Athletes and families,

Thank you for all of your effort in the 2022 fall tryouts. With tryouts ending tonight, I wanted to share some of the information I will discuss with athletes.

The tryout session will be from 4:00-6:00. Athletes will have a short individual meeting with coaches, beginning at 6:00. They are free to go home after their meeting. We will begin with freshmen and work through to the seniors at the end, so parents will not need to wait as long to pick up younger athletes.

In our meeting, athletes will learn if they have made one of the teams, and we will introduce them to their coach of the level they have made. These meetings will be very short, and we will not have time for conversations at this time. Any athlete or family that wants to have a longer conversation is welcome to schedule an appointment to ask questions and have a longer meeting. Please do not show up unannounced prior to or after a practice — set an appointment.

A reminder that soccer is a “cut” sport. Not all athletes will be rostered. We will help athletes find another activity, sport, or club at NHS if requested — we still want our students connected to programs in our school.

I will remind athletes today that team placement is the first step, not the last step. Sometimes athletes are very happy coming home from the last day of tryouts, and sometimes athletes are upset. The majority of our team plays at all three levels of our program at some point. We always have our eye out for players who are excelling at their current level and who are ready to make the jump to the next level of training and competition.

I will also remind our younger players (freshmen and sophomores) that we want to find a place for them to maximize their playing time. Sitting on the varsity bench does not make a player better or help him reach his goals; playing more minutes in the sub-varsity teams does help a player gain that valuable experience.

We will begin regular practices on Thursday. Please use the Team App for specific schedules from this point on, and note that practice times and locations will often be different for each team.

Thank you again for investing your time and energy into Niwot Soccer.

Coach Stephen Dimit