In response to numerous parental requests, about four years ago, in cooperation with Golden Boot Soccer, BRYC became one of the first local clubs to offer a U4 Developmental Soccer program within its Recreational Soccer program.  It started as an experiement with only a handful of boys and girls, to see if playing soccer with professional instructors at the tender age of three could lead to a better experience for both players and parent coaches when the kids were more "mature" at age four.  And it worked.  So successfully, in fact, that this season there are sixty U4 boys and girls participating in the program and some had to be turned away.

At the U5 level a year from now, these players will have already learned that the soccer ball is their friend, and they’ll know (or at least have been taught) that soccer is played with their feet, not their hands.  They’ll know to kick the ball with either foot, but not with their toe.  They’ll know that discs and cones mark the edge of the playing "island" and they should not step outside the cones (off the island) or they’ll get wet.  They’ll know that their teammates are the kids wearing the same color pinnie, and to keep the ball way from the kids in the other color...and the blob.  And they’ll know that the object of the game is to kick the ball into the net...though it may take a bit more coaching next season to explain which net. 

Every Saturday morning, while the U5’s to the U19’s are playing 3v3 up to 11v11 soccer, and the older ones, especially, are keeping track of the score, the U4’s are just beginning to learn the fundamentals...and loving it!  Jim ("Coach Tall" for obvious reasons above right), Lindsay ("Coach Ponytail" for equally obvious reasons above) and Patrick (Coach "Patty Cakes" because his brother, Coach Tall, is messing with him), some of Golden Boot Soccer’s finest trainers for our youngest players, have been wonderful the first few weeks of the season in making sure the kids learn age-appropriate soccer fundamentals while having a great time. 

Somewhere down the road every parent probably hopes his or her child will be the next Landon Donovan or Abby Wambaugh. But whether they continue to play in the recreational soccer program or go on to travel soccer and beyond, they had to start somewhere.  BRYC is pleased to support our youngest athletes, and hopes to see them return in the spring and again as U5’s.  Of course we also hope to see some of their parents return as coaches for years to come!

League Director Bonnie Ewalt (left), mother of two children in the U4 program, has things running like a well-oiled clock.  Thanks to Jen Bozeman, a former BRYC recreational and travel player in the 1980’s and early 1990’s and now the mother of a U4, for a few of the photos used in this story.