FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT Kennebunk Soccer Club:

 

My son/daughter is 9 years old, and he was placed on a U10 team. What does the “U” mean anyway? The “U” stands for “under”.

 

In competitive soccer, a player's level is determined by their age on July 31st. A player who is 9 on July 31st would play on a U(under)10 team. These age requirements are strictly enforced by the governing bodies of soccer in Maine (Soccer Maine – www.soccermaine.com) and nationwide (US Youth Soccer Association www.usyouthsoccer.org ), which is why we are required to collect a birth certificate and verify the age of every new player in the Kennebunk Soccer Club.

 

Why is the Kennebunk Soccer Club so strict about deadlines and paperwork?

 

Competitive soccer in Maine is governed by a statewide organization known as SoccerMaine. They manage all the competitive soccer teams, players, and games statewide. To keep everyone coordinated, they have strict deadlines for local clubs to submit information about teams and players. If we do not have teams and coaches declared, player rosters finalized, or other information submitted by certain deadlines, we are not able to play! So as much as we would like to add players or teams at a late date, we are not able to. We pester for paperwork to be completed so we can make sure everyone who wants to gets the chance to be placed on a team!

 

What do my registration fee's cover?

 

The registration cost per player doesn't even cover the true cost per player! We rely on the fundraising efforts of our parents, and all volunteer Board members and coaches to make up the difference and keep the costs as low as possible. We have many “hidden expenses” including:

 

• Paid referees at every game

• SoccerMaine team fees

• Columbus Weekend Tournament fees 

• Equipment (Field paint, game / practice balls, goals, benches, nets, etc.)

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Your fundraising efforts and donations are crucial to helping us stay in the black and keep our registration fees as reasonable as we can.

 

What can our family expect in terms of a time commitment for travel soccer?

 

Generally, most coaches schedule 2 hour and a half long practices per week, and a game or two on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes coaches schedule additional games on the weekends, but that depends on the interest of the coach and the families for more game time. Most games are in southern York County – Saco, Sanford, Marshwood (Eliot), York, Kittery and Wells all have active clubs. Some teams may travel a bit further for games or tournaments.

 

What sort of coaches are involved in the Kennebunk Soccer Club?

 

Most of our coaches are parents of players and have experience playing soccer and coaching. The KSC is very invested in giving coaches the opportunity to expand their skills and experience in coaching. We have a close relationship with Maine Premier Soccer, and have regular coaching clinics to help our club coaches improve their skills. The club pays for its coaches to obtain an E license which is a Nationally recognized designation requiring 16 hours of coaching classes. Most of our coaches have their “E” license and all U-12 coaches and above have that designation. We have two members of our Board of Directors whose primary responsibility is to support and direct the coaching staff in our program, so we take the business of coaching very seriously! 

 

How does the KSC decide what team a player is assigned to?

 

The KSC has a detailed team formation policy that you are encouraged to read, and can be found on our website. Boys and girls typically play on separate teams at each age level. Players are typically placed on their age appropriate teams. For younger players, (U9 through U11), in the event that we need to form more than one team at an age level, we try to balance the teams in terms of player skill levels. At the U12 and above level, statewide competitive play is divided into two divisions, a more difficult Challenger Division and a less challenging Anthem Division. To place players on these teams, and to place teams appropriately in these divisions, we rely heavily on our player evaluation process, and make placement decisions primarily based on the skill level of the player. Again, the detailed team formation policy is available on the website.

 

Why do we have to attend a mandatory player evaluation session in May?

 

We want to maximize the opportunity for players to develop their own skills and abilities in soccer, and to do that, we need to have the best information possible about each player. To evaluate players, we bring in experienced coaches from Maine Premier Soccer in addition to our coaching staff. We have a detailed process that we use, and try to be as efficient as possible. We bring a lot of people together, and do it all in one long day, so we need every player to participate! We want to make the most informed decisions as possible when it comes to evaluating and placing the young players in our program. Knowing this, we hope parents will understand that if a player does not attend our player evaluation session, we cannot guarantee her/him a place on a team. In the case of the U12 and above teams, we definitely cannot place a player on the Challenger Division (upper level) team over an Anthem Division Team in the same age bracket without the player evaluation information that we gather from our evaluation session in May.