Jacob has played soccer in Manteca since he joined an U8 Rec. team, and has been playing on the local travel team for the past four years. During that same time period, Jacob has also been active in the Boy Scouts of America, Troop 439, sponsored by the local LDS Church. Over the past couple years, Jacob has often used his involvement in soccer to meet requirements in scouting, such as when he earned the Sports Merit Badge, and when he completed part of his Communications Merit Badge by working as an assistant coach with a younger sister's team. After he earned his Life rank in early 2001, Jacob started thinking of ideas for completing an Eagle Project, a necessary step in earning the Eagle rank, which is the highest rank in scouting.

By putting on a clinic for the league players, Jacob felt that he could provide meaningful service to the community, especially to those families who maybe couldn't afford to pay for the traditional camps. He also felt that in a small way he would be repaying the local soccer league for the training and opportunities he has been given. Originally conceived in January of this year, Jacob had to hit the ground running in order to get everything organized in time!

To pull this off, Jacob learned to work with a lot of organizations. First he went before the local soccer board and got permission to use their insurance and equipment to put on this clinic for registered players. Then he went to the city and reserved the park for the day. Next, he traveled to the northern California AGM and equipment show, where he made initial contacts with soccer-related companies, followed up by many phone calls soliciting help in providing planning and materials for the clinic. Once that was underway, Jacob started putting together a list of coaches to work with the youth, and he was able to get ten of the most experienced and capable coaches to volunteer to help for the day. Additionally, he persuaded twenty experienced youth players to sign on as assistant coaches. Jacob worked each of the league registration dates, meeting with parents and players and inviting them out to the clinic. He lined up support staff to do such things as assemble the goals, mark off the fields, check in the kids, and staff a nurses station, drawing from his contacts in scouts, church and school to assemble these volunteers. Although his requests were generally met with enthusiasm, he quickly learned the necessity for reminder calls, as well as the frequent need to find replacements for people who had conflicts arise. To prepare for the big day, Jacob put on coaches meetings where he provided handouts to the coaches and went over suggested topics and methods for the day. He conducted a goal assembly workshop, so that the volunteers setting up the fields would know how to safely put up the goals. Check-in people were given lists of pre-registered players by age group so that reminder calls could be made the week before camp.

Come the day of the clinic, all was pretty much set. The week preceding the clinic, there had been some inclement weather, but the forecast was for a perfect spring day. Jacob arrived at the local park at 7am, quickly getting to work in setting up the registration area, marking out the fields with corner flags, and supervising the setup of goals for each field. Over 235 youth had pre-registered, but he didn't know how many might decide not to come at the last minute, or how many might decide to just show up without having registered! Thanks to many afternoons and evenings of phone calls, Jacob had secured a free soccer ball for each participant, silk-screened t-shirts for the coaching and support staff, plus an assortment of items to be given out as door prizes. As staff arrived, Jacob gave them their shirt and directed them to their assigned field location. Then he waited to see how the turnout would be.

Set to begin at 9am, youth starting trickling in around 8:30. By 8:45, the full parking lot and the large crowd gathering at registration made it clear that the turnout would meet expectations. Shortly after 9am, over 200 youth were all checked in, had each received a new soccer ball and were out on the field with their coaches. Jacob then spent the morning going from group to group, checking that all was running smoothly and helping out as needed. Youth had been divided up into ten classes by age group, and Jacob got involved in combining and dividing groups that had too few or too many players participating. One very experienced coach, who previously had to decline helping due to work conflicts, rearranged his schedule and came unannounced, so Jacob gladly split off a group to get some specialized training.

As Jacob and the other support staff went around from field to field, parents expressed gratitude for the organization and quality of the clinic. Several mentioned that their children had not been sure they wanted to play soccer, but when they heard that their friends were either attending or helping out with the clinic, had asked their parents to sign them up. The parents were thrilled at the fun they saw their children having, and the enthusiasm they were expressing for the coming season. The morning was a busy time for all of the youth participants, and many parents spent the morning sitting in the shade visiting with old friends and making new friends.

As the day wound down, most of the players stuck around to take a group picture, then were rewarded with drawings for door prizes including signed soccer balls, a shirt autographed by all of the San Jose CyberRays and an assortment of other soccer gear and clothing donated by various soccer companies. All of the players went home with a small "goodie bag" that included such things as soccer stickers, player cards from the San Jose Earthquakes, game schedules for the local professional teams and flyers for each of the upcoming local for-profit soccer clinics. Once the players were done for the day, Jacob assembled the coaches and provided them with donated pizza and soda, as well as some free game passes for Earthquake games. For several of the coaches, this was the first time in a long time that they had worked with such young soccer players, and commented that this was the most fun they had experienced coaching in quite some time! Others who ran their own camps or programs commented that they enjoyed not having to be in charge, but simply getting to spend the time on the field working with the players.

At practice some time after the clinic, a couple of Jacob's teammates who helped at the clinic started talking about how they were looking forward to doing it again next year. They were thinking that now they had the experience, they could help out a lot more in the planning, and that the actual camp would need fewer adults, as the youth coaches were experienced now! It's good to see the older youth get excited and want to help out, and it would be great if the older youth put on a similar clinic each year to benefit the younger players.

The local league and community benefited from this clinic in many ways; new players got top-notch training to start them off, the youth coaches got some hands-on experience under experienced coaches, many of the local Rec. parent-coaches got to see some good practice sessions being run, and several new coaches got some valuable training in the afternoon coaches clinic. Thanks go out to Jacob and all who helped him, either by donating time, materials or advice.

If there are other youth in the soccer community looking for a meaningful service project, maybe this will give them an idea of something they can do which would provide a great benefit to their community and be a lot of fun for all involved!