By Stacy Case
As the City of Coral Springs has perfectly manicured and lined the public fields, close to about 3,000 youths will lace up their cleats to face off when recreational soccer commences this Fall. Bleachers and sidelines are sure to be full at both Mullins Park and Cypress Park soon enough, when many area boys and girls ages 6-19 represent the 1972-established Coral Springs Youth Soccer. Online registrations are already underway.
“We’re looking forward to another great season, and as one of the largest recreational soccer programs in the country, I think we’re still such a great, volunteer-driven league,” says Scott Rush, who is CSYS’s vice president and registrar for this upcoming season. With approximately 400-500 volunteer coaches and 30 other Board members, CSYS’s well-oiled machine and Scott “passionately believe that soccer is one of those great sports in which the players can utilize as their primary sport or as something in their off-season as a conditioning tool for other activities,” he adds.
This season, which will be mirrored by those in CSYS’s extensive past, the format of the league will be comprised of boys and girls teams separately in age-specific divisions– U6, U8, U10, U12, U14, U15 (girls), U16 (boys) and 19U (both). And to stay true-to-form as a typical, fair and balanced recreational program, the league requires its new players to undergo evaluations. All players get placed on a team, regardless. Furthermore, the current players’ ratings get submitted by the previous season’s coach and then all stats get entered into a computer to do a random draw for each of the 220 or so team rosters. It seems that since the machine-based drafting concept has been a useful tool over the years, this may be an underlying reason as to why nearly 75-80 percent of CSYS’s players return from one season to the next.
“Soccer, our program in particular, offers so many great things for the kids,” adds Scott, who enters his sixth year on the Board of Directors for CSYS. “We have so many volunteers out there for the kids, and I’m very proud of our program.”
Pre-season practices start in mid-November with games starting in the early part of December. And, depending of the age division and the post-season results of the respective teams, playoffs can go all the way until early March.
the age division and the post-season results of the respective teams, playoffs can go all the way until early March.
On-site registrations are scheduled at Cypress Hall, 1300 Coral Springs Dr., 33071 and are as follows: Sat., Aug. 26th and Sat., Sept 9th from 9am-3pm, and Tues., Sept. 12th from 7-9pm.
For more info, visit www.csys.org
