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Naperville Challengers Soccer:
We support soccer families by creating a top TRAVEL
SOCCER program with more reasonable costs and and at a reasonable
commitment level. If you are a family 1st who happens to love
soccer we may be for you. If you are a soccer player who happens
to have a family then there are other clubs who may serve your needs.
Our goal is to develop young athletes to thier greates potential who
without burning them out or taking over your life. Check out
Challengers Soccer Club & See why we are the fastest growing soccer
club in the area! That is right we grew by 100% year over year
over 4 years.
Print Challengers FAQ
· Player
Development and FUN are our priorities! We have about 24
team with multiple
teams at many age levels. this allows you to find the best fits to accommodate most
kids who love soccer.
· Teams
are: Professionally Trained /Coached, Parent Coached or
Both! (Each Team Decides its own direction and hand picks their
trainers!) This has allowed our teams to choose from the best
trainers in the area. We can do this because 80% of your your
money goes to team soccer rather than administration or club
leadership salaries.
· Maximum
play time but AFFORDABLE:
Save up to $1,300/year vs. other travel club options.
Because we focus on kids not profit we have smaller rosters so each kid gets more play time.
Most of our games have only 3 subs on the sideline so everybody is
tired a the end of the game and we do not use the concept of
"starters" just team mates. Nobody sits! Most of our
players pay between $400-$800 per year per player depending on your team's
budget. The largest budget variables are generally trainer hours
and number of tournaments your team chooses both of these are
controlled by parent volunteers from your team not the trainers.
Simply put. The fox should not be in charge of the hen house.
·
LOCAL…(Practices and most
games at local fields based on what’s most convenient for your team).
Many of our families are balancing commitments to many activities so
we must balance time invested with return for maximum efficiency.
At u7-15 levels working locally just saves time. We maximize
time touching the ball and minimize drive times for a more time
efficient program for your family.
* At
age 8 kids do not need to "go Pro" and choose one sport or activity for
life. So most of our younger kids play multiple sports and are involved in
every kind of activity. Some of our top level older teams over u11
have chosen higher short term goals and are a bit more serious. For
example a trainer may relate game play time to practice attendance on more
advanced teams and platinum level teams ask that Soccer be the child's
priority sport.
b
Leadership
not Control…Our
founder is a parent with 4 travel soccer playing children. Before he
was a parent he was a D1 college soccer
player and a professional trainer. Club leadership guides teams to
work well with families and focus on players not egos, politics or profit.
Each team is autonomous, makes it's own decisions and is answerable to the
players parents. Because we are not worried about profit or ego's our
teams tend to put the kids' soccer 1st. The club offers support and
leadership but each team's own volunteers make's it own decisions on
important time, quality and budget issues like tournaments, practice fields
and trainers etc. If could become a volunteer team leader then then
you can lead your team in the best possible direction.
Why
did our families choose the Naperville Challengers.
Our Club helps kids learn though balancing appropriate competition,
fairness and sportsmanship. Each of our teams joined the
challengers because a coach wanted a better opportunity for their
team. Under the collaborative guidance of very special
parent volunteers Challengers enjoy the best professional trainers and
Naperville's best facilities yet we pay the lowest fees around.
Our excellent performance is continually tested as our teams achieve top
Travel league rankings. The Challengers is a soccer club run by
parents for their children. We are
led by parents dedicated to providing a competitive soccer experience
for their children while retaining control of the level of commitment in
terms of time, travel, and money. We have a lot of fun and really
enjoy being the Challengers!
See middle of next column for more about our club
Ensign on Sportsmanship
read article
Cyclones Finalist in Libertyville Tourney:
U11
Boys Cyclones won 3 games allowing only 1 goal to get to the finals,
but then finally lost in the finals on penalty kicks. Says coach Brian
Schroeder: "The boys played the semi's in 90 degree weather with 1 sub
and played great."
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The proof of any
system is in the product. While our fees are very low we
are also very proud of our win /loss record against the more expensive teams
in the area. We believe
that doing things right helps us focus on the kids.
Please ask any of our parents and players if they enjoy the direction of the
club and the fairness with which we divide up the costs. They also
appreciate that commitment ,not skill alone, is what determines each team
member's opportunity. While our teams are very competitive Coaches
remember we are first and foremost a developmental program. We believe
that each and every kid invited to join a team is equally important.
This combination of fun people, positive philosophy, and leadership
continues to yields value, performance, growth and respect with in the
Naperville and west suburban Illinois youth soccer community.
FAQ
How do Challengers do it? From the
beginning, everybody pitched
in to a well coordinated effort. We borrow all the best ideas like
premier teaching methods and
National Coaching programs like the Positive Coaching Alliance and
merge that with the
vision of our Founders. Our fees are kept fair because the Club's
well coordinated direction is determined by a skilled volunteer
Board of Directors
like Treasurer
Maureen Guttosch. Finally, open and effective communication lines like our Blog
were the lubes that keeps our club responsive and honest. Every family helps out within their own schedule and with their own unique talents. Coaching
has been done by a combination
of highly skilled parents and top professional trainers.
At our club wide meeting in December 2008 we discussed the phenomenal growth
that our club has experienced and how this has lead us to the point where we
need to become an official 501c3 organization and hire a small staff.
Initially the staff will be a simple promotion of the same volunteers that
have been working hardest for the club for years. In spring 2009 the
club hired it's first staff. Don McBride, Jim Ensign and Kathy Mullen to handle the
behind the scenes organizational issues of our growing club. It is
hoped that this will allow our leaders to invest the time that is necessary
to handle new challenges guiding the direction of a diverse group of teams
in to a club that has many common themes. We
now provide a higher level of service to the teams and have the
resources to gather feedback from each family to help build a more
responsive club.
Some 2010-2011 teams have open spots:
All travel soccer clubs have their big open tryouts May 22-June
10 but we may
still be a few spots on a few teams for fall. You might be able to tryout during a whenever you arrange a time with a coach (see
Team Contacts). Please bring a ball, shin
guards and water to the tryout. Team's with one or 2 open spots
include: u15 girls, u9 co-ed, u13 girls, and u11 boys. Contact a coach
directly to arrange a try out.
If you make a team your team manager
will need contact information for you and if you make
a team we will need other paperwork for the league.
Click Here to register.
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Jaguars u11 win IWSL AB South & Glen Ellyn Tourney
The U11 Girls Jaguars completed a terrific 2008 Fall season, finishing in
1st place in the IWSL AB South division. The girls also won the Glen Ellyn
Fall Classic (top division) with a 1-0 victory over the Challenger Tigers in
an all Challenger final.
Typhoons - Great Lakes Champions. Finished fall season on a
15 game Winning Streak!
Challengers
U11 Boys
Typhoons
won the Championship at the Great Lakes Tournament Sept
23, 2007 beating Lyons Township in the finals. The Tournament was
also the centerpiece of the Typhoons overall winning streak which
ended the season at 15 wins in a row.
Says Head coach Don McBride: "The boys are playing their best when
they have to." Center Full Back Phillip P says: "Sometimes the
coaches want us to let up when we are ahead but our defenders get
fired up about another shut out. I can hardly
remember the last time our main goalie Matt B has let one in. If we
let up a shot he is always in the right spot
Club Referee and Scheduling coordinator Kathy Mullen says: Many of the
Challengers Fall teams have impressive records in league play but we
also have a handful of Champions in some of the largest Tournaments.
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Challengers News!
Panda's u9 won Oswego tournament
and their Spring Division!
Our Challengers Pandas U9 team at the Oswego Soccer Classic Tournament
spring 2010. The Pandas took first place in the Tournament and also
finished the Spring taking first place in their division U9 CS. They
are moving up for the Fall to U10 BW. It was an exciting Spring for
the Pandas.
u14 girls Trouble Shooters
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Our
u14 girls from the Wildcats and the Sharks combined and played as The
Trouble Shooters in the
Genesis Spring
Invitational April 2010. The
team took 2nd place.
u13 boys FireFest Champs!
Our
u13 boys Typhoons went undefeated at the Chicago Fire Jr's FireFest.
The boys played well with lots of the guys scoring. Omar scored
a record 10 goals in one tournament. The toughest games were
against 2 of the Chicago Fire Jr's teams. The games were
especially fun because many of all the school and sports friendships
between the 2 clubs. Finalists from both clubs pictured below.
Click photo to zoom in.
Strikers World Cup Party!
Challengers all new U9 Strikers took 3rd in Spring of 10 teams in
their first travel season ever. Coach Brandon Acuff said “We were two goals
(all season) away from 1st place, dealt with injuries, still the boys really
performed well and improved throughout the year. Looking to move up a
division in Fall!”
Cherry Bombers Show Consistent improvements
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The U10
Girls Cherry Bombers moved up to the C from D but still took 2nd place
in their division while showing the largest
single season improvements in their divisions. Defensively the girls
allowed only 7 goals scored all season long! They also took 2nd place
at the Glen Ellyn tournament. The team plans for further
improvements by increasing their trainer hours for fall 2010.
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of Naperville, IL 
