It's Tryout Time! By Alan Maher   A little over thirty seven years ago I helped found the local soccer club. We had a few coaches and even fewer talented players. The local league restricted enrollment to two zip codes. No poaching, as they said then.   So we registered the players and trained the coaches. I was left with the task of training the coaches since I had gone to Fordham for a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teaching. I worked up a course and ran it by Gordon Bradley. I first collected a shelf of books on the subject. In fact I began to collect training outlines from all over Europe. It was a hobby for a few years.   Gordon approved of the course outline and taught the first few weeks. I was humbled that he taught from what I had outlined. And our soccer program took wings with eager players and trained coaches. In four years we went to Holland and won a tournament! We were on the way.   I was bypassed by the club a few years later. They had gone in a different direction than I was going. Nobody noticed that I left.   I have coached every season since then.   Then I opened a web site and found the following: June Tryouts Calendar   Now the league allows players to play with any club, and players need to try out to make a travel team ¦anywhere within the League! Thus -  tryouts.   I pulled up ten pages of notes on the tryouts. Let me share some comments from the various clubs. I am not making this stuff up.   Girls U-13, professional trained by one of the top trainers on Long Island. Unique 3 nights, 4 day pre-season soccer camp. Two professionally trained weekly outdoor practices in fall and spring. Winter training. Fall and spring tournaments. Winter league play. Girls under 13 subject to body abuse all year long! The next club stressed players being professionally trained and gets this; our trainer will attend all our games. Wow! That was a given when I coached a team, but then I was not a professional whatever that means. Next are a competitive friendly and social group of girls that balance soccer with other interests. We train once a week.  That is closer to being my kind of club. Next we train year round. I stopped there.   I have no idea what professionally trained means. I was licensed as a teacher, supervisor, principal and central administrator in the State of New York. In soccer I was trained by licensed coaches of professional teams in Europe for twenty five summers. Does that count?   As far as I can figure, 'professionally trained' means that the person is paid, but what training, license and experience? What really upsets me is that these poor kids are at it all year working with professional coaches, whatever that means.   I will close by telling you that our club did well with local kids, amateur coaches and we never played all year round.   And we wonder about burn-out.