Gallup Youth Soccer League (GYSL)
an hour and a half. It seemed to indicate that Gallup was ready for soccer.” Although I was too young to play for the inaugural season, I came to be immersed in a culture One morning about a year ago, while stepping foot on a of growth and learning. The young league relied upon pitch, soccer field, at the New Mexico Soccer Tournament volunteers for coaching and organization, and sponsors Complex in Bernalillo, I became overwhelmed by a deep nostalgia. The Thunderbirds, Gallup Soccer League’s U13 for equipment and supplies. While playing in GYSL, I was coached by my mother, my dentist, my godfather, my boys travel team, were warming up for the first game of father, several of my friends’ parents, and others. When we the year. My son, filled with nervous energy as we drove past many of the complex’s 22 pitches, sprinted out to join were old enough, several of my peers and I became certified the rest of the team. The frigid February, Bernalillo breeze as referees, earning a few dollars per game refereed. We learned from adult referees who served as mentors. Soccer bit at my clothes, and I took in the view of the complex is truly a game for all children. The nature of the game with the Sandia Mountains as a backdrop. The raw allows children with less experience and/or less talent to beauty of the setting, the apparent frivolity and passion play alongside their peers and potentially make gameof the parents, players, friends, and fans on the adjacent changing plays. Soccer, and my experiences with GYSL, pitches, and the conversation with another of the team’s taught me valuable life lessons: teamwork, communication, coaches about the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses respect, commitment, leadership, perseverance, and a habit filled me with gladness. The community of that complex that morning was something that I had experienced in my of lifelong learning. As my son progresses through age groups and develops formative years and my son was here, to experience many as a player, I am relieved to see that, while there have of the same. I, inevitably, associate soccer with family and community. been changes, much of what taught me to love soccer and the community of Gallup remains the same. I still see In 1989, my father Lynn Isaacson, plus George Kozeliski, volunteers putting in hours upon hours of work to make a Cathy Downer, Rudy Radosevich, among others, brought difference in a young player’s life. At a recent GYSL board the Gallup Youth Soccer League (GYSL) to life. As Lynn recalls, “We brought 12 sponsors on at $500 each in under meeting, I read the following from our league handbook: By Christian Isaacson
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March 2019
