What is CASL? What is CASL Challenge?

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.

What is CASL Challenge?

The CASL Challenge Division is a self-contained league within CASL where teams are picked through a tryout system and play all of their regular season games against other CASL challenge teams. The first age bracket in the challenge division is at the Under 10 years old age bracket. There are single year age brackets to Under 18. as in recreation, Under 10's play 6 v 6 including a goalkeeper, Under 11's and 12's play 8 v 8 including a goalkeeper and Under 13 and older play 11 v 11 soccer. Coaches in the CASL Challenge Division are unpaid and many are parents of players on the teams. Challenge teams are geographically based as there are teams from Raleigh, Cary/Apex/Morrisville, Wake Forest and Garner.

CASL Challenge teams practice twice per week and usually play a game on the weekend, primarily scheduled on Sunday. Coaches are required by their second year coaching to have a USSF D Coaching License or an equivalent. The major tryout for Challenge teams occurs at the end of May into early June. Teams are formed at this time for the following fall season. Players are allowed to stay on their teams from season to season and do not need to tryout if they were on the team the season before (there are exceptions to this when teams are contracted and in a few other cases). There is also a supplemental tryout between the fall and spring season that occurs in December every year. Parity is the main premise of the division as teams are drafted fairly from all geographical areas. Teams in the Challenge division also participate in out of town tournaments including the NC Youth Soccer Association State Cup.

CASL's Challenge division usually has about 140 teams and 2,000 players seasonally. There is more information on the CASL web site about challenge soccer. The main CASL office staff that deal with the Challenge Division are Ann Gordon, Challenge Administrator, anng@caslemail.com and Rob Andrews, Director of Challenge, roba@caslemail.com.

For the third straight summer, CASL will take groups of challenge players to a foreign country to compete. These teams have played in Sweden, Denmark, Spain and England thus far. This summer' teams have been already picked and they will be competing in Sweden near the arctic circle in late June and early July. This exciting new program highlights the learning experience of going abroad with a great soccer experience. For more information, please see the CASL web site! 

                                                                Charlie Slagle