Dear Club Technical Directors, President’s, Coaches, Administrators:
All of us at the Timbers/Thorns-OYSA Leagues hope that you are all practicing social distancing and that you and your families are staying safe during this period.
Expectedly, a number of Club Directors and Presidents have been in touch with OYSA regarding the resumption of play and how that may affect tryouts. As we said in last week’s update, our main priority is the safety and well-being of our players, coaches and staff. Our League Management Committee is constantly monitoring the spread of the Covid-19 (Corona) Virus across Oregon and SW Washington. The Committee met this morning and will meet again on April 2. From our discussion this morning, we wanted to provide you an update, based upon the information that we have today.
Due to most Oregon schools being currently closed until at least April 28 and Washington schools until April 24, the committee decided that there will be no scheduled games in April. At this juncture, the committee is planning on beginning State Cup the first weekend of May. SAT tests have already been canceled and a number of Proms too. This would allow Spring Cup play to be rescheduled (including State, Presidents and Founders), starting on May 2, with finals being held on or prior to Memorial Day weekend. As such we would move the roster freeze date for each Cup to be the Monday before Cup play begins. If this is to happen, registered teams will be polled to see whether they are able and would like to remain in their respective tournament.
For Spring league, games are postponed through the end of April also. We will attempt to get as many games as possible rescheduled on play dates in May, up to Memorial Day.
These changes to Spring Cups and Leagues would mean that tryouts would be moved for all clubs to begin, no earlier than Tuesday, May 26. This will hopefully allow players the opportunity to get out on the field to play prior to tryouts and in addition, makes the playing field even for all clubs, in terms of team formation for the 2020-21 seasonal year.
Again, the committee will meet again on April 2, and assess the latest information from the Oregon and Washington State Governors and State Public Health Authorities. The committee is in contact daily and has committed to reconvene within 48 hours if there are any significant state updates between today and April 2. We plan to be nimble and transparent in this regard and get information to our clubs in order to help you make good decisions as quickly as possible.
Please stay mentally tough and work on using this time to make your club stronger! Think of ways to inspire your players while keeping yourself and your families safe, wherever you are. Lean on each other at your clubs for help, support and encouragement during these uncertain times. We must persevere and be better for it when it passes. Make the most of this break from the fields by being progressive and trying to make your club and community stronger.
Even though schools in some of our areas are closed for the next 6 weeks, we still have an opportunity to inspire our players to get out in their yard with their ball. Ideas have been shared to send players individual training plans, or to create competitions with phone video submissions within a team or club. Some clubs have already successfully begun to do that.
The players are craving time with a ball and now have time to do it. I constantly see facebook posts of players in their yards juggling and doing tricks. With parents working from home, they will thank you for getting their kids outside with their ball for a bit. I can definitely vouch!
A couple of good video ideas that you could share with your players or develop for your own club are below:
If and when you produce something, please send me a link that I can share in next week’s update. Club challenge on!
In somewhat better news, we had zero red cards shown this past weekend! Unfortunately, there were no games played of course, which means that there is no referee of the week for this update either.
As this unprecedented situation further unfolds, please continue to stay in contact with your local and state departments of Public Health. We will keep you up to date with modifications to leagues and cups as we can and we thank you for your continued commitment to soccer and the safety of all players.
As usual, please feel free to forward this email on to your board, club administrators and club members.
Best wishes and keep yourselves and your families safe as best you can.
Hope to see you on the field sooner than later,
Mike Smith
League President
