Did you ever have an epiphany? One of those moments where everything crystallizes. That's what happened to me about NCSL in regards to our team. Essentially NCSL has become almost irrelevant to us. I am not trying to demean the relevance of NCSL - just that it's relationship to our team has changed. All of a sudden the real purpose of competing in NCSL is strictly as a vehicle to allow us to participate in State Cup. Since we have already competed in State Cup this year the decision to sit out the Spring 2008 season was an easy one. Virtually all our young men are competing in high school soccer on a daily basis and there is no justifiable reason to extend their bodies with a lot of extra practices and league games.

Does that mean we aren't playing soccer this Spring? Absolutely not. For this last 9 - 12 months this team is together we are focusing on tournaments, Friendlies, scrimmages and anything that will expose our fine athletes to top level competition and the world of college soccer. We are doing a round robin at a Division 3 college that will include a scrimmage with that school's team. We will try to make one last run at State Cup this Fall. We have gone to Florida in December, North Carolina in early February, and played in Virginia Beach and the Maryland Soccerplex this month. In April we have 2 Friendly games and the round robin. In May we have another friendly game and the Potomac Memorial Day tournament. Still a pretty busy schedule but one geared to our needs.

We will attend as a team the elite camp at GW University again this summer the last week in July and our athletes will be attending camps this summer at schools they are hoping to attend and play for.

As I looked out on the field this weekend and watched the absolutely wonderful soccer we played I thought to myself - not too bad for a team that had to work its way up from Division 6! Are we the top team in the country - of course not. We are a very elite team however that plays the beautiful game well. I hope in the short time we have left as a team everyone will take a step back from all the cheering, playing, yelling at the refs, and yes - thinking the coach is an idiot - to just enjoy what we are and what we have accomplished. Think of all the teams that never made it and folded. This ride is going to be over before you know it.