2024 Fall Season Welcome

Dear GCSL Parents,

We're thrilled to kick off the Fall 2024 Soccer Season with your kids! 🎉This email is packed with important details and answers to the most common questions. We’ve put a lot of thought into this to help you and your kids get ready for a great season. Please take a moment to read through it!

Along with this email, our website provides detailed answers to many common questions, and your coach is well-informed and has direct access to us. Please make sure to check these resources first before reaching out, as the high volume of emails we receive can slow down our response time. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation!

How to Get Started:

Your child’s team information is now available on BYGA and you should be receiving a welcome email from your child’s coach soon. In the meantime, we HIGHLY encourage you to download the BYGA APP for better and faster communication with your coach and team. Please also put the club’s BYGA email address in your contacts list (no-reply@byga.net) so you never miss an important message.  

Follow the steps on our website at: https://www.goldcountrysoccer.org/resources/byga to setup your BYGA account or login to your existing one. Once there, advance the team calendar to the week of August 12th to see the practice schedule. Please note, the game schedule is not available yet and we will update you when it is finalized. 

We regret that we are unable to accept team change requests.  Teams are full and this makes player swaps impossible except in the most extreme cases of schedule conflicts.

Important Season Dates:

August 12th: 1st week of practices & coaches deliver uniforms

August 18th: Parent uniform size exchanges (more info below)

August 24th: First game weekend

August 31st: No games (Labor Day)

September 22nd: Team Photo Day & Soccer Fest

October 19th: No games (last weekend of fall break)

November 2nd: Last game weekend for teams with byes and reschedules

Team Formation:

Our team rosters are set and locked! We have over 1,100 kids playing soccer this year and in 99% of cases we have managed to fulfill your location, friend or coach requests. As you can imagine, that is a huge undertaking and we want to sincerely thank our registrars, Sophia Day and Amanda Jackson, for being so instrumental in making as many kids and parents happy as possible. We regret that we cannot make any more changes to the rosters at this point. 

Soccer Fest and Picture Day: Sunday, Sept. 22nd

Mark your calendar now! This is our annual soccer community building event that we look forward to every year for the chance to play fun soccer games, including our giant soccer dart board, 4v4 scrimmages, dribbling races and shootouts. It’s also the day everyone takes their professional individual and team photos. The photo day schedule will be available by the end of August and will be emailed to you and communicated to your coach. 

*We are looking for volunteers to help us plan and organize this event so please let us know if you can help!

Referees: 

Our referee course is available for kids and adults 13+ and will be held August 11th, 9am-12pm. This is a wonderful first-job opportunity for youth 13+ with flexible hours and schedules on fall weekends. We provide a free referee uniform upon completion of the course and you can determine your own work schedule.

More info and registration here: https://learning.ussoccer.com/referee/courses/available/10000006/details/20002735

Email Sean at referee@goldcountrysoccer.org with any questions.

Uniforms & Gear:

If you ordered a uniform during registration, your coach will bring it to you at one of your first practices. Please ask your coach for your uniform. 

New Uniform Size Exchanges and Sales

August 18th 

Uniform size exchanges 3:00-4:00pm (newly purchased uniforms only)

Uniform Sales 4:00-5:00pm (subject to available stock)

Location: GCSL Office @ The Salvation Army 10725 Alta St. Grass Valley, CA 95945

ALL players will need to purchase soccer cleats, shin guards, black or blue socks long enough to cover the shin guards and an age-appropriate ball. Your coach may decide to have your team purchase fun patterned socks for your team so please check with them about that. Your coach also depends on you making sure your child has a ball at every practice! Ball Sizes: U6 & U8=size 3, U10 & U12=size 4 and U14 and older=size 5

BIG 5 is a GCSL supporter! They are generously giving our families a 20% off coupon for your gear purchases this fall which you should have received in a previous email. Visit the local Grass Valley store to redeem this offer.

99 Pledges Fundraiser:

We count on your financial support with donations to our 99 Pledges campaign each year. Proceeds from this fundraiser go towards purchasing new equipment, coach training, player financial aid and referee training programs. Last year you helped raise over $10,000 and we were able to pay for starter sets of cones and pinnies for the coaches, new pop up goals for coaches at select fields, 11 coach scholarships for US Soccer licensing classes as well as 30 financial aid awards to deserving families! It’s incredible what this community has been able to do and it all goes back to the program to benefit your kids with better trained coaches and supports youth who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to participate. Thank you and we look forward to your continued support!

You will receive more information about this important fundraiser soon. We also have exciting team and individual prizes for top contributions this year! 

Rules of the Game:

Please take a minute to familiarize yourself with the rules for your child’s age bracket. It will help you to have a better understanding of what to expect and will hopefully help you enjoy their games even more! These can be found on our website here: https://www.goldcountrysoccer.org/resources/laws-of-the-game

Game Day Info:

Your team’s game schedule will be updated and accessible in Byga by the middle of August. We will notify coaches when it is live so please check with them if you have questions.

Field Layout maps are available on our home page showing the field section labels for games. Please consult these before your games.

Please note that there are NO DOGS ALLOWED at ANY of our local school and city fields (service animals excepted).

Parking is limited at all our fields on game days. Be sure to remove your vehicle from the lot as soon as your game ends. 

Zero Tolerance Policy:

We have a zero tolerance policy for disruptive and abusive behavior especially towards our referees (many of whom are young kids), coaches and players. We will not tolerate anyone behaving in an aggressive or confrontational manner, using profanity, yelling or shouting or otherwise disturbing the positive and fun environment we seek to provide to all our players and their families. Please remember that amplified noise makers are also not allowed at games. We rely on parents to let us know if they encounter any negative behavior and we will address it immediately. 

Weather Cancellations:

We will send notifications of cancellations for smoke/hazardous weather through BYGA and you should opt in for text messages to receive those alerts. If we have to cancel for unsafe conditions we will try to do so by 2pm on weekdays and staggered times on game days. If we need to cancel a game, we will make use of the first weekend in November to reschedule one game.

Volunteer with us!

We rely on parent volunteers to make the season run smoothly. From field marshals on game days to concession sales at Soccer Fest to social media campaigns and fundraising event planning, we could use your help! Please contact us at info@goldcountrysoccer.org for more information about volunteering with GCSL.