Entry #2

What is CASL? What is CASL Recreation?

CASL is a non-profit 501 c 3 company and has been in existence since 1974. CASL’s mission is to provide youth soccer playing opportunities in Wake County. We like to say that CASL stands for Character, Attitude, Success and Love of the Game!

            CASL has three main playing divisions that form a pyramid of participation. Any one season CASL has 8,000+ players playing the game through the organization. Another 1,000 players play only one season so there are 9,000+ playing members of CASL on a yearly basis. The base of the pyramid is the Recreation Division with has about 5,000 players playing seasonally. The next level of the pyramid is the challenge division with about 2,000 players per season. The top of the pyramid numerically is the classic division which has about 1,000 players playing seasonally.

           

The recreational division starts play at Under 5 years old (the player must turn 5 between August 1 and July 31 during the fall to spring playing seasons to be eligible to play) and goes through Under 18/19 years old (seniors in high school for the most part). CASL Recreation plays in single year age brackets up to the high school age where the age brackets are two year brackets. The Mini-kickers (Under 5 and 6) play once per week on Saturdays and it is a training session that culminates in 3 v 3 playing amongst the team members. The U7’s and 8’s play 4 v 4, without a goalkeeper in a modified four goal system which is unique to CASL. The Under 9’s and 10’s play 6 v 6, including a goalkeeper. At the U9 and 10 age brackets, CASL for the first time keeps track of scores and standings. At the Under 11 and 12 age brackets the teams play 8 v 8 including goalkeepers. At Under 13 and older, all teams play on a full field and play 11 v 11.

            Coaches are volunteers and most are a parent of one of the players on the team. CASL provides coaching assistance through its Director of Recreation, Jim Wright (jimw@caslemail.com) via coaching clinics, blogs and answering of e-mails. All recreation teams, except mini-kickers have one practice per week and usually a game on the weekend. Eight games are considered a full schedule.

            Recreation teams are formed by CASL’s two Recreation administrators, Lorraine Qualle and Vicki Rohde (lorraineq@caslemail.com and vickir@caslemail.com). Teams are formed by geography. This is done to allow for practices (CASL schedules practice sites as well as game sites) and games to take place near the player’s home. This also helps provide parity to the league as no special requests for placement are accepted. Players must play in their age brackets and cannot play down an age bracket nor play up unless the child is in a grade ahead of their age bracket peers. Parents of children in this situation can decide whether their child will play with their age bracket or their grade. CASL will try to place the grade-appropriate children with their grade if there are spaces available at that age bracket.