WYSL teams, families, and organizers
Below is the link to the PRELIMINARY Schedule for the Westchester Youth Soccer League Spring 2010 season.
Please do NOT make final plans based on this schedule. Usually there are a couple hundred changes - including some changes in home games and times. This is PRELIMINARY. After the Final Schedule is posted, destroy any copies you have of this preliminary schedule.
This note is a reminder of what needs to be done before the Final Master Field Schedule is handed out at the league meeting on March 23rd at Hommocks school.
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The work - which everyone and anyone can do - is to check the preliminary schedule and within a week - by Wednesday the 10th of March - to tell the league scheduler about any mistakes. Mistakes in a schedule this complicated are inevitable and there will also be changes to adjust field usage and correct for last minute crises. If you have suggestions for better field use or to deal with a local problem, tell the scheduler.
Do NOT send the scheduler any new schedule requests no matter how heartfelt or important. (Coach coordination, wedding day, problem with early games, etc.) It’s too late. Do not waste his time to say "no". Remember earlier next year.
However, if a request was sent to the scheduler and he missed it or messed it up, *please* tell him. Requests take a lot of time and we want them to be as good as possible. Being able to handle some special requests and coach coordinations is one of the special things about the Westchester Youth Soccer League. Teams should not suffer in silence if there was a mistake - especially on the specific day requests which can very important.
General requests ("prefer early", "games after 2pm if possible", etc.) were NOT honored all the time. It’s not possible. When one team says "prefer early" and the other team says "prefer late" there’s no schedule magic to avoid the conflict. If your team's general requests were mostly honored, be happy.
For teams with coach coordinations, the scheduler had to ignore most of the "pref after 2", "prefer early" type requests. It’s hard enough to get a coach to two games without trying to adjust for when one team and the coach’s other team would like to play. Older teams have to be ready to play at any time during the day. We have very little field space in this league and too many requests to be that particular. Over 25% of all league teams have a coordinated coach and another 10% of the teams had special requests. The size of the task is obvious.
Often the coach will have barely enough time to get from the end of one game to the start of the next (half an hour or 45 minutes). She or he will often not have time for a post game or pre-game talk. This is the best that can be done. (In fall it’s even more difficult with less daylight.)
We use Google Maps. If the scheduler hasn’t allowed enough time to get from whistle to whistle, tell him. But be sure to check the googleMaps distance first.
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Please check for you team, see if all the games are there, check the fields. Note any gaps or overlaps in the schedule. See if there are any singletons. Check the requests.
PREMIER Teams and clubs. Please be especially careful checking your Sunday schedule including any coach coordinations. The erratic nature of your schedule makes it difficult to keep track.
Everyone, send your responses to the scheduler by email as you see things. You don’t have to wait. It's a rolling correction process.
The final schedule will be done at the end of next week and handed out at the league meeting on March 23rd at Hommocks School.
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Some divisions have 10 game schedules. Some have 9. Two 5 team divisions and two 9 team divisions have 8 games in their schedule (a perfect double round-robin or a perfect all-play-all). There are very few games on the last week of the season. If you don’t have one, it’s because you are playing a shorter schedule. Teams that want more games can arrange a friendly.
There are 673 teams (including 59 playing some form of premier league). The schedule includes 2946 games and 83 "byes" played on 136 fields. There are 10 "TBS" games for teams in divisions with an odd number of players to make up for some of the byes. These need to be played at any time during the season. There are only a few of them this season because we are only trying to get each team a minimum of 9 games. There are a couple of TBA games when neither team had enough field space for the game. If you can find a field, tell the league office as you would for a make up game. Get them scheduled and played sometime.
The number of home and away games is relatively balanced. But some clubs with tight field space have fewer home games. In a 9 game schedule you’ll have either 4 or 5 home games. A few teams are short a home game or two.
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When the schedule is final, it will be available on the web site division by division or club by club.
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The league needs YOU to help clean up this schedule. (Imagine a big Uncle Sam poster here. ;-) ) There’s nothing better than dozens of eyes looking for mistakes. (Maybe "If you see something, say something" is the more current admonition.)
This is a collective effort so the families will have the best start for planning their season. Every mistake that someone catches saves precious time and helps gets the kids on the field.
Preliminary Master Field Schedule for the Westchester Youth Soccer League Spring 2010.
Thanks much!
Terry Benson
WYSL Scheduler
terrybenson@nyc.rr.com
