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AYSO is not a highly competitive soccer league–that is its whole point. The principles of AYSO are open registration, balanced teams, and everyone plays. No matter how inexperienced or ineffective a soccer player is, she or he will play the majority of the game–usually at least three out of the four quarters. In this way players of all levels have a chance to participate in a wonderful team sport, feel that they are contributing to their team, have a fun time, get a lot of rigorous physical exercise, and develop their soccer skills. As a parent of four children who have participated in the AYSO lakefront league for over ten years, I am very grateful for these aspects of the program. My children all enjoy soccer and look forward to their games and practices, but soccer is not the center of their lives, and they are not looking to professional soccer careers. They have developed some pretty good skills though, and my oldest is now an active part of his high school’s soccer teams (public school, by the way).
One of the remarkable things about AYSO is that it is an entirely volunteer organization. Every Saturday during the soccer season, the lakefront league alone (there are many other AYSO leagues in Chicago) gives about 1,500 children a quality experience playing reasonably competent soccer in reasonably well-organized games in an atmosphere where no one gets too upset if they lose–and not a single person gets paid a penny to organize this. I am constantly amazed at the amount of time that a lot of devoted people put into this program solely because they love the game of soccer and want to give all children the chance to play it. For these efforts to be distorted in the way Morote did is grotesque.
According to Morote, the incident described in my article occurred at an AYSO game on the field at Lawrence and Marine Drive some four or five years ago. Morote says he reported the matter to AYSO’s north-lakefront commissioner, who dismissed it as an isolated incident.
