Dear Jags,

CONGRATULATIONS on a well-earned championship! Enclosed are your certificate from the Newark Department of Parks and Recreation, a questionnaire and a big team photo--I wanted you to have a photo with all of our players to go along with your championship trophy. People are squinting in the sun and shirts are untucked, but our team’s character and energy are still pretty obvious here. Mrs. Mackenzie took this picture just before our semi-final victory over the Mustangs. Mrs. Zador took more team photos just before our championship game, and I’m eager to see how those turn out.

You should be aware that there are a lot of people who helped make this a successful season. Mr. Fairchild did a lot of coaching with Mr. Zador and me, but he was too shy to get in the photo! Mr. Tepner helped at a lot of practices and stepped in at the last minute to coach one game that neither Mr. Zador nor Mr. Fairchild nor I could make, and he also organized the snacks. Mr. Deshon coached an important practice. The overall parent commitment to this team was the best I have seen in five years of coaching soccer, so you should thank your parents for supporting you through a successful season. We also need to thank Mrs. Martinson at the Newark Parks & Recreation Department, and to referees Bruno and Brian, who were sometimes unpredictable, but overall very fair.

We beat every other team in this league, and that included some pretty good teams! The Firebirds were small and inexperienced this year, but they’ll be bigger, older and a lot tougher next year. We shut out the Yellowjackets twice in lopsided games, but they were the only other team to beat the Cheetahs. The Mustangs (maybe helped by our Halloween candy hangovers) gave us the most trouble during the regular season, but we beat them decisively when it really counted. Our semifinal game against the Mustangs was probably the best soccer played on that field all season by anybody!

The Cheetahs were our biggest challenge, with lots of talent and a playing style similar to ours. In our championship game, they put all their big guns on offense, and the ball was in our defensive zone a lot in the first half, but our defense held up very well. This made them vulnerable to fast breaks, and we do know how to score on fast breaks! We definitely outplayed them in the second half, and even though it all came down to a shoot-out, I was always confident we would win. It is an honor to beat them.

I am very proud of each of you, and I am proud of this team! We play to win, but we play fair. We get very few penalties called against us. We don’t talk trash; we let the score do the talking. We are gracious in victory and honest in our (rare) defeats. We are the “class of the league,” our opponents know it, and when the game is over we are all friends.

We graduate only three of our 15 teammates: Brian, Alek and Greg—good luck on your new teams, guys, we’ll miss you! I hope everyone else returns for the 2004 season—we are going to be awesome! Our three MVP’s this year were consummate team players: Alek on attack with a huge number of assists, Ben at midfield with his incredible energy and talent, and John at sweeper, who really belonged at midfield, but was willing to anchor our great defense with his field intelligence and ball skills. Katie, Nick and Jordan were quick, courageous goalies. Greg, Brian, Megan and JJ were strong defenders, keeping our opponents’ shooting opportunities to a minimum and clearing the ball well. Matt, Cady, Laura, Cailey and Katie were our midfield dominators, digging the ball out of our defensive zone and stoking our offense. And attackers Tyler, Jordan, Nick and Matt cracked every other defense in the league. THANK YOU ALL FOR A WONDERFUL SEASON. It has been a great honor to be your coach!

--Coach Mackenzie