The Terrace Youth Soccer Association is gearing up for another season, with plans for a new storage building this spring.
Complete with a kicking wall, the new building will store soccer field equipment, the lawn mower and the club’s golf cart — which they bought last year to speed up equipment set up for games and tournaments.
Blaine Kluss, TYSA director and coach, says the club plans to start construction on the building in May, weather permitting.
And at the same time, the soccer season kicks off in May, to which Kluss says they’re still short on coaches.
“We’re always desperate for coaches… it’s an annual thing, he said.
TYSA has 56 house league teams registered this year and eight competitive teams, and as of Thursday were short a total of 15 coaches.
“It’s mostly in the younger divisions — six and eight-year olds,” said Kluss, adding that they also need one select team coach.
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But TYSA is also offering support for its volunteer coaches.
The association has partnered up with the Whitecaps FC Soccer Academy, and the new Whitecaps coach, Eric Horsburgh, has been hired as the part-time technical director for TYSA.
The 23-year-old coach from Scotland will be coming out to some practices, helping coaches with ideas for drills, and providing general support where needed.
He may also run a few workshops for coaches throughout the summer.
“A lot of our coaches, particularly with the younger kids, are fairly inexperienced, and a lot of them are volunteering because we need them,” said Kluss. “They’re willing to do that, which is great, so we provide clinics though BC soccer, and then this extra level of support through Eric and the Whitecaps.”
READ MORE: New coach running Whitecaps soccer academy in Northwest B.C.
Horsburgh said he is happy with the partnership, and the Whitecaps and TYSA have worked out a schedule to allow smooth transition.
“It works nicely where I’m on the field with [TYSA], and then straight after that will be a Whitecaps session,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to that as well, ’cause I’ll get to work with a lot of coaches, which is cool.”
Horsburgh says he’ll be working with U6 to U12 coaches for starters, giving them drill ideas and helping lead practices until the coaches get more confident to lead alone.
TYSA is also looking for a summer student to run the canteen, line soccer fields, and other help in the club on evenings and weekends. See tysa.ca for more.
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