Welcome back from a great summer! Congratulations on all the success stories from the Spring sports programs - great job to all! Fall sports are in full swing and I would like to wish everyone a safe, successful and healthy season. School is important for the kids so please make sure they get their homework done, keep their grades up, and enjoy whichever fall sport they are participating in.

LUYAA is one of the largest youth athletic programs in the region, and we are responsible for fielding youth sports year round for thousands of children. I believe that all LUYAA BOD members, athletic directors, commissioners and coaches can attest to the fact that every day is different and on any given day the activities of any given LUYAA program are different - based, of course, on the environment and the sport. However, there are common threads and themes.

This forces us to manage at various levels the tension associated with multiple personalities, conditions and environment. But, the reason we are all here is to bring the best possible youth athletics to our children, families and community. So how does this translate into what we do on any given day? We manage the tension with timeliness, truth, and in the best interest of the children and the LUYAA organization. That turns out to be the best, most accurate description I can think of for the LUYAA leaders.

Truth is to explain to the LUYAA community what we (LUYAA) are able to provide for them, explain to them how LUYAA fits into the larger picture of the requirements levied upon the organization, given that LUYAA is a part of a larger community, belongs to other leagues, relies on supporting local governments and policies, and works with finite resources. I can assure you the LUYAA BOD spends a lot of time on the phone or in e-mail exchanges trying to advocate our current and future requirements; we work with talented people from around the community who support us and what LUYAA is about.

Focus on the children - that is where our long-term commitment will have the biggest impact. When the day is done, head out to the fields and facilities to show your support to a fine volunteer organization providing the mentoring and leadership for future generations. Adults and older youth in leadership roles are in a position of stewardship and play a key role in fostering the development of individuals and the community. It is, therefore, especially important that those in leadership positions be well qualified to provide the care and support that will enable children and youth to develop a positive sense of self, independence and responsibility. The relationship between young people and their leaders must be one of mutual respect if the positive potential of their relationship is to be realized.

F. Todd O’Connor
President,

1. All refunds will be directed through the LUYAA webpage, www.luyaa.org. In the event that internet access is unavailable, please contact the registrar.

2. No refunds will be given after the completion of the second week of practice.

3. A $10 Administrative fee will be imposed on all refunds. (*)

4. Late fees and annual membership dues will not be refunded.

(*) Unless a child does not make a select or travel team and no intramural team is available in the same sport, or if the sport is full at the time of payment.

2.01-To organize and promote athletic and recreational programs on intramural and competitive levels on the basis of good sportsmanship and fair play; these standards are to be observed at all times.

2.02-To offer those programs to all interested youth in the Linganore and Urbana High School districts; any exceptions to be made at the discretion of the Board of Directors.

2.03-To teach youngsters, through participation, the fundamentals and principles of sports.

2.04-To take into consideration, first and foremost, the health, welfare and ability of each individual participant.

Our registrations are getting larger every season. I wanted to thank everyone for their patience during the registration process. The weather has not been nice to us and it creates problems for everyone. I want to give some tips for getting through registration quickly.

1. Go to our website (www.LUYAA.org) and get your email address on the webmaster’s master list. Doing this will get you registration dates as soon as they are set up, updates, any changes or other information we want to get out to as many families as possible quickly.

2. Check the website often. It has about anything you would want to know on it, or at least a phone number to contact the person who would know. Each sport has a link for info on that sport. Please start there to see if your answer is on the site, if not, you can get the commissioner’s number and contact them.

3. Read your newsletter. It lists the upcoming registration dates and sports. It may also have info on upcoming sports. The newsletter is also available online.

4. Come to the registrations. There should be someone for each sport there and they often give out information for the upcoming sport and may have other things that need to be taken care of such as equipment sizing, purchasing, or paperwork to fill out.

5. If school is canceled or closes early due to weather we are not able in the school for registration that night. That is when you go to the website for updates on registration. We will get it up as soon as possible.

6. At registration, you must fill out a form for each child for each sport. If you have a question about the sport, go to that table and talk to them before you get in the registration line. Do not write out your check until you are told the amount you owe. Please try to sign-up all your children at one time. It makes it easier to apply the multiple sibling discounts.

7. If you have an outstanding balance with LUYAA it needs to be cleared up before you can register for the upcoming season.

8. The Annual Membership Fee of $15 is collected once a year. It starts at the January registration. If you do not register for a sport that season, you pay at your first registration of the year. Your membership is good for January thru December of that year. The fee is used for rental of the school for registration and BOD meetings, printing and distribution of newsletters, flyers and signs and other admin needs. Also, $5 from each membership goes into the land fund.

9. Late registrations are increasing. Late registration starts as soon as the last registration is over. There is a late fee of $25 per child/per sport. Late registrations are done through submitting the late registration form on the website. Your child is not considered registered until the Registrar receives your payment. This means you do not get anywhere to submit a registration form then take weeks to make the payment. Nothing goes to the commissioner until the payment is received. Waiting to make the payment may mean your child loses a spot in that sport. This also means your payment should go directly to the Registrar. Sending it to anyone else holds up the process. If you submit your registration form and do not receive a response from the Registrar within 2 days email her and ask about it. Sometimes people enter the wrong email address but it does not bounce back. It is your responsibility to make sure your child gets registered. If the sport is closed on the website, that means it is full and they are not taking any more registration. . Late registrations are more difficult because of the extra communications needed between the registrar and commissioners.

10. Refunds are also done through the website. You submit the refund request form from the website. This goes to the registrar who then passes it on to the commissioner for approval. Once it is approved, it is sent to the business manager for processing. Please allow 2-3 weeks for processing.

Once again thanks for your patience. If we work together we can make the registration process move along smoothly.

Sue Veres
LUYAA Registrar

1. A registration is considered to be "late" if not turned in at the official LUYAA Registration.

2. All late registrations will be subject to a $25 late fee. $10 of the late fee will be deposited into the LUYAA Land Fund.

3. Directions for registering late can be found on the LUYAA webpage at www.luyaa.org. In the event that internet access is unavailable, please contact the registrar.

4. Registration is not complete until full payment is received.

Hope everyone had a great summer.

As most of you know, LUYAA was having a terrible problem with returned checks. The BOD instituted a new program which would enable LUYAA to recover funds for returned checks more quickly. We are glad to say that this program is working well, and at this time 100% of checks being returned to LUYAA are being collected in full. This company will be working with LUYAA to collect on older checks, so that the funds can go where they were supposed to.... to the kids!

As always, help is needed during registration. If anyone wants to volunteer to help at the Winter Registration, please contact me at treasurer@luyaa.org.

As of 08/01/2004 the bank balances are as follows:

Checking/Savings

BB&T Checking 4,908.61
BB&T Land Fund 64,819.86
CD - Land Fund 40,793.26
Money Market 10,201.24
Reserve Fund 64,948.21

Thanks for the opportunity to help in our organization.

LUYAA has instituted a new returned check policy. Checks that are returned by the bank will be automatically processed electronically. In order to write checks to LUYAA the following must be agreed to:

If my check is returned unpaid, I authorize my account to be debited electronically for both the check amount and return check fees.

-Your Immediate Coach
-Activity’s Commissioner-Coordinator
-Athletic Director
-LUYAA Board of Directors

Please try to resolve any problems through the chain of command. Please contact the athletic director before contacting members of the board. If there is a problem in following the above chain of command, the LUYAA Board of Directors has an open door policy; call any director or attend any board meeting.

Welcome back to LUYAA Baseball! I hope you and your family had an enjoyable summer and has rested up for the fall season. Over the summer, the baseball committee has been hard at work preparing for the fall season. By the time you receive this newsletter, our fall season will be well under way and our players will be experiencing the fun of playing baseball on fall afternoons..

For those of you new to the fall program, it is more instructional and less competitive than the spring season. We do our best to use the fall season to prepare the players for the next spring season. We’re fielding 18 teams this fall season and are looking forward to providing the highest quality instruction available. I’d like to thank the coaches and baseball committee members for their time and effort throughout the fall season. Without them we would not have a program.

We also had a very successful spring season. We actually played more games this year than we had rained out! We fielded 44 teams in the spring and enjoyed some great games. Congratulations go out to Darren Rozich and the Pirates for prevailing in the Minor League tournament and Fred Casper and the Yankees for winning the Major League tournament. Both teams played extremely well and deserve the championships they won.

Members of the baseball committee, coaches and parents expended a lot of time and effort very early this past spring in working on the fields. Thanks to their efforts, we spread over 200 tons of diamond dirt on our fields. For everyone who participated in this effort, I want to extend my personal thanks. This provided much better playing fields for our kids and allowed us to play some games this past season that we would not have been able to without the additional dirt. We also replaced approximately half of our equipment this spring and plan to replace the remaining worn out equipment in time for the spring season.

It takes a huge effort to plan, organize and execute everything that must be done to put the season together. I’m proud of the efforts of the baseball committee. These folks work extremely hard and put in many hours to make the program successful. If you would like to help in this effort, please feel free to contact any member of the baseball committee to find out more about the program. We’re always looking for additional help. The pay is a little light, but the rewards are great. Please give this some consideration your children are the ones who will benefit from this.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the efforts of one of our committee members. After several years, Steve Silvious is taking a well deserved break. Steve has served in a number of different capacities over the years with the last three as our umpire coordinator. Steve has put many, many hours into the program over the years and due to his efforts, we have a much better program. Steve, thank you for everything you have done. I have the utmost respect for you and you will be missed on the committee.

The goal of the baseball committee is to administer the best baseball program in the area. To accomplish this, we are always looking for any suggestions for improvements. Should you have any questions or ideas, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can find our contact information on the baseball page of the LUYAA website. I hope to see you on the field this fall, until then….play ball!!

Mark Reed
Baseball Commissioner
(301) 865-3457
mreed12318@aol.com

Hoops Scoop
Preparations for the 2004-2005 basketball season are underway, and I am pleased to announce a few additions to our Basketball Committee. Alex Utt returns as the intramural coordinator position and Valerie Stevens as assistant coordinator. Pat Gwinn and Jim Kelly are returning as the Area Directors at Windsor Knolls and New Market respectively and Rob Carpenter will be stepping in to replace Jim Luehman at Oakdale (see phone numbers below). If you see Jim, please take time to thank him for all his work over the last several years. Alex and I have already begun getting organized and welcome any person who is interested in helping make the program better. We will have an organizational meeting for parents who wish to help coordinate leagues or help fill any of our administrational needs (this is not for coaches). The meeting is planned for Wednesday, October 6 at 7 p.m. at Dave’s house, 3918 Millstone Circle, Monrovia, which is near the intersection of Bartholows Road and Rt. 80. Call Dave at his house (301) 831-3824 for details about the kind of help needed and for directions.

Special thanks to Coach McGaha (Boys’ Linganore) and Coach Krivos (Girls Urbana) for all their hard work with the summer leagues and for making them fun for all. Thanks also to the parents and high school students who helped coach and referee the games. Both leagues were a great success.

Our intramural leagues are for boys and girls 1st thru 8th grade and are a must-play league. The travel teams for the middle schools are not must play. Tryouts are at the school your child attends and will be announced at registration and placed on the LUYAA website. We do have a need to fill several traveling coaching positions. Contact the area director below if you have an interest or have questions about your child’s program.

Intramural Coordinator: Alex Utt 301-865-8648
Windsor Knolls Area Dir.: Pat Gwinn 301-831-8489
New Market Area Dir.: Jim Kelly 301-831-3029
Oakdale Area Director: Rob Carpenter 301-695-3636
Basketball Commissioner: Dave Sowers 301-831-3824

All potential coordinators, coaches, and referees may sign up at registration. Remember, we are only as good as our volunteers, so be sure to offer to help. Together, we can make a difference.

Let’s have a great year!
Dave Sowers
Basketball Commissioner

By the time you all read this, football cheerleading will be in full CHEER! All squads had the opportunity to attend an overnight or day camp, depending upon their age group. The JV and Varsity Lancers and Hawks attended camp @ Towson University - and they were justly rewarded with many top honors:

A red and blue ribbon for Cheer Evaluation; A GOLD ribbon for FAN FRENZY; A BLUE ribbon Trophy for Runner up; A SUPERIOR Trophy for their Extreme Routine

A Special notice to our All Stars - Maggie Ansbro, Morgan Ingram and Hannah Riley

A Superior Award; A Camp Champion Award for cheer performance; A special notice to our All Star - Courtney Smith

First Place Trophy and SUPERIOR ribbon for their Extreme Routine; A SUPERIOR ribbon for Fan Frenzy; First Runner up in Cheer Competion; An EXCELLENT Ribbon for home dance routine; An EXCELLENT ribbon for Cheer Evaluation. A special notice to our All Stars - Jessica Smith, Carly Thompson, Grace Young

A Trophy and Blue Ribbon for best Home Routine; A Trophy and Blue Ribbon for Improvement; Two Red Ribbons, one for Cheer Evaluation and Dance Evaluation; A SUPERIOR Ribbon for FAN FRENZY. A special notice to our All Star - Lindsay Schaub

Wow, what a week! The mini, junior and pony girls also worked with UCA trainers over the weekend and learned A LOT of cheers, chants and had a TON of fun. Come support our girl’s fundraising activities by purchasing items from our EXCLUSIVE LINE of cheer apparel, available @ practice and home games!

Basketball cheerleading will start in November, running through February. We have both intramural, which has no tryouts, and Traveling squads, which will require tryouts. If your daughter is new to cheering, intramural is a great place to start. We will have folks at signups, ready to answer your questions. As with all LUYAA programs, we depend on parents to keep our program running! We are looking for coaches for all age groups. If you are interested, please give me a call at 240-731-4016. We also plan to have additional programs for basketball cheerleading this year, including day camp and fun fundraising activities!

Cheerleading ROCKS!
Debra Schneider

Well, our season is over for this year. Although Playday was rained out again this year, we had a lot of good practice days and scrimmages with the other youth teams. We would again like to thank all the parents and families for their support during the season. It was great to have so many of you come out for the practices and games. Thanks also to all the high school coaches from Urbana and Linganore for all your help. Your love of this sport shows every time you work with a new player to show them a stick skill or help a returning player refine a skill they learned before. You are all wonderful role models for our future players!!!!! Best wishes to our three Seniors ( Sam Olson, Monica Weaver and Jillian Henson) who will be venturing off to college this fall. We know you will continue to make us proud.

This was our first year for lowering our registration age to third and fourth grade girls. We had 20 sign up and they were awesome!!!! At first a little timid and shy about the whole sport and the other “bigger” girls but by the time the second scrimmage came around they were ready to try out their sticks and boy did they ever. Thanks to the parents of these girls for your support as well and we hope they will want to come back again next year and every year after that. We so enjoyed seeing them first learning about how to hold a stick and then watching them maneuver a ball down the field.

To our 50 fifth through eighth grade girls, you were a fantastic group to work with this year!!! We know a lot of you had never picked up a stick before but by the time the season was over you couldn’t even tell...your skills were that improved!!!! Best of wishes to the eighth graders in high school. Let us know how you are doing and remember you can always come back and coach with us next season.

Again it was a fun season and we can only hope next season will be even better. Go out and spread the word. Tell a friend and see you next year at registration!!!

CHICKS WITH STICKS RULE!!!!
Mrs. Henson, Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Peterman

Are you ready for some football? Football season is finally here and this year we have our largest turnout ever! We have approximately 460 players on our fields making up 19 different teams with a lot of great Coaches, Team Moms and 2 Area Directors who are keeping very busy!

Because of some changes in the Carroll County Football League (CCFL) and our great registration turnout, we were able to field 5 new teams this year. The additions to our football program include two new CCFL A Division B+ teams for both Linganore and Urbana consisting of 11 & 12 year old players which play between the A Level (Varsity) and B Level (Junior Varsity). This team was mainly formed because of the CCFL rule change which states that you can only have 5 playbacks per team. We have also added two 12 & under CCFL B Division (I70) teams on the Linganore side consisting of 11 & 12 year old players. And a CCFL B Division (I70) 5 & 6 year old “Pit Bull” team consisting of both Linganore and Urbana players which have both Linganore and Urbana colors and are called the “Patriots” since they are both Hawks and Lancers. We had the opportunity to add this team at the last minute and this is the first time since LUYAA split Linganore and Urbana into two football programs that we have come together again to form this one team.

I would like to thank the all the people who have stepped up to volunteer in many different areas. It takes a tremendous amount of volunteers to have a successful football season especially with the number of families involved and there are always many, many areas in which we need help. I greatly appreciate everyone’s time and effort they have given on both the Linganore and Urbana sides of football to get things going this year. There have been a lot of changes to our program which we were able to implement with everyone’s help.

Good luck to all of our teams this year!

Kim Narvesen,
Football Commissioner

Rich Tischler,
Golf Commissioner

Indoor Lacrosse will be offered again through LUYAA this Winter season. Teams will be formed for players in the following categories: Elementary School Boys, Elementary School Girls, Middle School Boys, Middle School Girls, High School Boys, and High School Girls.

The season runs November 1, 2004 through February 29, 2005. As last year, games will be played at the Frederick Sportsplex (Sundays 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Mondays 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.) and the All-Star Sports Complex in Gettysburg, PA (Saturdays 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sundays 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.). The conference has reserved additional time at each of the facilities, so there will be a much greater opportunity for more players than last year.

Season schedules will not be available until after all of the teams that can be accommodated , given the facility availability and the mix of teams within each of the four categories, are officially registered with the conference organizers. Current conference plans are to have only high school teams scheduled to play at the later time periods on Sunday and Monday evenings, with the younger teams playing during the earlier times. Teams from all four of the categories may at some time or the other during the 16-week season, play at either of the two facilities. Teams will only play one game per week.

For more information, please feel free to contact us at the following phone number.

Laurie Russell,
Lacrosse Commissioner 301-865-0212

The LUYAA Fall Soccer season finds us with over 600 children playing soccer and more than 50 coaches helping them at the 4v4, Instructional and Competitive level. Once again our goal will be to have fun and teach the proper fundamentals of the sport of soccer. Volunteers in the form of coaches and administrative help as well, are always welcome as a way of strengthening our program. Comments and volunteers are accepted on our Soccer hotline at 662-5525.

Our organization is always looking for dedicated volunteers and this year we’ve been especially fortunate.

In the past few months soccer has had to say goodbye to many talented people who have served us well. Dave Goldstein stepped down as Commissioner and Boys Competitive Coordinator after a successful term as both. Yours truly has replaced him at both. Kevin Brookes has succeeded Paul Riley as our new Area Coordinator for Competitive soccer, while Paul remains on as Girls Coordinator. Kim Ferris is our new Administrative and Equipment Coordinator as both Robyn Stewart and Kim Krugle have retired from those jobs. Loretta Bing took over the 4v4 program for John Anzalone. There are many others as well who have lent their time and talents. All of us involved in the soccer program owe a big thank you to those above who have volunteered their time and to those who are about to do the same.

As we get ready to begin our season I’d like to remind everybody that we strive for a positive environment at all times, especially game time. The adults must set the tone for the children, so let’s all be sure that it is a positive tone.

We will have a few new home field locations for some of our teams this fall. Our U14 Competitive age group will play their home games at Windsor Knolls Middle School and our U8 Competitive age group will play home games at Spring Ridge Elementary. Our U10s, U12s and 4v4s will continue to play their home games at the Oakdale complex and our Instructional program continues along at Deer Crossing Elementary under the direction of Paul McArthur.

As you enjoy watching your children play soccer this season I ask that you please keep in mind that school rules do not allow pets on school grounds, even those which are leashed.

Here’s to another fun season of LUYAA Soccer!

Thank you

Bob LoCicero
LUYAA Soccer Commissioner

Due to the limited size of our practice facilities, it will be necessary to split the team into 2 squads. Our goal is to practice 3 days per week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM, with the squads alternating between Linganore and Urbana High School. The practice schedule however is very dependent on what activities are happening at the High Schools on those evenings. League matches and tournaments are held on either a Saturday or a Sunday. We typically will start League matches the first week of the New Year and end up the League Tournament the first or second week of March.

As always, I humbly ask the members of our local business community to provide support for our young men. Tax-deductible Team Sponsorships are available for $130.00. For your donation, you will receive a plaque containing a team picture.

Congratulations to our returning wrestlers this year. They are mostly a young group and a great bunch of young men. As a coach and commissioner, I will emphasize academics. If the wrestler does not make satisfactory passing grades, he will not wrestle. I am going to encourage goal setting this year. Each wrestler, with their parent, will be given the opportunity to set a personal goal for the season. It may be to do 35 push ups by the end of the season, or to wrestle in post season tournaments and qualify for the Mid Atlantic Wrestling Association Eastern Nationals. The choice is up to the wrestler. If you have any questions about the upcoming season, please do not hesitate to call the wrestling hotline at 1 888 216 1448 and leave a message for me. I will return your call as soon as practical. Please have a safe and happy end to the summer and we will see you at registration.

Ken Wolfe,
Wrestling Commissioner