JAGS

“You don’t know me,” began the voice on the phone nine or 10 years ago, but Jersey Area Girls Soccer (JAGS) Tournament Director John Esposito wanted to know if I would be interested in becoming the college coordinator for the event. He’d gotten my name from Frank Conlow, a parent on my ’81-’82 Strikers team.

Now the team after my ’81-’82 girls has graduated and I’m still the JAGS College Coordinator. The final meeting of the committee before the 29th Annual Tournament was at the Hibernians Club last night. (I love the Hibernians Club - on a hill overlooking a large soccer field with lights. The clubhouse is reminiscent of Vereinigung Erzgebirge in Warminster, PA and 1st German S.C. Phoenix, where I played club ball in high school.) The dedication and energy of this group never ceases to amaze me. A majority have been working on the tournament far longer than i have. Most of them I see only at the several planning meetings and the actual tournament, held every Father’s Day weekend, but I look forward to seeing everybody at this time of year.

I enjoy communicating with nearly 300 college coaches beginning early in the new year. Many of them I got to know when they were scouting players on teams I coached.

I have some good memories of JAGS: In 1998, our Strikers team lost, 2-0, to the Weston, CT Wild Things, coached by Yale’s Rudy Meredith. We were New Jersey U16 state champs that year, but Weston went on to win the national championship in our age group. The following year, we were eliminated in the first round of State Cup, but we beat the team that won the cup, Wyckoff Torpedoes, 1-0, to win JAGS. That night I received an e-mail from the parent of a Wyckoff player saying she was glad that if they had to lose it was to our team.

In 2004 the Xtreme won our bracket in a shootout over the Hunterdon United Sonics and the following year won it again in another shootout, this time over the Medford Sting.