The Official American Youth Soccer Organization Handbook - Softcover

That beautiful game I love so well, the game I live to play...

-- Pelé

We are obsessed. And we have been since the first time we kicked a leather ball. By the time Lawrence was 5, for example, he was playing every evening after school with the neighborhood kids on a thin strip of grass that fell away in an alarmingly steep slope beyond his backyard fence. "We threw coats or sweaters down as goalposts," he remembers, "and played until dusk, when my mother's calls became too loud and insistent to ignore."

John's parents proudly remember how conscientious he was as a youngster, always arriving at elementary school early. "I never told them that all the kids met up every morning to play soccer." The game, consisting of a swarm of kids chasing a ratty tennis ball around the school playground, started before their first class, resumed at recess, and concluded during lunch. "It seemed that there was always a soccer game to be played."

Vince played for the elementary school team, the Cub Scout team, and a Saturday morning team whose name he can't quite remember. Then there was high school. Because of the size and reputation of the school, making the junior varsity team at the age of 14 held all the prestige of playing for one's country. "When I pulled that crisp polyester over my head for the first time," he says, "I felt like Pelé preparing to play for Brazil or Cruyff for Holland."

Lawrence recently met up with two of his closest friends in Los Angeles, and as they so often do, they reminisced about their years playing for the Danbury Boys Under-10s (U-10) through Under-16s (U-16). Richard ("Babs") is now a farmer. Back then he was the team's striker (primary goal scorer), a player best described simply as "an enigma" in front of goal. Dave, on the other hand, was a more consistent performer, usually beside Lawrence in defense, who went on to become a successful broker on Wall Street.

They all remember those Sunday afternoons with nothing but warmth -- which means that youth soccer played the role it was meant to in their lives. They don't have mantlepieces littered with trophies or careers as professional players to look back on. They don't even have memories of winning many games. But what they do have are bonds of friendship that were formed on the soccer field and that have remained unbroken by time or geography. The best we can wish for any child playing youth soccer today is that in 25 years he or she will be able to say the same about their childhood teammates.

Groups of men and women, boys and girls, kicking a leather ball around a rectangular patch of land may seem like a silly pursuit to some. But the game of soccer has a way of generating such emotional intensity in those it touches that each game becomes a brief reflection of the muddled blend of drama, competitiveness, joy, and tragedy that saturate that other silly pursuit: the game of life.

Soccer, football, futbol, futebol, calcio, fussball, fußbal, voetbol -- call it what you will, no other sport has the rich history or heritage to match "the beautiful game." No other sport breeds the passion, the insanity, the ecstasy, or the despair. Forget the hooligan reputation of a minority of soccer supporters -- that's a social problem that has nothing to do with sport; ignore the allegations that it's a game for wimpy, bespectacled geeks -- most soccer players, men and women, are supremely fit athletes; and dismiss the notion that the game is un-American -- it's certainly no less American than golf.

Soccer is a wonderful pastime, an unstructured, flowing game that at its best blurs the line between sport and art. There's an intrinsic balletic quality to a sweeping passing move that carries the ball from one end of the field to the other and climaxes in a perfectly executed volley or a crisp diving header on goal. No, the scoring in soccer isn't as high as in other American sports, but that's part of the appeal. The scarcity value increases the importance of every goal, every missed shot, every fingertip save. The fact that goals are rarer and harder-earned than runs in baseball or points in basketball adds to the excitement and anticipation every time the ball is played in close to goal.

So, it's no wonder that today, more kids in America play soccer than any other youth sport. The Soccer Industry Council of America estimates that more than 26 million children under the age of 18 will play soccer at least once in 2001. More than 4 million kids are registered to play with American youth soccer organizations, half a million more than with Little League, and that number is increasing at an annual rate of 8 to 10 percent. The sport is no longer reserved for first- and second-generation Americans, the sons of immigrants clinging to a tradition from their homeland. It's a game for everyone, a philosophy that the American Youth Soccer Organization, or AYSO, has taken to heart. Boys and girls are not registered on their merits as soccer players, but rather according to their interest and commitment.

"Enthusiasm," said the great Pelé, "is everything." To that end, the objectives of AYSO are to enthusiastically teach, promote, and cultivate youth soccer in the United States and to develop American youngsters in both body and character. Winning always comes second to enjoyment. With the beautiful game, everyone plays and everyone has fun.

Whether you're already a devoted soccer aficionado or, like more than 70 percent of AYSO's parents and volunteers, you've had little or no previous contact with the sport, this book is for you. It's an ideal reference to the game of soccer, its rules and the philosophies and regulations of the American Youth Soccer Organization. We hope it will also stand as a testament to a group of kids half a lifetime ago who learned the most valuable lesson that youth soccer has to teach: The results soon fade from memory, but the fun and the friendships can last forever.

Copyright © 2001 by The American Youth Soccer Organization

Chapter 2: The Team

Part of the beauty of soccer is its simplicity. All you need is a field, a ball, two teams, and a referee. The field is a little larger than the size of a football field, smaller for younger players, and the game is played in two halves, although AYSO mandates quarter breaks within each half to allow for player substitutions under the "Everyone Plays" philosophy.

A full-sided team has a maximum of 11 players on the field at any one time, although games can be played with as few as 3 on each team, which allows players more touches on the ball and enables them to learn ball control, passing, and shooting skills quickly.

Being a good teammate is [trying] to sprint down a ball that everyone thinks is going out of bounds. But you go after it anyway and you get it. Maybe you don't make a great cross with it to win the game, but you pushed yourself beyond what you thought you could.

-- Mia Hamm

Being a team player is important, not only in soccer but in life. The ability to build relationships with others through cooperation, respect, and unselfish behavior is as valuable in the boardroom, on the factory floor, and at home as it is on the soccer field. Nothing in life is as important or rewarding as the forming of human relationships.

On the soccer field, kids soon learn the value of cooperation and teamwork. There's no one player, no matter how good she is, who can win a soccer game single-handedly. It takes every player on the team playing with commitment and enthusiasm for a team to be successful.

One Danbury Boys U-16 game has stayed in Lawrence's mind as vividly as any other. Eight or nine of the team had grown up together, playing together every season from the U-10 level. This particular game was an away game against the top-of-the-league team on a miserable, rainy Sunday afternoon. The usual reliable group of 9 players turned up, but the rest of the team clearly decided their time was better spent indoors, not out in the winter downpour. Rather than forfeiting the game because they couldn't field a starting 11, the 9 of them decided to play and give it their best shot.

They packed the defense with the hope of keeping the score down and maybe catching the opposing team on the break for a goal or two. But it was not to be. Their opponents were too good, and the game turned into a rout. Dave even suffered the embarrassment of scoring an own goal when he deflected a shot past his own goalkeeper and into the net. "I helped him up from the muddy goal mouth and told him we were already losing by so many that I didn't think they needed our help in scoring any more," remembers Lawrence. "He laughed and we walked back to the center circle to take yet another kickoff."

"I can't remember for certain the final score -- something like 9 or 10-0 -- but what I do remember are the words of the referee after the game. As we trudged off the field, he called us over and said that in all his years as a youth soccer referee he had never seen a team play with such a great attitude. We never stopped smiling, and we never stopped trying, even though we had no chance of winning. When Dave scored that humiliating own goal, the rest of the team didn't criticize him for making a mistake. They just picked the ball out of the net and kept on playing.

"The referee shook each of our hands and told us we were a credit to both Coach Gravett and to the league. I forget the names of the players who didn't show up that afternoon, but I can name every one of those who did," Lawrence recalls. Twenty years later that same team spirit remains. "Some of those players remain my closest friends, and even though we live thousands of miles apart, dotted around the globe, we speak every few weeks and see each other as often as possible. Whatever mishaps have befallen each of us in the intervening years, we have always been abl...