tryouts - june 10-11-12, 2011

MEET THE VARSITY

RHINOS!

 

We finally finished up the Varsity team roster.  We are looking forward to spending a lot of time with these young men ages 14-17.  Many of these young men are leaving full-time jobs participate in the program.

MEET THE JV RHINOS!


It has been a long, tough couple of days of tryouts.  The first team has been set, with 15 special kids making the JV team (ages 11, 12, 13).  More than 50 kids this age showed up for tryouts, and we are proud to announce the final 15!


 

 

SHOES WORN TO TRYOUTS:

During our 3 days of tryouts, i kept noticing the different types of shoes that the boys wore.  I see them all the time here, playing outside on the playground, etc, but it was different to see them in the gym.  Knowing how much these tryouts meant to them, it seemed to hit me harder that they literally had no other options.  I thought back about my own "career" as an athlete, and how important my seasonal shoes were!  I can't wait to get these kids in some quality soccer shoes.  As good as they play in rubber boots and sandals, I can't imagine how good they'll play in a sweet pair of Nikes...

 

Here's some pics of some of the shoes worn to tryouts...

 

 

SOME PICTURES FROM TRYOUTS:

 

 

 

HANDING OUT FLYERS FOR TRYOUTS:


Mynor giving out a tryout flyer
Mynor giving out a tryout flyer

On June 10, 11, and 12 we will hold tryouts for our 24 boy roster.  We have been handing out flyers all over town and we're expecting a huge turnout.

 

Prayer request:  please pray that God alone forms our 24 boy roster!  We hope to have kids from all different walks of life...  in school, out of school...  good kids, rough kids...  kids who know Jesus, kids who don't.

 

It was a tough decision to form the team by "tryouts", but Mynor and I ended up deciding that it was the best way.  While the program will be open to ALL the kids in the village through seasonal leagues and activities, we need the core program to be a controlled, smaller number of kids.  It is impossible to "go deep" with 1,000 kids, so we had to find a way to form a smaller team.

 

We decided to hold tryouts for the following reasons:

 

1 - with tryouts, we will naturally end up with kids from different backgrounds.  we just couldn't figure out another way to make this possible, without arbitrarily picking kids.

 

2 - because of Mynor's background as a competitive soccer coach, we believe God will use his abilities of highly competitive and intense training as a means to teach character, work ethic, and teamwork. this approach makes sense with good athletes.

 

3 - with so many friends in the village, we simply could not justify "why" we picked certain boys and not others.  fair tryouts eliminate that issue.

 

So, we have invited all kids from ages 11-17 out for a 3 day tryout.  Our goal for this first year is to stagger the ages so that each future year we can graduate 3-5 kids and bring 3-5 new kids on board.  The idea being to (eventually) allow each boy to have 5 full years in the program.

 

Our hope and prayer is that those 5 years give enough time for tranformational change.  Certain concepts like following Jesus, respecting & honoring women, developing skills and accomplishing goals, and serving your neighbors...  take so much time to develop. 

 

We believe that if these boys can hear about these things for the 5 years of their lives that lead to adulthood, they will have a real chance.  But we know the results won't happen quickly, so we are clinging to Galatians 6:9 as our ministry verse!

 

"Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up."

 

Please join us in prayer as we prepare for the tryouts!!