February 5, 2005

Kirk Hoecherl Service Award
Novell Liston

Novell Liston began his career in youth soccer over 30 years ago when he organized a team and began coaching with a couple of other adults from the Bountiful area playing their teams against teams in Sandy. The only soccer played in the area was with the adult soccer league that primarily consisted of immigrants from Europe. After a couple of years, Novell and the other coaches decided to organize a youth soccer league in the South Davis Area and in 1975 with about 60 soccer players South Davis Soccer Association was born. Thinking that perhaps there may be other young people who might be interested in playing soccer, an ad was placed in the newspaper announcing the soccer program. Imagine their surprise when 500 young people showed up at the VFW Hall to register to play soccer. Currently South Davis has over 4,800 players.

Novell has served and continues to serve in various offices of South Davis Soccer including President, Vice President, Director of Uniforms, Equipment and Trophies, Referee Assignor and has chaired several committees including the committee to establish a Constitution, Rules and Bylaws. He has negotiated for fields, built fields, lined fields, constructed goal posts and set goal posts. His interest has been in all areas of youth soccer, coaching, refereeing, administration, all-around volunteer, all the time providing an example of commitment. Novell was one of the first coaches selected from SDSA to take a competitive team to a tournament outside of Utah.

During the last 20 years, among other activities, Novell has functioned as the Chairman of Equipment, Uniforms and Trophies. He determines the needs of South Davis players and coaches. He meets with the League Presidents early in June and determines the numbers of teams for the year. He researches available uniform suppliers; projects the uniform needs, orders uniforms by colors and sizes for the individual age groups and has them delivered to the homes of the Age Group Coordinators. He determines inventory of balls, cones, coaches' bags, pugg nets and field nets, checks the condition of the equipment, orders replacements and prepares the equipment for distribution. As always, Novell gets the best product at the lowest cost and saves the Association money.

For several years Novell was the local representative for a number of shoe companies and served the players in the area by providing them an opportunity to purchase shoes at his cost.

Novell began his soccer career by coaching his oldest son and then his younger son in the recreation program. When the competition program began in South Davis, he became a competition coach so that he could continue with his sons. After his sons became too old for "youth" soccer, Novell took several years off from coaching; however, soon it became apparent that his grandchildren needed "grandpa's" help. He began to coach his granddaughter, Megan, and pretty soon was also coaching her younger brother in the recreation program. They continued into the competition program and although his grandchildren moved to Texas a couple of years ago, Novell continued to coach the teams because they wanted him to continue. He continued to coach competitive soccer for South Davis even though he has had two hip replacement surgeries last year. As soon as he could be on crutches, he was on the field.

One of the requirements for South Davis Soccer's in-house program for coaches is that they obtain their "E" license. Although Novell had been coaching for years and had always done well as a coach, he not only got his "E" license, he also obtained his "D" license.

Recently the trainer for our U10 developmental program indicated that one of the reasons players are kicking the ball too high and shooting over the net is because they practice kicking the ball so high-they need smaller goal areas with lower nets. Novell did some research and some experimenting and developed several sets of smaller goals to enhance the player's ability to score. He personally built enough sets to be used in the U10 developmental and recreation programs.

Novell is very conscientious and careful with the "kids" money and looks for every opportunity to recycle equipment and trophies. He is known as our master "wheeler-dealer." Whenever he is asked to take on a new project, he quickly organizes it in his mind then seeks the best way to accomplish that task very often taking the lead in thinking of better and more efficient ways to accomplish things within the organization. He is never one to drag his feet and prods everyone else to get his or her jobs done on time.

For the last couple of years, he has spent considerable time assisting the Director of Fields to become familiar with all of our fields and how to assign them for our games.

Scheduling the in-house competition games has also become one of Novell's projects. He has mastered our scheduling program, and for the last few years has scheduled our district competition games.

Similar to Kirk Hoecherl, who did not seek for recognition but was a quiet yet strong force in youth soccer, Novell primarily has stayed in the background after leaders began surfacing in the South Davis program. His commitment to South Davis Soccer and the youth soccer movement in Utah has been very strong, and he has remained the 'heartbeat' through his presence and everyday activity.

Novell Liston, this year's winner of the Kirk Hoecherl Award!