while at the same time giving the kids the opportunity to get to know players from other schools as well.
We will probably not be able to align the teams completely by school. Right now we have 29 players signed up for Academy, 11 are from JCS. We are looking into creating a 4th team composed of players from several different schools and adding 1 more coach. This would provide the kids with more playing time as well as more coaching attention. I should have more information on this by Monday.
We are also planning on having several different activities throughout the season. Jenny is certified to teach goalkeeping skills so we will probably have a clinic for those kids who are interested in playing that position. We are also looking at bringing in a collegiate coach to conduct a player development clinic that would just be open for Academy players. Our goal is to provide as much quality instruction as possible while at the same time fostering a sense of camaraderie between the teams. We don't want to foster any big rivalries between the players or the schools.
I have to tell you that I am excited about our kids getting to know both Jenny and Mark. Both of them are not only great soccer coaches, they are fantastic people as well. We are all on the same page as far as our coaching philosophy and approach to the game goes.
The pricing is a little cheaper than what was first proposed. Basically the fee for Academy is $75 in addition to your regular JAWS registration fee. If you have already registered for JAWS, you just need to write out an additional check for $75 made out to JAWS. I'll be collecting those checks at our first practice on February 11. If you have not registered yet, please do so as soon as possible and pay the regular JAWS fee at the time you register. Write me a check for Academy and I'll collect all of them at our first practice. If you haven't registered yet, please let me know and I'll get your late fee waived.
If you haven't done so already, please send me your size information so I can get the uniforms ordered. Doug will be placing the order on Monday. If I don't have your size by then, I'm going to have to just take a guess. I know, that's a scary thought! So please get me your child's size info.
Call me or e-mail me if you have any questions. I'll be posting additional info on this site as I get it.
Thanks!
-Joel
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