At Play Smart, there are no tryouts. We only care that kids love the game, are committed to it, and have a very strong desire to get better. We know there's a lot of kids out there that really want to play but aren't good enough (yet) to join a club. Filling that void is our focus.

"My parents split up when I was 11. My mom then worked full time and dad lived away from home. So when I was a pre-teen and then teen, I was a latch-key kid with my younger sister. I didn't have an adult-guided activity to do that I loved, I didn't know about soccer (it wasn't very popular back then), and I didn't have many friends either. As I began coaching my kids I realized just how beneficial it is for kids to participate in a sport they love to play, how it builds character, how it helps them meet and make new friends they may not have met otherwise, and become accepted in a group of peers with the same interests.

So after my kids graduated high school I decided to continue helping by coaching and refereeing soccer (and serving on the AYSO Board of Directors). I chose to invest a portion my time helping kids in the community enrich their lives, stay off the streets and out of trouble, grow up feeling more secure in themselves, and having a network of new friends they could potentially rely on having for the rest of their lives.

My personal rewards are knowing that I have helped these kids learn a whole lot about this sport, while helping to teach them valuable life lessons. Plus, I get to watch them get better in soccer and use the skills I've taught them (this makes me feel VERY proud of them), and many times as I can get to know them when younger and go through high school, I get to watch them grow up into becoming amazing adults that hopefully will also choose to give back to their community when the time is right for them.

One more point in fact - all of my now adult chidren also volunteer time in their community by coaching soccer."

Our head coach has coached at the Varsity and JV levels at high school. He sees kids come into the high school that don't have many of the more advanced skills such as receiving the ball with the front foot, sending the ball to space, being on their toes when about to be involved in play (we call it "light and springy"!), playing more quickly and increasing to game speed, etc, because they've never been taught or had it enforced. This hurts the players because they don't get the playing time they want, AND it hurts the program because now we're at square one at the high school level teaching skills that should be already a part of a player's repertoire entering the high school soccer program.

Therefore, one of the primary goals of starting the academy was to really hone in on teaching many of those more advanced skills to younger players in a low pressure, fun environment that encourages mistakes and learning quickly from them with positive guidance and support. This benefits the kids because they learn more about how to play at higher levels and it benefits the programs because we're not having to teach these skills to kids coming into the high school and we can then focus more on team building and tactics.

We meet once a week on Saturdays at the Cottonwood Kids Park at the Fairgrounds.

Tuition for our 7-9 year old soccer training is $12.50 per session per player and our 10-14 year old soccer training is $20 per session with 2 hour sessions. The older kids session runs from 8:00am-10:00am and the younger kids session runs from 10:15am-11:30am. Payment is made by the month by the first Saturday of the month.

We will ask you to sign a waiver of injury. Soccer is a physical sport and we do everything we can to mitigate injury including doing proper warmups and stretches prior to beginning full sessions. However, injury can still happen. Therefore we ask parents to accept full liability and financial responsibility for any injury that may occur over the course of normal soccer training and play.