Maine Soccer Roadmap: Tuesday, March 4 (Day No. 50)

   

(This series is the documentation of a 365-day project to help develop more local and regional soccer clubs in Maine, help improve the connectivity among new and existing local and regional clubs in Maine, and cultivate a more purposeful and accessible local --> regional --> state developmental pathway for all of Maine's soccer stakeholders.)

Sent a Maine Soccer Association update e-mail to all of Maine's college coaches, bought 20 tickets to the Portland Hearts of Pine's U.S. Open Cup game on March 20 to distribute to Rosevelt SC directors and directors from other Maine-based clubs, and sent an e-mail to the president of Soccer Maine.

My preference since 2017 has been for Soccer Maine to become a joint association that governed both youth and adult club soccer in Maine, but leadership has consistently balked at the idea--hence the development of the Maine Soccer Association. One of the shortcomings of Maine's soccer ecosystems is we have too many siloes featuring many of the same stakeholders, so the addition of another state association just adds to that problem.

Over the weekend in Atlanta, numerous folks associated with U.S. Soccer or other state associations encouraged a joint association. And after taking an approach that could be described as benign neglect toward the Maine Soccer Association since I incorporated the state association in 2023, Soccer Maine leadership suddenly became concerned about potential confusion with two state associations in the 12 hours leading up to our association's vote during U.S. Soccer's National Council meeting Saturday morning.

So before the Maine Soccer Association begins its work in earnest, I sent one more offer to negotiate the terms of a joint association under the umbrella of Soccer Maine to unify multigenerational programming.

Not optimistic the sentiment will be reciprocal, but at least I've tried. 

Daily Time: 1.5 hours

Total Time: 104.5 hours

Daily Miles: 0 miles

Total Miles: 2,970 miles

Related: Now is a Good Time to Reimagine Maine Soccer (December 11, 2024)