Bob Long has been part of Dartmouth Youth Soccer Association for nearly two decades. First a parent on the sidelines, then as a coach, and now, for the past eight years, the president.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His oldest daughter is now on the board as concession director. She started playing when she was four, and he started coaching with his youngest daughter the following year \u2014 all the way through college. The youngest is now an athletic trainer and worked with the club team for a while, with his wife helping out too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a family affair for us,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m here every Saturday cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Aug. 16, Long and the rest of the association celebrated that spirit of community with their third block party. The event featured live music, games, bounce houses, a water sprinkler, farm animals and, of course, plenty of soccer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a great way to get the kids together before the season,\u201d said parent Kristine Ferreira. \u201cIt\u2019s just a great association. It\u2019s like a big family. The director\u2019s great, always looking out for the kids and their best interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
Children spent the afternoon kicking balls around, playing games and bouncing between activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to kick the ball a lot,\u201d said six-year-old Nora Rapoza.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to get the goals,\u201d added her teammate, Raelynn Medeiros, also 6, noting she had scored some this season. Both said the bounce houses were their favorite part of the day, though Rapoza made sure to mention she also enjoyed \u201cthe water sprinkler thingy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For 7-year-old Owen Ferreira, the soccer practice jokes from his coach were the highlight of his last season as he would ask, \u201cHow many cookies did you eat?\u201d when the kids were running slow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And like many of the kids, his favorite part of the block party was \u201cthe bouncy house and the farm animals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long said this year\u2019s block party continues a tradition that began before the pandemic. The first event was held to celebrate teams at the state championship, then returned last year for the association\u2019s 40th anniversary.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt went well, so we decided to do it annually,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The celebration comes on the heels of a successful spring season. \u201cWe had a very good spring season, had about 550 to 600 kids in our rec program and club program and travel program,\u201d Long said. \u201cOur rec program is doing fantastic. Our numbers show that. We have a very strong club presence. We have a very strong town presence.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the fall season set to begin, Long said he expects participation to continue growing. And while organizing soccer for hundreds of children can be exhausting, \u201ceight weeks straight in the spring and eight weeks in the fall,\u201d he said it\u2019s all worth it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing this a long time, so we\u2019re very good at it,\u201d Long said. \u201cThis is something we really enjoy doing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bob Long has been part of Dartmouth Youth Soccer Association for nearly two decades. First a parent on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,50097,561,82],"class_list":["post-83683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrating-another-year-with-the-dartmouth-youth-soccer-association","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}