Yes, it’s that time again! The time when kids of all ages in Foster City start their weekly trips back and forth to Sea Cloud Park. Or should I say their parents start their weekly (and in my case, daily) trips back and forth to Sea Cloud Park. We have almost 1100 players signed up this year and they will be showing up with families in tow by 7:30AM for the opening ceremonies. They will be dressed from head to toe in their uniforms, anticipating their team name to be called out, so they can run around the field with their team banner waving high above. For me this means running around twice since I’m coaching two teams this year. No matter how good of shape I think I am, come opening day I still always manage to be sweating and exhausted by the time we get to the National Anthem!

I have been participating in soccer in Foster City since I was 5 years old. My youngest is starting his first year as a soccer player this season and is quite excited. Foster City is definitely a sports town and this is never more evident than on opening day of AYSO soccer. This year opening day falls on Saturday September 12 and if you have never experienced this day it is a sight to be seen.

As a coach and as a Mom, I always offer some safety tips to my players parents at the start of the season. Water, sun block, bug spray and a healthy snack before practice and a healthy breakfast of lunch before a game time are critical. I know these “tips” seem obvious but I can assure you that I have had countless players over the years (I have been coaching since I was in High School) show up unprepared for a game or practice.

Foster City AYSO is all about a positive experience for our children and these are some necessary tools to insure this experience. So, come on out to Sea Cloud on any Saturday through November and you will not be disappointed!

I am also coordinating an adult team in Foster City for those of you that are still players…so join the fun! I can be reached by e-mail at:

jennifer@jenniferselvitella.net

See you on the pitch!

Port Royal Park is on the south end of town overlooking Oracle. At 3.98 acres, it’s a good sized park and features a full soccer field as well as a basketball court. It’s located on Port Royal just off of Edgewater and is niched between the Williams Landing and Nantucket Cove developments. Here’s a map:

PortRoyalGoogleMap

Just in case you might have missed it, or have been in a coma for the last 20 years and have just awakened, Soccer is a big deal. In fact, it’s a really BIG DEAL and when it comes to Foster City I don’t have a font size large enough to express how big of a deal it is here. Let’s just agree to say that in Foster City people like it a whole bunch. Maybe it’s because this community is enormously blessed with many wonderful and expansive parks with fields large enough to allow soccer to be played there and people from all over the Peninsula have been attracted to them like Stanford alums to a good Cabernet. Five parks, Edgewater, Boothbay, Port Royal, Catamaran and Sea Cloud have soccer fields and the last one is the most coveted destination…maybe on the whole Peninsula. Drive over to Sea Cloud Park some weekend and check it out…you’ll be amazed.

Because of all this interest a brouhaha has sort of developed because groups of recreational adult soccer players like to meet and have pick up games during lunch hours or after work in the parks and at Sea Cloud in particular. The city put tough new restrictions on field use and wants these groups to organize, pay fees and be insured to use these city parks. Recently, games in which players don’t have permits have been broken up by the Police. The recreational players argue that it’s impossible to buy liability insurance for pick up games since the participants are different from one day to the next.

Parks and Recreation committee meetings have been exciting as debate has gone on about the purpose of the city’s fields, the nature of liability insurance, and what constitutes an organized group as opposed to a pick up game. Naturally, the fact that Foster City is such an attractive location for soccer for the whole Peninsula underlies the controversy and makes competition among groups an inevitability. At this point it appears there is actually some movement toward compromise and in this mornings San Jose Mercury-News we had this story:

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_8461416

So, back to the original point…soccer’s big, and it’s not gettin’ any smaller. If you’re at all interested in youth soccer in Foster City, and you’re not aware of this already, click on the following local links for more details.

http://www.aysofc.org/ 

or:

www.peninsula-soccer.com