By Eric Bourque
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
There never seems to be a shortage of things that remind us how old we are and how quickly time can go by. For Richard desVignes, for example, there is the realization that his indoor youth soccer program has reached the quarter-century mark in its history.
“Twenty-five years have come and gone already,” he says in an interview at Meadowfields Community School, where the program is held.
This isn’t where it originated, of course, given that Meadowfields didn’t exist back when desVignes launched the program.
“We started off at Maple Grove,” he recalls. “We had one division. We were going (with players) from seven to about 12 (years of age) and we had about 15 kids, boys and girls.”
He initiated the program in an effort to teach youngsters the fundamentals of the game, something that seemed to be lacking at the time, he remembers.
“I think the biggest thing is while we were coaching at the high school, we found that every year the kids were coming in and we had to keep starting from scratch – ‘this is how you pass the ball, this is how you kick the ball,’” he recalls.
It’s around 6 p.m. on a Monday as desVignes speaks. In a few minutes participants in the program’s under-10 group will begin their weekly session. They will do various drills and finish with some scrimmaging.
The under-10s are one of four age categories in the indoor program, which began in early January and goes until late April.
There also are groups for players under-six, under-12 and under-14.
“The under-10s and 12s are filled up, with 20 each,” desVignes says of this year’s program. “The under-sixes, we’ve got about 13, and the under-14s we’ve got about 10, so we’ve got some room to get more of those.”
He notes that the last group mentioned – the under-14s – had experienced some fluctuating numbers in recent years, prompting him to cancel it for a couple of seasons.
“We seem to have a tougher time getting that age group out,” he says.
DesVignes coaches the under-14s. He has other coaches who handle the other age groups, but he remains the one who oversees the program as a whole.
“I’ll come in just once in awhile to see how the coaches (of the other groups) are doing,” he says.
A couple of his coaches this year were program participants when they were kids and desVignes is particularly pleased to have them now as coaches.
“It’s really gratifying that they’re coming to give back, which means somewhere along the line they enjoyed it themselves,” he says.
After 25 years desVignes says he still enjoys it too. The whole point of the program, he says, remains giving the youngsters a chance to learn and develop soccer skills and have fun.
“You organize it in such a way that there’s some structure to it,” he says.
A quarter-century after it began, the program is in a different location and people have come and gone, but desVignes says the basics of the game never change. These basics are at the heart of what he continues to teach the young players who come through the program’s doors.
He makes a point of acknowledging the importance of others involved in the program, saying, “I certainly want to thank those coaches who have been coming out and assisting … I’m really glad to have them.”
