Stay tuned for In Our Range on the way next, brought to you by Westgate Nursing Rehabilitation and Assisted Living Center.
Good morning, welcome to In Our Range.
My name is Mike LeBeau.
Our guest this morning is Angela Burla, safety director of Range Strikers Soccer Club located in Ironwood and open to players across the Golgebic range.
The Range Strikers Soccer Club is a summertime fixture in youth sports here on the range for at least 30 years.
Games are held at the soccer fields adjacent to Ironwood Airport.
Every season brings dozens of young players and their families out to the club for practices and games.
It is an all-volunteer-led program through the American Youth Soccer Organization, or AYSO.
AYSO is the premier youth soccer league in the country.
Its values focus on skill building and community.
AYSO philosophies include everyone plays.
Every player plays for at least 75% of every game.
There are balanced teams to create fair and fun competition, open registration to all children regardless of skill, positive coaching, encouragement of player effort to build motivation, good sportsmanship by creating a safe and respectful environment, and player development to focus on technical skill and enjoyment of the game.
Registration for Players opens April 6th.
Cost for registration is $50 per player with a $10 discount for each additional player.
You can find more information on their Facebook page, Range Stryker's Soccer Club, or email them at rangestrykers at gmail.com.
Angela is the safety director for the Range Stryker's board.
She played in the club growing up here and has coached over the last two seasons.
She can also be seen in performances at Theater North where she lends her acting skills to their seasonal productions.
Good morning, Angela.
Thanks for joining us on In Our Range.
Good morning, Mike.
Thank you for having me.
So the range strikers has been coaching and developing kids here on the range for over 30 years It's an all-volunteer endeavor.
What are the clubs needs this year when it comes to volunteers?
So we are of course always grateful for any amount of help that people are able to offer but currently we are looking for some specific board positions and those
kind of most desired positions that we are trying to fill currently are our tournament and travel coordinator.
They would help organize participation in tournaments and opportunities with other soccer clubs in the area.
We are also looking for a special events coordinator who would be responsible for organizing the special events that we do here in our region.
and then a field coordinator who would be responsible for maintenance of the playing fields throughout the seasons.
Okay, so two people with good organizational skills and communicational skills to work with other leagues, to organize events across the different leagues, because we are kind of remote here.
Right?
Yes.
And so when we work with other leagues, that often involves a lot of travel and planning to make sure everybody can get where they need to go.
Special events coordinators, sometimes that includes tournaments and jamborees where kids are traveling and they get to play against other teams from places in Wisconsin or Marquette, even and Houghton football club comes down here sometimes and sometimes we go up there, play them.
It's a lot of fun to travel and do that, by the way.
I've really enjoyed that.
Oh, and just to let people know, I am a part of this organization.
I've been coaching for a few years now, so I have a huge bias towards my love of this soccer club.
And so if you have organizational skills and communication skills to work with other wonderful people across the UP and Northern Wisconsin to help out at the club, then we're looking for you.
And also, if you love mowing lawns,
taking care of things, making the fields look pretty.
We could use your help out there as well.
We've got equipment.
Bill's been doing it for like decades and we need some help.
So let's try to get that.
So there's so many other volunteer opportunities here from coaching to refereeing, volunteering in the concession stands.
How's the coach search looking up right now?
So currently we have just a couple of people who have reached out who have coached in the past who are interested.
We are looking for both head coaches and assistant coaches and you don't necessarily have to have
a lot of soccer experience or even any soccer experience to be honest.
There are materials provided to you from AYSO to help with different drills that you can do.
In the past two years we have had our challenger camp coaches who come in
from the past two years, they have been from overseas.
I believe they're always from overseas, but they come to our area to offer these camps.
In the past couple of years, we as coaches have also had the opportunity to do a short training with them to help with some ideas for coaching moving into our season.
Yeah, it's great when those guys come in to work with our coaches and kind of coach us up.
on some fundamentals and how to work with the kids and they come from Ireland and Scotland and Wales and apart from the language barrier everything is great you know it's funny to listen to a Scott or a Welshman talk in a big noisy gym and watch everybody just smile.
Yeah, AYSO does a wonderful job of supporting their coaches.
They give you all kinds of materials to learn and deepen your knowledge of the game, to organize the kids, everything from positioning your kids, how you have them out on their field to specific positions and drills that you can work with them.
It's a very supportive organization in that way.
Also, referees are always a need, right?
Yes, definitely a big need for referees.
And because we currently only go up to the age of 14, we are trying to get to keep more of those teenage players involved through some youth refereeing.
So if you have played in the past and
and you are a high schooler who has kind of aged out of our system, but you would be interested in staying involved by doing some youth refereeing.
We would love to have you for that as well.
They still do a stipend?
Yes, I believe so.
So yeah, there is a little bit of monetary encouragement there for your kids to get out there and referee.
And it's one of the elements of the club that
is really near and dear to my heart is these kids play with each other from like six years old up till they're 14 or 15 years old and they're from different towns sometimes they're growing up with kids and the only time they really see these kids and spend any time with them year to year is when they're playing soccer from the summer and they develop friends and they do come back.
I've had kids come back after they age out of the game because they just want to come back and be a part of that community and hang out.
a lot of times when practices or games are over you'll just see groups of kids in front of the net and you'll see four-year-old little brothers and sisters tagging along with the older 15-year-old kids and they're all playing together and having a great time and it just speaks not only to the fun of the beautiful game itself but also to the unity of the organization in there.
I just really can't say enough so if you got a kid
It's bumming around, playing a little too much Fortnite this summer.
We'll throw a black shirt on them and get them out there with the red and yellow cards to referee these games.
Also, line judges as well.
Yes.
Yep.
Yep.
And even parents who are there watching the games, we'd love to have you involved doing line judging, even if it's just a game here or there.
I know parents did it when I played.
I remember my mom doing it one time.
She'll probably love that I shared that with everyone.
But so we would love to have parents get involved in that way as well.
And that doesn't necessarily have to be as big of a commitment and can just be a game or two.
Yeah, it's it's fun to watch the parents get involved.
Yes, it really is because sometimes they're learning the game as well.
And they get you get more investment on that.
So you mentioned the challenge soccer camp what are the dates
so the challenger sports soccer camp it will be taking place July 13th through July 17th and it's a half day program that goes from 9 a.m.
to 12 p.m.
That is for ages six through 16.
So that's another way even if a player has kind of aged out of our regular club play that they can be involved in the camp.
And the price for that is $155.
And again, those coaches are international coaches that are brought over to work with the kids.
Yeah, these guys are real players been playing at their whole lives and working towards becoming pro.
Rose, right?
Yes, yeah.
And I've noticed as a coach that anytime I have a player who's been through the soccer camp, they just show up on day one with a lot more confidence and excitement and readiness to go.
So it's another opportunity to keep your kids busy during the summer and also prepare them for the upcoming season.
Yep, absolutely.
So now that we've covered soccer camp,
and volunteers, we can discuss registration of the players and get into some of the details on that.
When does registration open and how much does it cost?
Yeah, so registration for the players will open on April 6th and it will go through April 26th and the cost for that is $50 and there is a $10 multi-child discount.
That season will start kind of right after the camp for those kids who are able to attend.
They're able to get that camp as kind of a warm-up to the season.
That'll finish up on July 17th and then we'll start our season on July 21st and that'll go through September 19th.
Excellent.
So that runs it all down right there.
It's a 20-day window for registration.
Don't delay.
Get in there and get it done the sooner the better and then that helps the board plan.
Speaking of the board, the meetings are held once a month, right?
The board gets together for all the planning and details that need to be hammered out.
Where and when are those held?
So unfortunately we do not have our...
final date set for our April meeting.
We are hoping to combine that with our buy, sell, swap kind of equipment exchange event that we do each year.
We are looking at the date of April 13th or 14th.
We are currently just trying to confirm our space for that, actually.
But if you watch on the Facebook page, that will be posted there.
And hopefully that'll be out as soon as possible.
Just waiting for confirmation on the space.
It's a good group of folks.
Again, it's all volunteers.
So these people are doing it for the passion of the club and keeping it going because it did almost go under a few years back after the pandemic.
It was really hard to find volunteers.
and really hard to get it up and running again but people have kept this thing alive for the last 30 years and every season it seems like folks step up but sometimes it is often like many other volunteer situations here it can often be the same people you know grinding year in and year out so new fresh blood is always welcome so yeah and it is really a pleasure to watch these kids grow up this is one of my favorite times of the year
is soccer.
So you can find the information for registration, becoming a board member, all on the Range Strikers Soccer Club Facebook page.
Angela, is there anything else you'd like to add before we get out of here today?
I don't think so.
Thank you for having me today, Mike.
Yeah, thanks for joining us on In Our Range.
I appreciate you coming in.
Given all this handy information, let's get more involved out there with this, folks, because this is an incredible opportunity for the entire family.
Everyone has a lot of fun out here on the fields.
Thanks for joining us again this morning.
Thank you.
Our guest this morning was Angela Burla, Safety Director with the Range Strikers Soccer Club AYSO 1056, located here in Ironwood.
Registration for players is open to all kids across the range from age 5 to 14 beginning April 6 and running until April 26.
The club is currently seeking volunteers for board members, coaches, referees, and field maintenance.
Practices begin in July with games running through September.
The league is also hosting the Challenge Sports Soccer Camp which will be held July 13 through the 17th.
The camp costs $155 for each player.
It's a great opportunity for kids to stay active during the summer, learn from skilled international players, and prepare for a successful season.
You can find more information about the club on the Range Strikers Soccer Club page on Facebook or email rangestrikers at gmail.com.
Thank you for listening to NR Range on WJMS.