Photo: Courtesy of Montgomery United

My sons play for Montgomery United. We are a fairly large club, with about 600 players on travel teams and 1200 in our recreational program (including our 3 to 5 year olds).

Last Saturday was our picture day where everyone has the opportunity to get their team and individual photos taken. As I watched the event unfold, I realized how many people it takes to make a club function — and how most of them are volunteers.

Because we have so many recreational players, often we are begging parents to coach. Some of these coaches haven’t played soccer, but are willing to step up and help out. We do have paid trainers at most age groups to help them, but these volunteers are still responsible for coaching games.

Most of our travel coaches are paid, but there are some that aren’t. My husband spent hours planning training sessions as our elder son’s coach — as a volunteer. As for the assistant coaches, many of whom step in to run practices or coach games on the weekends when the head coach has a scheduling conflict. Their payment? A cool coach’s shirt and maybe a thank you gift at the end of the year from the team.

I’ve given up counting the number of hours our Rec Coordinator spends putting kids on teams, creating a schedule, and putting out fires. The fields not mowed? He gets the email. Uniform got lost? He gets the email (and forwards it to me, but that comes later). Don’t like your coach? The number of players on your team? Email him. He also coordinates the Rec Select program, which means more hours scheduling tryouts, finding coaches for the teams, and registering for tournaments.

It’s no different for our Event Coordinator. On Saturday, we had a snack bar to raise money for the club. Doesn’t sound like too much work, but every hot dog, hamburger, Gatorade, and snow cone cup had to be purchased and hauled to the site. She had to find more volunteers — there’s that word again — to man the grill and make those snowcones. We rely on our parents to help us. I am very thankful to the many that give their time to make these events run smoothly. In addition to simple events like picture day, the Event Coordinator also plans our two tournaments and Socktoberfest, which is a huge party for all the kids in the club to come together and play. Its my favorite event, because the Union comes out with the blow up attractions from Toyota Plaza and, most importantly, Union players. Again, I can’t even begin to imagine the hours that are spent organizing and pulling off these events.

I also volunteer. In my PSP author bio I describe myself as “coordinator of all things wearable,” which includes all uniforms and spiritwear. We are maybe unique in that we have our own heat presses to allow us to press numbers and logos on shirts. As a club, we make all of the jerseys for our rec program (yes, that’s over 1000 shirts). Every year I put out the call for volunteers and every year volunteers step up to get the shirts done. So at picture day on Saturday, I had volunteers helping to make MonU shirts and hoodies for the players and their parents to purchase. Thankfully, I’m almost done with rec uniforms this season.

Of course, this doesn’t even scratch the surface. I didn’t talk about our field coordinator and all the volunteers that set-up and line fields. The folks that volunteer to be the liaison to ICSL, DELCO and PAGS. The team managers in travel who register for tournaments, send out schedules, relay information from the coaches, pick up uniforms, and plan fundraisers.

As a club, we could not function without these moms, dads, sisters, and brothers who sign up to do the tasks that allow our club to function, be it coaching, selling snow cones, making shirts, lining fields, organizing teams, whatever — all which allows our kids to play soccer.

So from me to all who volunteer at my club or yours: Thanks for all you do!

You are the lifeblood of youth soccer.