Welcome to the WCDA. We have been working with your directors and administrators, but it's time now to start communicating with you directly in anticipation of our showcase event at the Las Vegas Turkey Shoot. Today's message centers around preparation for the Turkey Shoot.

1. College Coaches. We continue to email and call college coaches and tell them about the WCDA Showcase at the Las Vegas Turkey Shoot. The response has been very favorable, and we've published a list of the programs that have indicated that they will be attending the event here: http://www.westerncda.com/showcase/index_E.html (scroll down for list)

We have also sent an email to your directors that they can forward to fellow coaches who may be interested in attending the event. Our goal is to have 100 college programs at the event.

2. Sample Cover Letter to Coach.

Another way to attract college coaches is to have your kids write to them directly. To help them do that, I have attached a sample cover letter to college coaches.  If a player is interested in one or more colleges, I'd recommend that he send the coach a letter and invite him to watch a match at the Showcase.  Keep in mind that the attachment is just a form. Be sure to spell check it, add a picture if desired and customize it to fit a player's particular circumstances. For example, if one of your players has a highlight DVD, he may want to let the coach know and offer to send the DVD to the coach.

The Schedule for all three leagues PDL(RCL), WCDA and NWCL are all listed below.  Please use the calendar link for up-to-date schedule information.  The following chart is now being used for results only.

To see the PDL/RCL Standings click here.

To see the PDL/RCL Schedule for Spidahl 93A, click here.

To see the WCDA Standings click here.

To see the NWCL Standings click here.

League records:

PDL/RCL-  2-3-1

WCDA- 1-0-0

NWCL- 0-0-0

The game schedule for the Thanksgiving Turkey Shoot Tournament can be found here:

If you saw the article about the Northwest Champions League, you may have wondered how the team could do PDL, NWCL and WCDA.  The answer to that question and more is included in the following Q & A.  The Total Schedule is now posted in a separate article below that includes all 3 leagues.

What are the objectives of the WCDA and why should Crossfire participate?

The goals of the WCDA are (a) to inspire elite soccer players to strive for a college education and to make them aware of the various college soccer opportunities; (b) to provide consistent, high-quality competition for the participating clubs; and (c) to create more opportunities to showcase the top players and teams from the western U.S. In addition, the competitive format will help prepare U15 players for entry into the USSF Academy program, where such a program exists in their market.

The WCDA differs from the USSF Development Academy in that all travel is on the west coast and the primary focus is preparing the players for college as opposed to playing for the US Men’s National Team.

 The WCDA will stage its first college showcase event in connection with the Las Vegas Turkey Shootout. For more information about the tournament, please visit Neusport F.C.

The link can be found here.

The Northwest Champions League strives to take youth soccer to a higher level of professionalism in organization and operation, while creating a unique level of competition for U12 through U18 premier teams in Oregon and Washington. The NWCL will be a supplement (and not a replacement) to other primary youth leagues in Oregon and Washington such as the Oregon Premier League, Player Development League and the Puget Sound Premier League.

Teams for the inaugural season will be selected on the basis of results from the 2009 fall season, 2010 spring season for senior girls, performance in the Oregon and Washington State Championship and other criteria established by the Soccer Advisory Board.

2011 may bring expansion to more teams in Washington and British Columbia to create a broader regional league and a wider variety of competition.

You can check out the League website at http://www.northwestchampions.com

You may have noticed that soccer schedules tend to change, and you may want to set up an automatic sync to your calendar.

To auto sync the calendar to your phone calendar application, visit this link for instructions.

To auto sync to an MS Outlook calendar, you will need to download a small application and follow the instructions found here.

If you use a Google calendar already, you can add additional Google calendars fairly easy, just look at your calendar settings and you will find info about how to add additional calendars.

For all of these options, you will need to email me  to get the gmail account and password for syncing.  It is so nice when there are changes to the calendar that your calendar is automatically updated.

nancy@omiliak.com

The team photo and roster photos have been updated.  There are also a few candid photos from the first team practice. You can see those photos by clicking here, or by clicking the team photo link on the left. If you like to take photos or video, please let me know so we can upload them to a team share site.

Thanks to all of the players for taking the time to get their profiles updated.  Each player made their own decision about what information they wanted to be public.  The information in those profiles is what is being used to complete rosters for the various college showcase events that our team is involved in.  The various tournaments ask for different data elements, but I will only include the information you provided in your profile assuming that you want the rest to remain private. 

You have the ability to update or change your profile at any time, but keep in mind that the rosters are usually completed well in advance of an event.

The College Camp roster is complete and will be submitted this week.

The Soccer emails can become overwhelming.  To help reduce the number for everyone, please do not "reply all" to messages.  A team distribution email xfire93@jakkal.net was set up, so that Tina and Seth could contact the team with the most current email list which is centrally maintained.  You can use this distribution if you are organizing uniforms, travel arrangements, or team events in conjunction with our Manager Tina A.

If the email address xfire93@jakkal.net is included when you send an email, everyone on the distribution list will receive that email. (about 40 emails)

Here are the pertinent contact emails to use:

Team Manager: Tina Aldridge    tald333@aol.com  (for any/all general questions about the team, dues, travel)

Coach: Seth Spidahl                  sjspidahl@comcast.net

Website: Nancy Omiliak             nancy@omiliak.com (for any issues with the website, broken links, photos, articles, etc.)

Distribution: xfire93@jakkal.net (Used for coach, manager, volunteers needing to communicate to entire team about team related items.)

Uniforms: TBD

Other: TBD

Individual emails for families and players are available on the team roster which was distributed at the team meeting, and will be periodically updated.

If you accidentally select "reply all"  or use the distribution, you will receive a friendly reminder.