10.25.06

Volleyball league offers serious sport to casual players

Posted in Rec League News at 7:22 pm by news

The Gorman family was looking for something to do together.

The Rookies baseball team was looking for a new challenge. . . .

They represent the different outlooks of the 11 teams in the Sunday afternoon coed volleyball league at Glen Burnie High School run by the Anne Arundel County Department of Recreation and Parks.

Players on all three teams said that some are more competitive than others. But they’re all trying to improve, regardless of the opponent.

Volleyball is an interesting choice for rec sports because it requires several skills. Every player must have some level of competency at serving, blocking, passing, setting and digging.

The Gormans picked volleyball because four relatives in the Anne Arundel family had at least some experience with it. They took the name Wilson!, after Tom Hanks’ volleyball in the movie Castaway. Hanks’ character is always yelling for the ball, which explains the Gormans’ addition of the exclamation point.

Teams play three-game sets every week, with the first two games going to 25 and the third to 21.

“We’re a tight-knit group,” said team coach David Gorman of Crownsville. “I think that we have more fun than any other team in the league.”

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10.02.06

Team Sports and Competition for Kids Article

Posted in Rec League News at 11:12 pm by news

Excerpt from CBS News: (See full article here) 

(AP) As the final buzzer sounds in the Northview Elementary gym, parents burst into applause and 20 children in red and blue T-shirts line up to shake hands.

Their cheeks are flushed, their hair damp with sweat, and most of them are grinning. But the scoreboard is blank.

“It doesn’t bother me,” says 9-year-old Chelsy Stout. “I just have fun playing.”

In the Harrison County Parks and Recreation basketball league, standings for the under-13 teams are maintained only in the mind. Scores are kept by just a few parents, surreptitiously, on tiny notepads.

Like at least 2,300 communities nationwide, this north-central West Virginia county is taking a different approach to youth sports, toning down the competition to stress sportsmanship and equal playing time for every child, regardless of talent.

Over time, and with parental support, organizers say such changes could help keep children involved in athletics longer and reduce the violence that sometimes occurs at sporting events.

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08.14.06

A rec league retirement affects more than the retiree

Posted in Rec League News at 9:25 pm by news

BY DEVON O’NEIL
full article in summit daily news
August 3, 2006

It’s August now, about a month away from the beginning of the Breckenridge Flag Football League. Our team in that league has enjoyed quite a bit of success over the years, largely due to little turnover. With little turnover, however, you get more than experience. You get age. Our team has plenty of age.It’s great: We’ve got 175-pound guys in their late 30s mixing it up on the offensive line with strapping young grizzlies in their early 20s. Somehow the smaller, older guys get the job done. I often wonder how. Never, however, do we take their work for granted.

Well, last week I sat on a bar stool next to one of my older teammates, who mans an offensive and defensive line position each fall. Admirable guy, Dave is. Plays fair. Has his heart embroidered on the sleeve of his jersey.Dave is one of the team’s longest-tenured veterans, but he treats everyone as if he is the new guy, and they are the established ones who deserve the respect.We’re sipping suds when he tells me, as though it means absolutely nothing, that he doesn’t think he’s going to play this fall. That he’s had enough. That he’s getting old.

I put my glass down. “What?”

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “I think I’ve had enough. You guys will be fine without me.”

A bit of background here. Our team already is losing two more veterans because they are moving to Crested Butte to start a plumbing business. One of them, a no-crap-taking dude from Chicago, plays on the offensive line; the other is our thick-necked veteran cornerback from Detroit.

To illustrate the involuntary nature of their retirement, they are contemplating returning to Breckenridge to play if the league ends up moving games to weekends, which had been tossed around a few months ago.Dave’s retirement, however, is totally his own decision. He is a busy and successful local business owner. He was recently married. And, perhaps most significant, he’s tired of feeling the lingering bruises for eight weeks every fall.We talked for a few minutes after his initial announcement (which, contrary to other retirement announcements, took place at a wooden picnic table behind the local bar that sponsors our team, with the sun setting on the high mountains above). Dave explained his decision in more detail. It all made sense.

But I still wasn’t ready to accept it.

The reasoning here is this: Once you lose someone to rec league retirement, he doesn’t return. You only see him at the post office or the grocery store. And maybe on the hill in the winter.

Actually, forget about that. It’s true, but it’s not the reason in this case.

What I realized after pondering our conversation for a while was that every time someone close to you retires, he takes a little of you with him. Not a toe or a knee, but a portion of your athletic existence. His walking away is a reminder that everyone does at one point or another. Even you.I am only 26 years old, so I know my time is more distant than others. But I know it is there nonetheless, looming on the proverbial horizon like a tanker ship in the middle of the ocean. It’s coming this way. You can only outrun it for so long.Of course, if you are like Dave, which many in this football league are, your retirement is not as simple as a picnic-table announcement behind the bar. By doing it there, you leave room for second thoughts. And that’s exactly what happened to Dave, three beers into his evening, when the memories started showing up.

By the end of the night, his “never again” had changed to a “maybe.”

Bruises last awhile, but so do the plays that cause them.

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08.02.06

League keeps players fit

Posted in Rec League News at 7:17 pm by news

Women are able to stay in the game

Southern Florida-

By Gary Curreri
Special Correspondent
Posted July 30 2006

West Palm Beach’s Christy Goddeau thought playing on the Women’s Premier Soccer League team would be a nice break from a difficult day at work. It turned out to be quite the opposite for the 35-year-old lawyer, who was the oldest member of the first-year Palm Beach United team. “My friends think I am crazy to be out here with the 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds, but it is great exercise and a great game,” said Goddeau, an attorney for Glen Torcivia and Associates for three years.

Goddeau, who played club soccer at the University of Florida and while she was in the Air Force, was among 28 players for Palm Beach United. Most of the women were still in college.The squad played a 10-game season and finished third in the Southern Conference of the League at 5-4-1. “Even though the younger players may have more skills and more energy, hopefully, I could just help the team in any way I could and bring better soccer to Palm Beach County for women,” Goddeau said. “Usually, you think of soccer as relieving stress, but when it is this competitive, it builds a little more stress.”

See full article from the Sun-Sentinel here. Â

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Four players come home with medals

Posted in Rec League News at 7:12 pm by news

Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2006, Baltimore, Maryland-

From Gazette.net (click to see full article)

Only one U.S. Youth Soccer National Championship trophy has come home to Maryland this year, and it will reside in Baltimore. But four players from that team will return to Montgomery County with championship medals around their necks.

Keith Cowdrey (Silver Spring), Mark Jaskolski (Gaithersburg), Brendan Klebanoff (Bethesda) and Michael Lansing (Gaithersburg) were all part of the Casa Mia Bays (Baltimore) team that, after less than a year playing together, won the U-16 boys championship last weekend at the James W. Cownie Soccer Park in Des Moines, Iowa.

‘‘It hasn’t exactly sunken in yet,� said Cowdrey, a rising junior at DeMatha High in Hyattsville. ‘‘A couple of times, I’ve just been sitting around the house and I’ll start laughing to myself, like, ‘I just won a national championship.’�

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Golf tournament memorializes good coach

Posted in Rec League News at 7:04 pm by news

Jensen Beach, Florida-Â

The Jensen Beach Soccer Club has lost a good friend and volunteer from our club. Coach Jim Zunk passed away Wednesday, February 23, 2005 due to a medical condition. Survivors include his wife Sharon and three children. Â

Jim was a tireless supporter of our soccer club for many years, and was never hesitant to step in and lend a hand. He will be greatly missed by all that knew him.

Because of Jim’s unselfish devotion to the children of our community, we have dedicated our annual Golf Tournament to him. Please check out the Jim Zunk Memorial Golf Tournament.

The Jensen Beach Soccer Club is in the process of setting up a memorial account to benefit the family, and will provide information soon for those that wish to donate to it.

See Original Article

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