Great things are happening in the Knoxville soccer community! By now most of you have heard the rumors and speculation of the discussions that have been ongoing between the KFC and FC Alliance. I want to give all of you and update and a glimpse of the path for upcoming months. Everyone should understand that this process really began 2 years ago when representatives from KFC, SMSC and Impact met to discuss the possibility of working together to form one club in Knoxville. Everyone recognized at that time that the benefits from such an endeavor were enormous for the young men and women players and the sport of soccer as a whole in this area. At that time Impact and SMSC decided to move forward and form FC Alliance. The underlying idea was to leave everything behind and form something better for players and the soccer community. One year ago the newly formed FC Alliance once again went through a series of meetings with KFC in an attempt to complete the original dream. Approximately 4 weeks ago the coaching Directors of KFC, with the support of their coaching staff,approached FC Alliance to see if we could finally bring the vast majority of the players and coaches together and complete the “Alliance” that was envisioned 2 years ago. I won’t even attempt to relate to you the details of the meetings, discussions, phone calls, and emails that have been involved in these discussions over the last 4 weeks. On Monday night March 15th the KFC board of directors voted to support and release their coaches and players to pursue the transition of all willing teams to FC Alliance. The official KFC letter to their members was released this morning and is posted on their website. Currently all the KFC coaches have committed to joining FC Alliance at tryouts. At this time there is some uncertainty about how and what we can discuss with other parents and players from KFC. We are currently in discussions with TN Soccer about relaxing some of the Policy 26 restrictions to allow for an open dialogue between the 2 clubs. For now ASSUME POLICY 26 IS IN EFFECT. DO NOT INVITE OR RECRUIT ANY PLAYERS FROM KFC OR ANY OTHER CLUB. The stage is now set to finally realize the dream of creating the finest soccer club in Tennessee with over 1000 players of all ages and abilities.
Clearly this process is going to create tremendous challenges and opportunities. I am sure we all can easily envision the benefits of the new larger FC Alliance. I am also sure that many questions immediately come to mind. Who will be my coach? Where will I practice? Who will be on my team? First our fundamental principle to provide the best coaches available to all players of every age and ability will not change. We are working feverishly to develop a comprehensive plan and coaching structure to ensure this principle carried into the future. As these plans are finalized we will be releasing the details and exciting new opportunities for everyone that loves soccer in the Knoxville area. As we begin this transition I would urge you to consider something that has become quite clear over the last few weeks, namely that the coaches and families of the 2 organizations have much more in common than any of us wanted to believe. The intense competition between KFC and FC Alliance over the last couple of years has created a false impression of some type of philosophical canyon between the players and coaches in the two clubs. I am here to tell you that these impressions are almost entirely unfounded and untrue. Essentially we are all just soccer moms, dads and players who love this game. We are coaches who love the game and love teaching it to young players. We all recognize the investment in club soccer is more than just about winning a game, tournament or title. It is about the friendships, the discipline, the hard work and the lessons learned that helps turn soccer players into young men and women that we are proud of and love unconditionally. I know that you join with me in saying: Finally it’s happened!
See you on the pitch,
Randy Denton, President FC Alliance for the Board of Directors and all the Coaches from KFC and FC Alliance.
January 2010 Presidents Letter
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
Presidents Corner
Alliance News September 2009.
Greetings all Soccer Families,
I wanted to take a moment to get everyone up to date on what is happening at FC Alliance. I am sure I will forget some things but as always I want to thank all of you for being a part of FC Alliance. Great things continue to happen as I will briefly outline below and I will put on my president’s hat for a few friendly but firm reminders.
First, what a great tournament we had! Last weekend we had 113 teams compete which I believe is the second largest tournament ever in Knoxville. Overall it was a great success. There are so many people that need to be thanked and invariably someone gets left out but I do want to mention a few people by name. Kim Ryan and again I say Kim Ryan. If you see her you should definitely give her a big hug and thanks. She organized us, sorted us, scored us and sent us out. Great Job Kim! I also want to thank Todd Olson who always works hard at our tournaments and help Kim with all the details. To all the site directors, field marshals, t-shirt sellers etc. I also give my thanks. Thanks to Mancino’s for handling the concessions, Chris Stafford for arranging the AYSO fields, Johnny Long for letting us use his field and our new partner US Cellular for the use of their complex. Finally thanks to all of our families who greeted our guests, picked up a piece of trash, chased a ball into the creek or the bull off the field. We could not do this without everyone’s help.
Second, I hope you have noticed all the field improvements we have made especially at Academy Park. We should have some tall netting up soon (last word we are right at $1000 short to finish the project) to contain all the stray balls. The barrier is up at Carl Cowen, fence repaired at Alliance (should have new gates soon), signs up all over, the fields have been sanded and fertilized and look great. After a one month delay, we should have final approval on our assuming management of the US Cellular complex next month. I would like to mention about scheduling to use the fields. If you want to use or practice on Alliance, Academy, Carl Cowen or Nicholas Ball, you must contact Allen Fincher. Our web site contains a a calendar which includes a field schedule. We are fine tuning the calendar but please go through Finchy. For all US Cellular fields you must contact Mike Kelleher. Once again a calendar will be created to keep up with those fields as well.
Third, I will briefly review the last Board meeting. The finance committee reports that all our bills are paid and up to date. So far with the excellent preseason camp and Fall tournament we should be a little ahead on our budget. Colleen Webb was happy to report that our new web site is up and running. I would encourage all teams to set up their individual pages. Colleen will be happy to meet with you and get you started. The safety committee reminds us : make sure all goals are secured at all times. We should have some more durable sand bags on site everywhere in the next couple of weeks. Alliance Gear is here! You probably saw some at the tournament and it is also available on the web site. Mike Holt and Mike Hamil have finalized our sponsorship program—go forth and find us some sponsors—all donations to the club are tax deductible. Our directors reported that training is going well with the caveat that our increase in players has put some strain on our coaching staff with our coach to player ratio being a little higher that we like in some sessions. We will continue to recruit qualified coaches. Skills and goal keeper training is up and running and I would encourage you to make use of those opportunities. We are also looking to have a club wide meeting (Annual General Meeting) in late October or Early November. If anyone knows of a venue we could use I would appreciate you letting me know. Finally (I will put my president’s hat on) We must collect all club dues by Oct 10. If your team does not pay in full by Oct 10 then we will pull your registration with Tennessee State Soccer and your team will no longer be able to play. Further you will no longer have a coach. I hate to be an Ogre but without the cash flow we cannot maintain the program.
Now for the most exciting news of the day:
Let’s begin with the latest in a long list of incredible opportunities headed our way, Johnny Long’s Training Academy. For years, our club has sought a high quality S.A.Q. training alternative for our membership. Unbelievably, Johnny Long (University of Tennessee Strength and Conditioning Coach) has decided to open up a training facility on Hardin Valley road within a few miles of most of our facilities. The facility already includes a full sized soccer field and ground has recently been broken on a _____ square foot complex to include an indoor turf training facility, state of the art training equipment, a full sized outdoor soccer field, a video camera system for recording games, a video room where teams can review tape of their games, office space that they will allow FC Alliance to use and space from which to sell our gear! Further, they have contacted us and want to form a relationship whereby we would the exclusive “Soccer Club that they support”. They would like to advertise our name on their sign out on Hardin Valley as the “Home of FC Alliance”. This is all quite fantastic! We already have a few teams testing out the training and in the next weeks, Jon Schneider will be getting some of our older teams in front of Johnny Long to see about starting some programs for them ASAP as they work through their fall season. We would then cycle the rest of the membership through some informational meetings…should be a huge win for us!!!!
This is the type of thing that will take all our players and teams to the next level. We are finalizing the details and pricing but I can tell you as someone who has spent a lot of time and money in SAQ type training, this is a tremendous opportunity at incredible value.
Odds and ends: we are continuing to build our relationship with the UT Lady Vols. Two Lady Vols, Kylee Rossi and Alissa Vonderhaar, are now coaching with us and are a great hit with the teams. Don’t forget to use our web site. More and more information is being put on everyday. We are always looking for pictures and brief articles to post. Keep checking the site to keep up on all things Alliance.
See you on the pitch,
Randy for the Board of Directors.
FC Alliance Announces
A Message from Our President, Randy Denton Greetings, Soccer Families, We are pleased and proud to announce that Mike Kelleher, one of our Directors, has accepted a position with West Ham United. WHU is an English Premier League organization. Mike's hard work, dedication to soccer, and talent lead him to this position, which will take him in new and exciting directions. We are very happy for Mike, and look forward to him stepping into his new position. Why, you ask, are we pleased that one of our most qualified and talented Directors and Coaches has accepted another position? It is the same reason we are happy and excited when one of our players graduates to a college soccer team... It means he has the opportunity to work with the EPL team he grew up watching and supporting. It will challenge him and help him grow in new directions, personally and professionally. In addition, we will now have the chance to expose our players here in Knoxville to some of the best coaches and players in the world through our relationship with Mike. His new job includes creating partnerships with local soccer clubs in the United States. This is an amazing opportunity for the FC Alliance teams and players. It will create new learning opportunities and foster communications between clubs and players across the board. Of course, it's also very easy to be excited for Mike and his new job because..... he will continue to coach in our club! Some of the director responsibilities Mike handled will be shifted to other talented staff members, but he is remaining in the local area and will continue to participate in FC Alliance. Specifically Mike will continue all responsibilities with FC Alliance until Dec. 1st. He will assume the role of Director of Coaching education for FC Alliance where his influence will continue to be felt in all age groups and including the Pre Academy. He will continue to Coach our U17 G Black Team.
As a part of this he will immediately begin working with Rico who will be
assuming the responsibilities of the Pre-Academy Director to ensure a smooth transition and continuation of this vital and successful program. This means we will continue reaping the benefits of Mike's vast coaching talent.
As you know, we are always working to refine the FC Alliance soccer experience and to provide the best soccer training program in Tennessee. Mike's new position brings with it both changes and opportunity, and we will be making some changes at FC Alliance to accommodate his new responsibilities, and maximize the potential of our relationship. We will keep you updated on a regular basis as we work out the details. Great things are happening at FC Alliance! Please join us in congratulating Mike! As always I thank you for being a part of this great club. Randy (for the Board of Directors)
