May 20, 2005

X-League Closing Ceremonies
of Olympic Proportions

Usually when you have about two hundred nine and ten year old soccer players sitting on a hill on a sunny afternoon, you would expect that they might talk and play a little bit more then they pay attention to what's going on in front of them. That wasn't the case at the X-League Closing Ceremonies that took place on Friday, May 13! Thanks to a creative and educational demonstration put on by UYSA State Technical Director, Greg Maas, and four feature players from ReAL Salt Lake, the two hundred X-Leaguers were quite the captive audience.

ReAL players Jamie Watson, Jordan Cila, Kenny Cutler, and Michael Lookingland were the main attraction of the event. Maas kept the demonstration rolling by having the RSL stars demonstrate a skill and then choosing several lucky X-Leaguers to try out the skill with the guys. The crowd of parents and players had a lot to cheer about from RSL and X-League player juggling contests, to hand ball, to even a young UYSA star stealing the ball from RSL's finest!

After about an hour of soccer fun, the X-Leaguers received trophies for their hard work during the season. Finally, every player received a free SCORE soccer ball and had a chance to get it signed by the ReAL players. Since the line for autographs was so big, each player had to stick to only getting their SCORE ball signed, and even then all of the kids hadn't received autographs by the planned 8:30 ending time of the ceremony.

Watson, Cila, Cutler, and Lookingland stayed to make sure that all of our young players got their soccer balls signed. Watson was able to stay even later to sign whatever kids wanted, for example each shin guard, their jersey, shorts, water bottle, and each cleat!

Overall, the 2005 X-League Closing Ceremonies were an educational and fun success! Special thanks goes out to the X-League players for their dedication and hard work and to their families for their support. UYSA would also like to thank ReAL Salt Lake and Watson, Cila, Cutler, and Lookingland for their dedication to youth soccer in Utah, and for making the event such a special memory for our young soccer stars.