User:Richkirk/Stars of Massachusetts Soccer Club

Full name: FC Stars of Massachusetts Founded 1996 Director of Coaching Jason Dewhurst Home Uniform: All white Away uniform: All sky blue (girls); All dark blue (boys) Web-Site: www.starsofmassachusetts.org FC Stars of Massachusetts is a non-profit, youth soccer club, based in Massachusetts. FC Stars was formed in 1996 as a single team of girls born after 1986 and has expanded to a multi-team club since 2002. FC Stars fields teams from U9-U18 for both boys and girls. The club trains and plays at the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Complex at Lancaster Massachusetts. The club has developed into one of the top youth soccer clubs in the North East and has accrued one National championship, 3 Regional Championships and 19 State Championships in USYSA competition. The Director of Coaching is Jason Dewhurst, a former professional soccer player in England.

HISTORY

The Stars of Massachusetts has its origins in a small Massachusetts town when a group of parents decided to address the need for inspired soccer skills development and fun for their eight and nine year old daughters. With time, the team was re-organized as a Premier club in 1997. This Stars team enjoyed progressively more success and over time and the vision evolved and grew such that in 2002, the Club began adding younger teams and skills academies in order to develop young premier soccer players. In 2005 the exclusively girls FC Stars of Massachusetts merged with the boys program of Freedom FC to form a true encompassing Premier youth soccer club. These early teams have been followed successively each year and the club currently fields 33 Premier teams, in addition to a Stars Academy for U9 and younger.

STRUCTURE

The club is a non-profit organization administered by a Board of Directors. Soccer operations are supervised by the Director of Coaching (DOC), Jason Dewhurst. FC Stars of Massachusetts fields stratified teams in each age group, typically the “United” team is the highest level, followed by “Athletic” teams and then “Rovers” teams. The coaching staff for FC Stars is one of the best in the Region and take responsibility for teams at different levels and ages within the club.

FC Stars of Massachusetts is registered with and sanctioned by the Massachusetts Premier League (MAPLE) and the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association (MYSA). FC Stars was a member of the now-defunct national Red Bull League that served as the forerunner for the new ENCL (Elite Clubs National League) of which FC Stars is a founder member. Stars teams participate in the ECNL, the USYSA Region 1 Director's League MAPLE and the Massachusetts Soccer Conference (MASC), depending on the competitive level of the team.

ACHIEVEMENTS

FC Stars of Massachusetts teams are competitive at the State, Regional and National level in the US. FC Stars teams have won 1 National Championship, 3 Regional Championships and 19 Massachusetts State Championships in their short existence. In addition, FC Stars teams have won high-level tournaments such as Disney Showcase, CASL Showcase, Las Vegas, PDA Showcase and Jefferson Cup.

Individual players routinely graduate from FC Stars to play in college and some have played in Womens’ Professional Soccer leagues in the US. In addition, several FC Stars players have participated in US and other National youth team programs and many have represented Regional and State Olympic Development Programs.