2013 State Cup participants -- Coaches and DOC's, Players, Parents and Referees:
Participation in the Alliance 4 All program for 2013 State Cup, Spring '13 Competition is due on/by May 17. With this year's requirement, I'm asking for about 10 minutes of each participant's time. Whether or not participants have done this requirement at a previous State Cup,as the tagline of our program reads, this sportsmanship program is about practice. As I thought about whether to modify the requirement this year, I started by re-watching all the videos. Honestly, each is a good reminder of ways in which we can all impact sportsmanship at State Cup, so I landed on keeping the process as it has been. I appreciate your time and commitment to this initiative to increase the sportsmanship at our highest level event.
As with previous years, I'm asking each participant, including Referees, to watch their respective online video, read their code of conduct and then electronically make their pledge to practice better sportsmanship.
Parents/Caregivers, only one of you needs to watch the video, but all will be held to it. Players will need to submit their own pledge after viewing the player video.
Alliance 4 All is a recently-developed program and the videos generally address a range of age groups and levels of play. Most content has relevance to the expectations we have for sportsmanship at State Cup, even though it may not address all State Cup level/ages or situations specifically.
All individual pledges done online will come to me and the week of May 20, I'll email each team coordinator a list of those who have completed.
At Regionals in June 2011, Iowa had three teams recognized by Region II Referees for their outstanding sportsmanship: WDMSC's U13B and U15B and EIU's U17B. This wasn't a fluke, as the coaches of those teams include sportsmanship as part of their training. While Iowa Soccer hopes to influence the practice of better sportsmanship through our Alliance 4 All programming, we acknowledge that the influence of your club/team leaders likely has the most impact on the club's attitude and display of sportsmanship. Along with that, we maintain that practicing better sportsmanship requires commitment by all four participants in a match -- coaches, players, parents and referees -- and requires "practice" from year-to-year and match-to-match.
To get State Cup participants on the same page regarding our expectations of sportsmanship at State Cup, I'm asking for 10 minutes of each participants' time pre-Cup, and then for each participant to honor his/her Alliance 4 All pledge while at State Cup. I appreciate your participation.
Thank you,
Jenny Wood
State Cup Director and Alliance 4 All Program Administrator
Iowa Soccer is an A4A-Endorsed State and will conduct its programming in accordance with this status
Video & Pledge Instructions
Alliance 4 All is designed to be delivered online, with pledges then submitted electronically. However, I know that not all teams have families with access to computers/internet. If you need an alternative, please contact me. Team coordinators are only responsible for informing players, parents and coaches of this requirement. The responsibility to comply lies with each individual.
Directors of Coaching, even if you aren't coaching a team, you're expected to watch the coach video and submit a pledge. Coaches, if you coach multiple teams, you'll only need to submit one pledge.
Remember once you get to the Alliance 4 All homepage select your resepctive video -- coach, player, parent or referee.
- Watch your video (you're welcome to watch others!)
- When the video is done, you'll automatically be redirected to an A4A resource page.
- On the resource page, click on your respective A4A Code of Conduct, found under the heading "STEP 1".
- When finished reading your code, return to the A4A resource page, go to STEP 2 and click on "Iowa State Cup". From there, you'll be redirected to the A4A State Cup Pledge webpage where you'll submit your pledge electronically.
- In all it should take around 10 minutes to view, read and submit.
I sincerely appreciate your time to do this part of practicing better sportsmanship. Thank you.