January 18, 2010

Greetings Soccer Friends and Families,

            Would you believe that great things continue to happen at FC Alliance? I have to admit sometimes I am amazed at how fortunate we are to be a part of such a great organization. I am convinced that when you build a great team of people from the Board, to the coaches, managers, and the players themselves success will follow. I want to give all of you a brief update from "the top" about many of the exciting things happening at your club-FC Alliance. By the way, if you are not getting our weekly or so club news email (masterfully overseen by Colleen Webb) please go to our website and sign up. If you have news about your team, please send it to her. We want everyone to feel that they are a part of something more than just one team. We want to share your success with the whole club.

            First, I am asking for you support of our pre-academy. We have a fancy new brochure that will be going out very shortly. I will attach a copy to this letter. Share this with you friends who have children from 6 to 8 years old. Clearly the future growth and success of the club starts in the pre-academy. Under the new direction of Brazilian Coach Claudio Rico, we have a great program in place. I guarantee that any child or family you send his way will thank you for the positive and fun experience. Here are a few "bullet points" about our program:

·                     Program has grown from about 50 in the fall of 2008 to 125 this past fall

·                     Would like to have 200 kids involved

·                     Great feeder program for the club and if we do a great job in the Pre Academy it makes for natural teams at the U8 age group

·                     Super value at $125 to include 2 Shirts and professional coaching

·                     Lady Vols, former FC Alliance "graduates" and other great coaches involved

·                     Rico will be leading this spring...Brazilian superstar and general nice guy 

·                     Same convenient schedule for parents who can select from 3 sights and 3 nights per week a practice schedule that fits their schedule

·                     All Saturday game days come with a "Weatherproof Guarantee" as they will be held at Johnny Long Training Academy in the Indoor/Outdoor Turf Facility

Secondly, our new home is almost ready! Many of you have seen the new indoor facility at Johnny Long's. We are excited that futsal will be starting up this week and soon we will have an office and meeting room for our use at this new facility. I encourage all of you to make use of this excellent training opportunity offered to our club. I would encourage you to talk to any of our players who have trained with Mr Long and his staff. They are top notch and very professional.

Thirdly I want to share with you some upcoming changes in our excellent staff. Some of you may have heard that our Academy Director, Allan Fincher, will be returning to his home in Texas at the end of the spring season. We all understand how having children changes our perspective. Allen and his wife have decided to return closer to home with their young daughter to be closer to their extended family. While we will certainly miss his excellent coaching and even his unique personality, we certainly wish him nothing but the best. But we are not finished with him yet. His is currently working on a comprehensive curriculum for our academy and he has the opportunity to work closely for the next 6 months with his successor, Australian born, Steven Townley. For those of you who don't know Steven we will be sending out a full bio on him in the next couple of weeks. But in brief he is a former professional soccer player from Australia who currently teaches elementary school in Loudon County. We feel that his demeanor, his background in educating young students and his soccer expertise make him uniquely qualified to fill the position of Academy Director. You will be seeing a lot of him on the pitch in the next few months. Take the time to get to know him, I feel confident you will be impressed.

Fourthly, I hope you have taken the time to follow our website and note the remarkable success we had in the fall at the state tournament or if you prefer just look at the state web site and note how many FC Alliance teams are listed. For a club that is only 18 months old, we have had tremendous success at all levels. Our fall tournament was a great success. We continue to believe that we have a group of coaches and players second to none! We continue to support the best coaching staff anywhere. We continue to believe there is a place for everyone who loves the game at FC Alliance.

Lastly some odds and ends, we continue to work toward our goal of lighting a second field at Alliance Park. We are looking forward to the opportunity and challenge of managing the US Cellular complex of fields. We are already planning summer camps and tryouts. (dates are on the club calendar) We are still planning on having a club wide meeting in the near future. ( Yes it's my fault it has been delayed-I have just been so busy in my real job that I haven't gotten the details worked out). We are looking forward to a great spring season. Our 2 college showcases are fully booked with great teams-we even had to turn away some teams. For our younger teams, be sure and come out and watch some really great soccer. The building process is already underway for the spring tournament. One final note I want you to be aware of. I received a note from a very pleasant fellow from FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) who said there has been some confusion because of the similarity of our two names especially if abbreviated (FCA vs FCA?). I would ask that you do not use the abbreviation FCA. Please always specify FC Alliance.

            I know all of us have been deeply moved by the tragedy in Haiti. Many of you know that one of our long time coaches, Luc Dessieux, is from Haiti and his father is a long time minister in that country. The Rev. Dessieux is organizing relief through his ministry in southern Florida. I have included below a note from Luc about his father's efforts and I am sure any help you may choose to send will be greatly appreciated.

Dear John,
Thank you so much for your offer to help. Any help to Haiti means so much to us. We are still waiting to hear from our relatives, only heard back from one uncle and he is fine. My father is the main Haitian minister in Miami and he has a mission set up. They will be sending packages down to Haiti starting next week. They are still collecting donations/supplies. If anyone is interested in helping they can either send money directly to his mission and they will purchase stuff in Miami and ship to Haiti. They can also send any clothes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, meds (tylenol, advil, etc) to Miami and they will send it to Haiti.  My father's name is Rev. Luc Dessieux, checks can be written to Bethesda Haitian United Methodist Mission, the address is 6901 NW 70 Ave. Tamarac, FL 33321 (they can provide you tax exempt paper). Put it to ATT: Rev Luc Dessieux

THANK YOU ALL and  God bless.

Luc Dessieux, MS

 See you on the pitch,

Randy