February 25, 2004

From: Richard Yoder
UYSA Disciplinary Committee Chairman

To: UYSA President
UYSA Board of Directors

Subject: Attendance at US Youth 2004 Workshop and Coaches Convention

General Commentary: The Boston convention was held in an excellent venue but the city was very expensive. I have provided feedback to the US Youth staff that it would be more prudent to hold future conventions in less expensive locations. The seminars were on the whole excellent, well run, and informative. Again, I have provided feedback that individual seminars could be labeled introductory, intermediate, or advanced to allow participations to better select the seminars that they need to attend. I was not impressed with the after dinner speaker at the Coach of the Year dinner! A non-soccer person, in this instance a hockey goalie, was totally inappropriate, in my opinion.

Specific Comments: The following paragraphs discuss the three major events/seminars that I attended.

I was present for the public portion of the Presidents meeting. I was absolutely convinced, after hearing various State Presidents speak, that the fee increase would fail. It was abundantly obvious to me that the states were not happy with the US Youth programs, budget and support from the national office and the Board. How the fee increase passed is beyond me. I thought that it was odd that the Strategic Plan, for the future US Youth soccer, was presented by the Executive Director rather than a member of the Board. My impression was that the Plan was more of an office staff statement than a Board vision for the future. The meeting went long and several important items on the agenda were glossed over and/or not presented at all. The most important item that was only roughly discussed was a draft of the revised US Youth Travel and Tournament policy manual. In my opinion, running out of time regarding the revised manual was actually a good thing in as much as I do not think in its present form it is ready for publication.

I attended the US Soccer Federation presentation on Appellate Review Standards. The presentation was well done by the Federation Appeals Committee Chairman, David Laraba. We all received valuable, current and effective information on the Federation appeals process and procedures. Following the chairs presentation' Tim Pinto; Staff Attorney; gave a review of the actual appeals handled by the Committee during the past year. Again, excellent information. The Federation Appeals Committee has prepared a Hearings and Appeals Handbook that will be published in the near future. The document is applicable for both Disciplinary and Appeal matters. I obtained copies of the handbook and will provide a copy to our Protest and Appeals Committee for their use.

I attended a Soccer Management System presentation by the Affinity Development Group. The Affinity Management System is currently being used by CalSouth and is a very robust, scalable, and customizable web based management program. The program provides tools for player, team, league, district and statewide management of the entire range of soccer activities. The sub elements of the program consist of registration, rostering, scheduling, game reporting, disciplinary, tournament management, e-travel, etc. The two strongest points of the program are that it is web based and is centered on a historical database. We currently use Logical Solutions and that system, for example, is currently unable to identify over 5000 UYSA players. The Affinity program would completely eliminate this problem. I highly recommend further pursuit of the program and suggest that a purchase of the system would move UYSA into the 21st century.

In conclusion, we have big shoes to fill when we host the convention next year. I have no doubt however that the Utah soccer community will come through, all be it with much work and sacrifice. We all need to be prepared to support Bruce in his leadership of our commitment to host the Soccer Community in 2005.

Richard Yoder
UYSA Disciplinary Committee Chairman