By Randy Vogt, Director of Public Relations, Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association
June 12, 2020-The
Olympic Development Program (ODP) is considered the highest level of competition in each state association. The
Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) has a particularly strong ODP as our teams have won recent national championships plus Crystal Dunn and Allie Long are Eastern New York ODP graduates and Women’s World Cup champs.
Under the leadership of ODP Director Jim Volpe, our program held 12 Zoom sessions on Monday nights as the players were not able to train as a team because of the lockdown. Over 300 ODP players attended each night.
“When I first discussed this with ODP Technical Director Gary Book, we planned for four Zoom sessions and hoped to be back on the field soon,” Volpe stated. “We wound up having 12 Zoom sessions and, unfortunately, never returned to the field.”
Volpe added, “Yet our topics were very diverse and we focused on a range of tactics all over the field, two psychology sessions with two different speakers as well as one session for college-bound players. We had some excellent instructors, which shows the reach of Eastern New York’s ODP.”
Those speakers included Red Bulls coach Chris Armas, Portland Timbers assistant coach Miles Joseph and East Region ODP girls head coach Sue Ryan, who all grew up playing in Eastern New York ODP. Leicester City defender Christian Fuchs and Watford assistant coach Craig Shakespeare also led the Zoom sessions.
Additionally, Eastern New York purchased an app from
https://mypersonalfootballcoach.com for all 450 players, both boys and girls, in our ODP. Each player has full use of the app for the next year with diverse exercises for ball mastery and the ability to track their activities. Each course is age-appropriate and designed to best suit their learning capabilities.
With approximately 100,000 youth soccer players––both boys and girls––and more than 25,000 volunteers, the non-profit Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) stretches from Montauk Point, Long Island to the Canadian border. Members are affiliated with nine leagues throughout the association, which covers the entire state of New York east of Route 81. ENYYSA exists to promote and enhance the game of soccer for children and teenagers between the ages of 5 and 19 years old, and to encourage the healthy development of youth players, coaches, referees and administrators. All levels of soccer are offered––from intramural, travel team and premier players as well as Children With Special Needs. No child who wants to play soccer is turned away. ENYYSA is a proud member of the United States Soccer Federation and United States Youth Soccer Association. For more information, please log on to http://www.enysoccer.com/, which receives nearly 300,000 hits annually from the growing soccer community.