All,
We are under 2 weeks left in the regular seasons. And the crazy week (3 home games) is behind us. It was a strong week of performances by all teams, and really a fun week with Varsity sweeping the district with a 4-0 win over Frederick Douglass, earning the #1 seed for the 42nd District Tournament. As all teams continue to learn and grow, I would like to remind all players and parents that playing for HC is a privilege, and grades and behavior must be on par with what we expect from a Henry Clay Boys Soccer student-athlete. I have spoken with several students this week about both grades and immature behaviors. Behavior - both on and off the field - are reflections of the program as a whole and will be dealt with by warnings, suspensions from the squad, or dismissal if that is what is warranted. Grades - must be passing at least 4 classes and holding a 2.0 GPA. Failure to meet those requirements will result in a week's suspension until grades are up. COOKIE DOUGH WRAP All cookie dough money and forms should have been submitted this week. If anyone still has forms/money they need to contact Betty today with those numbers so that she can get them ordered, and submit the money and form to me tomorrow at school. By all metrics the fundraiser was a success. Now we just have to deliver the dough when it comes in - in about 2 weeks. VARSITY Overnight Trip to Paducah:1. FOOD ORDERS FOR PADUCAH 1. Link: https://forms.gle/uRqZhGXwaQt3gPW58 Varsity players, fill out the Google Form above to order your meals for the Paducah trip. 2. Click here for Itinerary for Paducah SEPTEMBER RESTAURANT FUNDRAISER NIGHT: Bear & the Butcher Dine in at Bear & the Butcher on September 21 on Euclid Ave in Chevy Chase. If you mention Henry Clay Boys Soccer at checkout, they will donate a portion of proceeds to the program. For any interested parents, we'll plan to gather for happy hour during JV practice 5:30-7:00. Or plan to come have dinner with your family. Hours: 4:00pm-9:00pm. JV B Season Wrap JV B are finishing up their final official games today, as I type this email. They will continue to practice the next 2 weeks, and culminate with an inter-squad scrimmage on Friday 9/29 at 7:30pm at Henry Clay, following the JV A Regional Tournament game vs. Lexington Catholic. They will wear their mint-colored warm up shirts for the game, and have their uniform kits ready to turn in prior to the match. Schedule 9/18/23 - 9/25/23 9/18 (M) Training 4:30pm-6:00pm Varsity (Turf) 9/18 (M) Training 5:30pm-7:00pm JVs (Turf) 9/19 (T) JV A v. Elizabethtown @ Clay 6:15pm 9/19 (T) Varsity v. Elizabethtown @ Clay 8:00pm 9/20 (W) Training 3:45-5:15pm Varsity (Turf) 9/20 (W) Training 5:30pm-7:00pm JVs (Grass) 9/21 (Th) All Teams OFF (HC Parent Night) 9/22 (F) JVs Teams OFF (Varsity Travel to Paducah) 9/22 (F) Varsity Match v. Eureka (MO) 8:00pm CST @Lone Oak Middle School (Paducah, KY) 9/23 (Sa) Varsity Match v. St. Patrick’s (Chicago, IL) 1:00pm CST @ McCracken County High School (Paducah, KY) 9/24 (Su) All Teams OFF - Coach Behler All,
By all metrics the Varsity soccer overnight camping trip was a success. Sleep was the only commodity not in abundance. Thank you to all parents who helped to organize, drive, get food together, and lend equipment. I believe the only casualty of the trip was the zipper on the Blanche's tent bag. If you lent any equipment that hasn't yet been returned, please reach out and let me know. I have a few things still in the back of my car. Training tomorrow will be 6:30am for all teams. JV will meet on the turf but will train on the grass, as we are letting girls soccer use half field. (The afternoon heat and t-storms have not been kind to their trainings.) We will do pictures afterwards (on the grass field). Please bring you blue kits for pictures - jersey, shorts, and socks (with cleats). There will be ample time for players to change clothes, do their hair and makeup, oil up, whatever they need to do between practice and pics. Finally, if you still have paperwork for Betty (she would have emailed you) please get that in ASAP. Thank you, Coach Behler The JV teams have been announced for all players that have completed their tryouts. You can check the team on the website: https://henryclaysoccer.weebly.com/rosters.html
Check Rosters for Spelling Errors Please check the rosters on the HCHS Boys Soccer webpage to make sure your names are spelled correctly. If there are any errors, please email [email protected] TeamSnap All new players and parents should have received an invite today to sign up for HCHS Boys Soccer TeamSnap. We sent out the invitations to all family members that were listed on the registration signups. Please review that information and make any edits or additions of family members as needed. If your player did not receive an invite to TeamSnap please send an email to [email protected] and we’ll update your information and resend the invite. Varsity Camping Trip The Varsity overnight camping trip to Red River Gorge is all set for next Wednesday, July 26, 2023. We will meet at HC at 2:30, and try to depart by 3:00pm, and we will be back noon on Thursday, July 27. More details and an itinerary will come in a TeamSnap message to varsity players and families only. All varsity players are expected to attend this trip. Please clear your schedules. Next Week's Schedule Monday 7/24 - 6:30am-8:00am TRAINING (BOTH JV teams) 6:30am-9:30am TRAINING (Varsity) Tuesday 7/25 - 6:30am-8:00am TRAINING (BOTH JV teams) 6:30am-9:30am TRAINING (Varsity) 8:30am KIT HANDOUT (following training) 6:00pm-8:00pm WELCOME MEETING AND POTLUCK Wednesday 7/26 - 6:30am-8:00am TRAINING (BOTH JV teams) 2:30pm CAMPING TRIP (Varsity players meet in HC parking lot - by tennis courts) Thursday 7/27 - ALL teams OFF 12:00pm Varsity team returns from camping Friday 7/28 - 6:30am-8:00am (BOTH JV teams) 6:30am-9:00am (Varsity) 9:00am PICTURE DAY (all teams) Saturday 7/29 - JV A match @ Great Crossing 6:00pm - Varsity match @ Great Crossing 7:30pm Sunday 7/30 - OFF Tomorrow's (Friday 7/21) intersquad scrimmage at 6:30am is for Varsity players, and JV players that we have reached out to fill in for our missing varsity players. No JV Training. Great first week of training on all levels! Thank you, Coach Behler Parents & Players,
I want to start by thanking everyone who participated in tryouts. Unfortunately, we did have to make cuts at all three levels this year, and that is always the most difficult part of this job for me and my coaching staff. Below I have listed this year's Varsity players. Congratulations to everyone on this list, as this was the most competitive tryout and the best quality top to bottom I have seen in 21 years coaching at Henry Clay. All JV players (A and B teams) have been notified that they made a squad. We still need some time to figure out who is going to be on which team, though if you are a middle school player you can assume it will be JV B. We will be trying to pin those designations down by the end of training tomorrow or Wednesday, and those rosters will follow as soon as we have completed them. Lost of important announcements after the varsity roster so please read all the way through!!! 2023 Varsity Squad Diego Sanchez Noah Tinch Griffith Richardson Layth Rahman David Chindo Nash Florence Nate Adkins Drew Ballesteros Curtis Blanche Lawson Shrensker James Clay Daniel Grider Jack Clifford Ethan Long Marco Messerli Luke Rogers Elliott Tiennot Jose Flores Connor Taylor Henry Crawford Ari Agouridis Sam Shapiro Will Potter Nathan Harvey Braden Cundiff Espoir Dieudonne Jacques Baguma SEASON KICKOFF POTLUCK & INFO MEETING We will hold a potluck dinner & information meeting for parents and players Tuesday, July 25 at 6:00 pm in the Cafeteria at Henry Clay. All players and at least one parent should plan to attend. A lot of information will be coming your way during this meeting. Potluck Assignments: Please bring the following: Seniors & Juniors: side dish Sophomores: fruit, cold veggie, or salad item Middle schoolers & freshman with last name beginning: A-G: dessert H-Z: case of bottled water CONCESSIONS DONATIONS Each year we ask all families to participate in donating items to the concession stand. These donations help us maximize our profits and raise money for the program. Below is a list of assignments of items to donate. Please refer to the attached pictures of the items being requested or click here. Donations not sold through the concessions stand will be used for soccer related functions and activities throughout the year. Please bring your donations to the Potluck & Kickoff Meeting. If you would prefer, we are glad to do the shopping. You can donate gift cards for Kroger, Sam's Club or GFS, or you can Venmo $20 to Betty Harvey @BettyCap73. If Venmo asks for the last 4 digits of the phone #, they are 9987.
SPIRITWEAR The spiritwear sale is open and will continue through Monday, July 24. We know this comes up quickly, but the sooner the sales window ends, the sooner merchandise will arrive. Items are available through two online stores. One is sponsored by BSN and contains the Nike merch. (Link: https://bsnteamsports.com/shop/fRavRSksHR). Additional items are available through the TEAM STORE on our website including several Henry Dry Goods items, stadium seats, tumblers, & car decals. Questions about spiritwear? Email Jamie Florence at [email protected]. PRACTICE JERSEYS Players will need to purchase a set of PRACTICE JERSEYS. The practice jerseys are the same as last year's. If you have yours from last year, you do not need to purchase new ones. Due to limited quantities, please purchase a maximum of 1 set. We will hand practice jerseys out to players at practice this week. We are finalizing arrangements with a new sponsor for a warmup shirt/3rd practice jersey. More news soon. SOCKS Field players will need a pair of royal and a pair of white GAME SOCKS. You can purchase these from the TEAM STORE. We offer them as a convenience to you; you are not required to purchase them from the team store. Note that because we are now a Nike program, varsity game socks must be Nike or have no visible logo. Also, they must be solid with no visible stripes or color blocking. JV Players may wear Nike or Adidas socks in games (or socks without logos). If you already own other brands of socks, it is ok to wear them to practice. Keepers will receive their socks at kit hand-out. SEASON PASSES You can purchase season passes from the TEAM STORE. From ticket sales at the gate, we receive a fraction of the proceeds. From season passes, we receive 100%. Season passes are a great way to save money and support the team. $40 Individual $60 Parent/Children $110 Family Season Passes are good for admission to all regular season Henry Clay Boys Soccer home games. Passes are not limited to parents and guardians of players. Other family members and friends are welcome to purchase passes. We won't issue pass cards this year. Season pass holders will just need to give their names at the gate for admission. Note that players are admitted free to all regular season matches (i.e JV-A&B players get into Varsity matches free, and vice versa). 2023 SPIRIT PACK -- NEW! New for this season, the SPIRIT PACK bundles your Season Pass with a tumbler and a car decal for added savings. You can optionally add on a stadium seat. Check it out on the Team Store at henryclaysoccer.weebly.com/store.html VARSITY CAMPOUT Varsity players, save the date for an overnight campout in Red River Gorge. The team will leave mid-to-late morning on Wednesday, July 26 and return midday Thursday, July 27. More information to come. We are still ironing out the details. KIT DISTRIBUTION Kit distribution will take place Tuesday, July 25 after practice in the boys locker room at the back of the concession stand building. 8:15 JVB / 8:45 JVA / 9:15 V PLEASE RE-ENROLL OR ENROLL IN KROGER COMMUNITY REWARDS Finally, you can financially support HC Boys Soccer at $0 cost to you by designating Henry Clay Boys Soccer, Inc. as your charity of choice for Kroger Community Rewards. For more information & enrollment instructions CLICK HERE. Already have a Kroger Plus Card? All you need to do is designate Henry Clay Boys Soccer Boosters, Inc. as your charity of choice in your account profile. Instructions:
BANNER SPONSORSHIP Please consider supporting the team through corporate banner sponsorship. Click here for more information and forms. Our goal is to have banners printed and hung by our first home game on August 11. Submit forms early to leave time for banner printing. GAME DAY SPONSORSHIP -- NEW! This year we are excited to offer game day sponsorships in addition to the banner sponsorship. Click here for more information and forms. As a game day sponsor, you will be a sponsor for an evening (or day) of games (first come, first serve). Your sponsorship includes signage at ticket booth & concessions, announcements throughout the evening and your logo/name on game day announcements on social media. OTHER SPONSORSHIPS If you are interested in other types of sponsorship (special events, concessions supply, practice jerseys, professional services/accounting, etc.), we are open to it. Please bring us your ideas. Email Anna Taylor at [email protected] with any sponsorship questions you have. RESTAURANT FUNDRAISER SERIES Mon 7/31 at CITY BARBECUE (Richmond Rd) If you dine-in, carry-out, call-in, or online order from City Barbecue's Richmond Rd location on July 31, HC Boys Soccer will receive 20% of the proceeds. Please plan to eat some Barbecue on Monday, July 31! CLICK HERE for more information. We have a series of restaurant-based fundraisers planned for the fall. These are easy ways to support the team doing something you might be doing anyway during the busy soccer season: eating out. Watch this page for what's up next on the restaurant fundraiser calendar. FALL FUNDRAISER We will be doing a fall fundraiser. We are still in the planning stages and more information will be forthcoming. If you have ideas for a fall fundraiser, please share them with Anna at [email protected]. GAME DAY VOLUNTEER SIGN-UPS We rely on our families to staff the gate, concession stand, and press box for games we host at Henry Clay. Each family will need to work 5 shifts throughout the season. We want parents to watch their kids play. Please sign up for games OTHER THAN your child's. Every family is expected to participate. If you do not sign up, shifts will be assigned to you. Link to SignUp.com form: https://signup.com/go/ZbHVfzS In addition, we will need ball boys for Varsity home games. If ball boy slots are not filled, players will be assigned. (Being a ball boy does not count toward your family's 5 volunteer shifts.) NOTE: We will host at least 3 games for the JV-B Sunday league on Sunday August 27. We don't know yet who is playing when. (Last year, games were at 11,12:30,&2.) If you are willing to work that Sunday, please indicate your willingness on the signup form above. We will reach back out to you once the schedule is published. As an incentive, Varsity and JV-A parents working these games will get double credit for their shifts. JV-B parents, this is a good opportunity to get volunteer commitments out of the way by working games before &/or after your kids play. COMMUNICATIONS We will be loading emails and cell numbers from the Player Info/Registration Forms into TeamSnap and will be using that platform for communications during the season. Also, there is a lot of great information on the henryclaysoccer.weebly.com website. Note that there is a NEWS page which houses all team announcements and emails in blog format. No need to dig back through old emails to find sign-up links or other information! HC Boys soccer also has Twitter and Instagram accounts. Follow us! TEAM & INDIVIDUAL PHOTOS Photo day will be Fri 7/28 beginning at 9:00am. All squads need to arrive at the grass field at Henry Clay by 8:45am. Wear blue kits, including game socks and cleats for photos. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR FOOD HANDLERS LICENSES We are looking for 6-8 people who would be willing to get their food handlers license for the concessions stand this year (ideally 2-3 parents per team). The training and exam can be found at https://lexingtonfayette.statefoodsafety.com/. If you like to do your volunteer shifts in concessions, please help out by taking this course, the booster club will pay the $23 cost. The course takes approximately 30 minutes to complete. If you already have a food handlers certificate, please let us know. This will not lead to you being stuck in concessions for the season. We will spread the shifts out. If you are willing, email Melinda Blanche at [email protected]. As always, if you have any questions or issues please contact me. Thanks for taking the time to read through all of this. Jason Behler Good morning parents & players,
As club seasons begin to wind down, there are a few things that I need to remind people about in regards to the upcoming high school season.
Jason Behler English Department, Head Boys Soccer Coach Henry Clay High School |
|