Salt Lake Old Boys Soccer Club: My Site News

Please note that the following game scheduled for today, Tuesday, May 21, 2013 has been postponed and rescheduled as shown below:

League: GSLSL (Men's Open) Field: Seventeenth South Park Start: 6/10/13 7:00 PM Duration: 115 minutes Game: 9486: Salt Lake Old Boys 2 vs Pan World FC 3

Follow up referee death

May 6, 2013

To our Membership,

Most of you are probably already aware of the incident that happened with a referee in an unaffiliated league.  Sadly that referee passed away last Saturday evening.  I am writing this letter to all of you and requesting that you pass it on to all of your club members.

The incident went viral, and during this past week I have had a lot of phone calls and e-mails from every part of this country wanting to know if this happened as part of our Association.  I was pleased to be able to tell them that “no,” it did not, but occurred in one of the unaffiliated leagues which exist in every part of this country.  A general observation that we have gathered over time is that governance within these types of leagues is at most times mediocre at best, which may lead to a higher likelihood of incidents that in this case turned tragic!

We pride ourselves on keeping our Association within the Bylaws and Rules of Competition as set forth.  We have been fortunate that we have not had very serious incidents for a number of years, and it is our intent to keep it that way.  Whether an incident is “player vs. referee” or “player vs. player” it makes no difference if it becomes an assault or anything else that is extreme.

With this tragic incident, soccer in this State will be under the microscope for quite a while, whether it is an unaffiliated league or an affiliated league, as the general public does not know the difference between the two.   As the official governing body for adult soccer of the United States Soccer Federation, it is our intent to take a proactive approach in assuring that our Association and its members behave as proper citizens promoting and supporting sportsmanship, and punishing violent behavior with strong consequences.  To continue to protect our members and officials, our Board of Directors will take the current circumstances as an opportunity to review our current policies and rules to see if adjustments need to be made.

Not only are people from the local media looking at this, it is also being followed by National news channels, so we need to consider the entities from which we rent our field space and be very careful moving forward.   In addition to avoiding or stopping violence, a very important issue is the usage of field space and our ability to rent the space from whatever entity owns it.   This incident occurred at Eisenhower Junior High, which is part of the Granite School District.  Our guess is that the school district will be taking a close look at their renting policies moving forward and that they won’t be the only ones doing it.  All of you are aware that we are not high in the pecking order for field space in any community.  Let’s not give anyone an excuse to remove us from more fields, by keeping our noses clean and respecting these facilities.

It is important that every member of our Association understands the severity of the current circumstances.  What this means to us:

1.     You may disagree with a game official – walk away and don’t say anything, as difficult as that may be.

2.     Someone fouls you - let the game officials decide how to handle it, not you.

3.     Have the courage to walk away from a bad situation instead of challenging it.

4.     Do not fight somebody else’s fight.  If there is a problem keep it between the two people involved and let the officials deal with it, not you running across half the field to become part of the problem.

5.     Obey the laws of the park, school or other fields.  In this case, and in particular within Salt Lake & Utah County, alcohol is not allowed.  Do not jeopardize our playing privileges over a bottle of beer.

6.     Always, and this means always, pick up any trash after your game, even if it isn’t yours.  Leave it in better shape that what it looked like when you showed up for the game.  Bring trash bags along with your net and corner flags.

7.     Refrain from foul and abusive language, in particular when there are children present.  You should be fully aware of your surroundings before you start playing.  Be a good citizen.

8.     Sportsmanship and Respect are fundamental parts of this game that should always be part of your game.

On behalf of our entire Board of Directors I thank you for taking the time to read this letter and thank you for passing this information on to your members.

Sincerely,

Bill Bosgraaf, President

I have been informed that in order for this process to go smoothly there are a few things you must know:

 1. you must use either Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers as they have been having issues with Internet Explorer.

2. you must start the process by first going to utahsoccer.org and clicking on the yellow "online registration" button and not going directly to the sportzing website.

3. similar to #2; if for what ever reason you have to log off before finishing the online registration process, you must go through the utahsoccer.org website to link back onto and finish you registration. If you try to log back on directly to the sportzing website it will not work. SO my advise is not to stop and complete the entire registration process.

4.make sure you already have a digital picture of youself (head and shoulder), already saved somewhere on your computer so you don't have to stop in the middle of the process to take the picture and risking the problems discribed in #3. No hats, sunglasses or cars for you picture.

5.be aware that the process is 3 steps - 1. pesonal info and account setup, 2. choosing the team you'll be playing with and 3. payment. NOW, about step #2 (choosing your team) make sure you sellect the appropriate Salt Lake Old Boys  team and not Salt Lake Soccer Club or any other team that has the words "Salt Lake" in the title. We will tell you which team to register for so please wait until that time.

6.In addition to step 5, please save you ID and password after you setup your Sportzing account as you will need it next year. Those of you who are returning players and completed the online registration last year, I hope you still have you ID and password. I think I can find your ID but you will have to contact Sportzing to get help with the password.  We will let you know more about this later.

The start of the 2012 season is upon us so here are a few things that I need to bring to your attention:

1 – League office is hoping to start league play on April 14

2 – Online registration will soon be up and running so keep checking this website for updates. Hopefully it’s easier than it was last year but just incase the process is the same I’ve kept the instructions from a post last year listed below.

3 – Everyone knows that we play in the spring so this should be no surprise to anyone so hopefully you have been planning and saving for this season.  I say this because we will have to collect ALL Ref fees prior to start of season or we simply will not be scheduled for league play. If the league doesn’t backup this threat, DJ and I will. Both he and I ran into some problems last year with our very supportive but quickly becoming impatient wife’s, so if you do not have ref fees paid in-full you will not play. As it is every year count on ref fees being right around $90.00 PER TEAM you register for.  If you register for two teams (e.g. D-3 and O-35) the Ref fee will be $90 x 2 = $180.00

4 – Because of the news above we may lose some players to only one team so I’m sure there will be space for new players. If you have friends please invite them to our preseason and do all you can to get them to join.

5 – I have spoken to another Club and they want to scrimmage next Saturday 3/17 around 10 – 11 am so please plan on this. I do need phone calls during this weekend or early next week (FROM EVERYONE), letting me know if you can or can not make it. I need a count of heads. Please invite your friends.

6 – About kicking the ball around tomorrow Saturday 3/10, I received only 5 confirmations so I’m canceling tomorrow. However, if the 5 players still want to get together please call me in the morning because I for one would really like to kick the ball around and I'm sure we can work something out. This would be my first time back on the field since my knee surgery last fall so I’m just dying to get on the pitch.

Most of you have already received an email to start your online registration. Those of you who have not please expect a call from DJ, if you don't hear from him by Sunday please call him on Monday. We have a lot of good people signing up and we are trying to make decisions based on player playing time and still being a competitive team for both our D3 and D4 teams. 

Concerning our uniforms this year, we did not get all our shorts back and we no longer can find the right color socks. We will provide most of you with the shorts from last year but just incase we run out, the back-up plan is that you provide your own shorts which we are asking you they be Black this for all teams D4,D3 and O35.  D4 and D3 if you can find black with neon yellow trim even better. With that said, we hope we have enough for everyone.

Now about the socks, unless you have your socks from last year you'll need to wear black (again this is for all teams). D4 and D3 like I mentioned above if you can find black socks with neon yellow even better. I did find some black with neon yellow at Team Gear International located on State Street. I believe they were Adidas. O35 just stay with black.

It’s finally here!!!

This is the latest notification from league office that I received just today,

PLEASE READ! - If you are not sure what team you are registering for (D-1, D-3, D-4 or O-35) please call DJ at 801-849-8694

PLAYER REGISTRATION: Please read this message from our developer before starting:

 1. If anyone complains that it isn't working, or they just see a white screen, ask them to refresh the page. If that doesn't work, try holding the SHIFT key down and reloading the page. And if it still doesn't work, then restarting their browser or computer could be tried. 

2. Uploading photos to crop them is SLOW. It takes about 10 - 15 seconds for the image to show up in the cropper once you pick it. I will be looking into ways to speed this up. The bigger issue however is that there is no indicator on the screen that the site is doing something. So people might think it isn't working, when it really is. I'm going to certainly be adding a "busy spinner" to this screen. 

Of course, if you have any problems at all, please let me know. This is very early release software, so issues could certainly come up. I don't think there are going to be any serious roadblocks, but I need to know about all problems to prevent that.

 ***************************************************************************************************************************

a.    All players from either the 2010 season or new players will be able to register to their team(s) in two ways:1.            On-line 2.            In person at the office

b.    Instructions for online registration are as follows: 

c.    It is preferred that you link to the Utah Soccer Association website either via Google Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer (latest version – old version may not work for you).  AOL could also cause some problems for you at this time.

d.    Go to registration – Player Registration

e.    Fill out the "Personal Sportzing Account"

f.     Your Password will need to be a minimum of 8 characters and must include capitalization and numbers.

g.    After entering the information and submitting it, you should immediately receive a confirmation on the e-mail account that you entered.  It will direct you back to your Sportzing account with your Activation Code.  This will be your code to access your account from here on.  It is also listed at the end of the http: address within the confirmation e-mail.  Please record your codes somewhere safe.

h.    Next Page - Fill out your profile information and submit.  You will also need to submit a photo which can be dragged from a personal file.  The photo will be displayed on the left side of the screen and it allows you to crop the photo.  Please crop it so your face fills the entire space on the membership card photo space.  The photo must be a normal frontal shot, no sunglasses or hat, cap, etc.  Basically, passport style photo. 

i.      Next Page - Register to your team(s) and submit.

j.      This process is done in a “shopping cart” mode wherein you can click drag your choices.  By entering part of the team name, you should be able to see all of the options available within that club and other clubs which may have similar wording.  Make sure that you pay attention to the team name and its division, as some teams may have similar names in different leagues.

k.    Please be aware that the team listed at the top of your shopping cart will be your primary team, meaning that this is the main team that you are registering for.

l.      Any additional teams to which you are registering will be listed in the order that you entered.  Within your shopping cart, teams can be shuffled around if you need to change priorities by dragging it into a new position.  This becomes important if two of the teams, to which you are registered, meet each other in a competition such as the Utah Open Cup.  The higher selected team on your player pass will be the team which you will be assigned to within the team’s game roster.

m.   At the bottom, both player registration and team fees will be added up.  Once you are satisfied with your entries you can click the bar on the bottom of the page to accept your information.

n.    Next, go back to the registration page where you will be able to select the Method of Payment. 

o.    Once there, you can decide whether to pay by credit card or otherwise.  Please keep in mind that any payment other than a credit card will delay the issuance of your pass until that payment is received at the office.  If paying by credit card, fully complete all of the required information. 

p.    Upon completion you have a choice of paying the full amount or to pay in two installment payments. This means you immediately will be charged half of the total amount due and the second payment will automatically be charged to your credit card account in the next month or approximately 30 days.  Upon completing the payment selection you are now finished with your registration.

q.    If you registered for a single team, we will distribute your pass to the team representative prior to your first game.

r.     If you registered for multiple teams, we will distribute your pass to the team which has the earliest game.  You may have to follow up with your team representative(s) to make sure your pass is with the correct team.

s.   Game officials will take all rostered passes prior to the game and return them afterwards upon completion of their “on-field” paperwork.  Under no circumstances is there ever a reason for a game official to keep your pass!  t.      Completed player registrations will be reviewed by the Association office before releasing the registration to the team manager for their approval.