Anyone born in 2010 (current U8 age group) who wants to be considered for an U9 travel team for the Fall of 2018 & Spring of 2019, has to take part in this program. No separate tryouts will be run for this age group to help form the teams.

Program Description:

· Over the course of the Spring season all participants will go through 2 practice session a week, under the guidance of professional coaches assigned by the WSA who help us run the U8 Pre Travel program / academy.

· The practice sessions will take place on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. The exact times and locations will be confirmed.

· We do not run tryouts for players in this age group to form U9 travel teams. Tryouts alone do not provide us with enough opportunities to successfully assess & evaluate the capabilities of all the players interested in U9 travel. We, for that reason, run an 8-week program to help us form the U9 travel teams.

· The pre travel program / U8 academy is led by a program director, who runs an effective curriculum to prepare the players for travel at U9. All players will be evaluated on an ongoing basis by professional coaches working the program.

· A heavy emphasis is placed on making sure the players enjoy the experience. No matter where players land in the years ahead, we want them all to be eager to attend and leave each session with a smile on their face!

· Once signed we do ask players to attend as many practice sessions as they are able to. This to ensure we are able to assess and track a player’s development during the course of this program. Attitude, effort, coach-ability, commitment and the overall development of a player's ability are all part of the evaluation.

Note that we do understand that the occasional conflict will come up.

· At the end of the WSA Pre Travel Program / academy all participants are given the opportunity to participate in a 7v7 festival. Players will be assigned to teams to play 4 - 7v7 games spread out over 2 days. All players in the program are automatically signed up to take part in the tournament as it is part of the registration fee for the WSA Pre Travel Program / Academy.

· We do seek the assistance of volunteers who want to help run the Saturday practice sessions. For more information please see below.

The Spring 2018 schedule for the WSA U8 Academy Pre Travel Program:

Boys	Girls
Fridays 3:45-5:00PM Saturdays 9:45-11:00AM	Fridays 5:10-6:25PM Saturdays 8:25-9:40AM

 

***Time slots above reflect an effort to eliminate a scheduling conflict with lacrosse.

Volunteer coaches

All travel teams are assigned a volunteer head coach, 1 or 2 assistant coaches and a professional coach. The professional coach is responsible for leading and running the 2 practice sessions scheduled during the week. This coach will also attend 3-5 games every season to help both the volunteer coaches out and assess the overall development of the players of the teams they are involved with.  The head and assistant coaches are responsible for running the practice sessions scheduled for the Saturday. The Saturday sessions will be overseen by a professional coach.

The coaching on Sunday is done by the head coach, with the support of the assistant coach. As stated before, the professional coachwill attend about half the games during the season and will be a valuable resource for all volunteer coaches.

The WSA is looking for volunteers who want to be considered to become a head/assistant coach, assuming your son or daughter would make a travel team, for a travel team for the 2018-2019 year. Anyone who wants to be considered to be a coach for the 2018-2019 season should step forward during the Spring season. They will be asked to help out during the Pre Travel Program. While helping out they will be provided with valuable information through our program director which can help them gain a better understanding of what it means to be a coach for an U9 travel team.

Click here to register now!