Kaissa shares insights on how her Tucson Adult Soccer League has grown organically by prioritizing sportsmanship, strict conduct rules, and a supportive referee program, all without the use of advertising.
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Welcome to Episode #12 of the Sold Out podcast where we interview league organizers across the country for tips and tricks on how to sell out leagues.
Kaissa founded The Tucson Adult Soccer League (TASL) in Arizona in 2004. She has grown it to over 50 teams, offering year-round 11-a-side and 7-a-side games, along with an annual tournament. Known for its family-friendly environment, TASL emphasizes sportsmanship with strict rules, including a requirement for five women on the field in coed games and a no-foul-language policy. The league's organic growth, without advertising, highlights its community appeal. The podcast explores the importance of discipline, the role of referees, and TASL's unique sportsmanship program, which rewards good behavior over winning.
Below is the full transcript from this episode. The Sold Out Podcast is available on Spotify and Apple, or you can watch the entire interview on our YouTube Channel!
Tune in every other week to hear AREENA interview the country's best league organizers about their success in selling out leagues consistently.
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Lance (00:01.226)
All right, today we have Kaissa from Tucson Adult Soccer League. Thanks for being here, Kaisa. So let's, yeah, start with the basics. Where you located, leagues that you're running, and how many people do you have participating.
Kaissa Gurvine (00:14.989)
We're located in Tucson, Arizona, which actually does expand a little bit. Just if you're not there, people don't always know that there's surrounding areas. So we do incorporate some of those like Marana, Oro Valley, and even Tucson's broken up into like the north side, the west side, the east side, all that kind of stuff. And so there's a lot of population there. I don't know the exact population, but I know it's over a million. And there is a lot of soccer being played in Tucson. So we currently...
Lance (00:33.132)
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kaissa Gurvine (00:44.27)
have a thousand plus players per season and we run a full year round league. So we have four plus seasons. So we do four full seasons and then we do some supplemental seasons that are the 7v7. The regular seasons are 11 aside. And that came about because of field availability. So we can go into that, but right now that's what we do. We do four full seasons.
and up to two supplemental seasons that are shorter and smaller sided games. And then we do at least one tournament a year, which is just locally based. Kind of like a playoff situation, if you will.
Lance (01:26.41)
So do the normal students have playoffs as well or?
Kaissa Gurvine (01:29.773)
through the normal seasons.
Lance (01:31.358)
Yeah, so you four seasons, so those all end in a playoff or there's just like one big...
Kaissa Gurvine (01:34.181)
No, no, we used to, we used to. We found that it got extra competitive for the playoffs. And a big part of what our league is about and what makes it a little bit different is that we're more recreational based. And that doesn't mean that we're not playing really good soccer, you know, there's still some amazing soccer happening, but it comes down to more about the attitude.
and the sportsmanship, which kind of goes out the door when you do playoffs, when people think they're winning something, as opposed to they're still winning the season or like the top of the rankings for the season, like all of that's posted on the website. But when there's an actual playoff, it seems like the sportsmanship kind of goes out the door. So we went away from
Lance (02:24.586)
Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Well, I definitely want to hear a lot more about the sportsmanship, but maybe let's kind of get there in chronological order. So how did this whole thing, you found this and how long ago
Kaissa Gurvine (02:36.297)
I I did. Yes. Back in 2004, moved. So I grew up in California and I moved to Arizona when I'd gotten married and it's been about it was about 30 years ago. And I started playing in the other league that was in town and realized there was possibly some things that we could offer. But most importantly, the side of town that I lived on didn't have any soccer. So all the soccer was happening on the other side of town. And so I thought,
why can't we do some on our side of town? We had fields available. I played my whole life, but at that point I played in between pregnancies. like I had kids, but so I'd play up until the time, you know, that I had the baby and then I would take a break and that type of thing. And so I was looking to keep playing, but I didn't need it to be so hardcore because, you know, I was kind of coming back and forth from.
from playing and I found that most people that are playing as adults are in that situation. If they're female, they are possibly having children in and out of their married years. And then men will say things like, well, I'm married now or I'm busy or I'm working. And so the dynamics change about soccer, right? So I didn't feel like it was my job to provide high level competitive soccer because if somebody's looking for that, they're gonna go somewhere else.
you know, to college, but then after that, they're going to find like real high competitive leagues. So we wanted to offer something that was more recreational. in 2004, at that time, I was, I did a lot. Okay. So I grew up playing AYSO. That's what they had where I was at. In fact, in California, that's where like AYSO kind of started. And so there wasn't club soccer back then. Then that started picking up, but
I wasn't in a position to play club soccer. That's another story, but like my family dynamics and stuff. So I had to provide it myself. so it was in the neighborhood. It was easy to go play. And so when I became a parent, I thought, well, my kids need to play AYSO. And so that's where we signed them up for. Well, I'm kind of like one of those major volunteer people, which like there's not a lot of them left I'm finding. Right.
Lance (05:01.012)
Yeah.
Kaissa Gurvine (05:02.673)
So I'm the one that like volunteers for everything and I want to help because I love soccer. Like it's like my passion. And so I always want to make things better or I want to be involved so that maybe there's a way for me to provide something better for my kids in this particular case. So I did AYZona. I was actually the commissioner of the region where we lived in Arizona for, you know, I think it's a four year term. And so at that time,
they were offering at one of their trainings. So they do national trainings where you go to different big cities and everybody comes together from all the regions and you get training. So you're learning how to be a commissioner. You're learning how to be a referee, a coach, whatever it is. And they were offering a pilot program for adult soccer. And I was like, my gosh, this is the way. Like I knew based on my experience of playing in the other leagues,
Not that there was necessarily anything wrong with them, but they were like on the other side of town. It was pretty rough. The referees weren't awesome. That was, you know, just my opinion on it, but I'm sure they were doing the best they could. And I actually got on the board of those leagues before I started my league. And so I learned some things like, I kept trying to make changes or suggest things and that wasn't the way they wanted it, which again is fine. That's their choice. So I thought, well, I have some ideas in different ways.
that we could offer something to people that's different than what's already being offered. And it wouldn't even compete with what they have. be on the other side of town. We'd use different referees. And so the parents that I recruited for our first eight teams that we started with was all parents from AYSO. So in other words, as they came through registration and I'm there, you know, registering their children, we handed out information about starting an adult version for them to play.
Casually, have you ever played soccer or have you always wanted to play soccer? And most people you find, they all say, yeah, I played in middle school or, you know, I played a year or two here or there. And they did enjoy it, but they didn't know where to go, what to do to continue. Right. And so then this was an opportunity for them to come play. by a saying, listen, it's going to be, it's going to be more casual, more recreational than they weren't. They didn't think they had to like go try out for the team or that it was like high competitive level.
Kaissa Gurvine (07:26.819)
which is where some people do want to play, but it's not where the majority of people that could be playing, right? Yeah, so we were able just from advertising that way, in a way that they could sign up, and this is back in the day before the websites were up, like really awesome. mean, granted, like there was a website for AYSO, like telling people, you know, when registration is or stuff like that, but not the way websites are now where you can
Lance (07:33.214)
Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Kaissa Gurvine (07:56.065)
everything on it. So it was very paper. It was very flyer and signed up.
Lance (08:01.214)
Yeah, and like word of mouth and you were able to get, and it was 11 to 11 then as well, 18. So that's a solid amount of people.
Kaissa Gurvine (08:04.269)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And we had one, we had a park that was close to us that the kids that we already used and I already had the experience of like where you have to sign up for the fields and you have to, you know, give all the information to actually be able to reserve the fields. I already knew that process. So it was fairly easy to then go and do that for the adults. It doesn't mean that we automatically got it, but we were able to determine
Where's the availability on these fields? So like, let's say somebody else wants to start a league or they're just interested in this kind of thing. That is the biggest and hardest thing is field availability. And it doesn't mean now every city is going to be different, but like in our city, it doesn't mean the fields aren't available. It just means that they might tell you they're not available. So often, you you run into this to the squatters or the people that have been around for a long time and are on the fields as far as contracts are concerned.
Lance (08:53.012)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Lance (09:02.535)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (09:02.596)
but you drive by those fields and nobody's on them certain times. We were able to determine when that was, and it was Friday nights because the kids play Monday through Thursday, and then they play their games on Saturday, and they typically aren't practicing on Friday, at least not very late. So adults, Friday night, you you want to go out date night or something anyways, and or you don't mind staying up later than the kids. So we could start even like, okay, we're gonna have nine and 10 o 'clock games.
which is not something the kids could do. So that's kind of how we started. But then we were able to obtain the fields on Friday nights because it just wasn't a night that was being used anyways. And still to this day, we don't have to compete with most soccer. There are other organizations that are starting to want to play on other nights, but Friday nights tend to be open. So that's one good recommendation.
Lance (09:54.856)
Nice. Yeah, that is a good one. I hear that over and over again, that field availability is just super challenging and probably a part of why you don't see big national brands that just sweep across the country because there's a local component. So I mean, when you got those fields, did you have to, because I've heard stories about this as well, where you just kind of hound people in some sort of parks and rec department or something until you finally, they like relent and give you, was that your experience or were you like driving by
knocking on their door? How did you get the relationship?
Kaissa Gurvine (10:27.552)
I really think a big part of it for me was the fact that I was already involved in field obtaining fields for the youth Which they had a good relationship and establishment that they had had for a long time And so even though I was the commissioner at that time there was commissioners before me that maybe they were still parents in the league or at least like I knew them we kind of knew the people in the community and they'd been doing it for a long time and What what I found was at this particular park that we started at it was
all baseball. There was no soccer. But with big enough baseball fields, the outfield is almost big enough for a soccer field in the outfield. And so what was happening is that there wasn't enough, there's not enough baseball. They had like six or eight baseball fields there. It was right next to a high school. So I think the high school probably used some of the fields, you know, practice off off season training, whatever, but not not full time. And so we were actually able
talk them into letting us line fields in the outfield of baseball fields.
Lance (11:30.141)
so you actually lined the fields.
Kaissa Gurvine (11:32.581)
Yeah, and because we not always that always depends on your government agency and how they work. But I'm finding more and more even today now with some of the really nice soccer fields or complexes that are kind of popping up where we're at. They're they're deciding to not line the fields that you are responsible for that. And I think there's pros and cons to that, right? As a park, like one is you're to have crazy lines like who knows what somebody's going come out and paint.
but also they don't have to be responsible for it. And bottom line is they don't have enough employees that can do the
Lance (12:02.561)
Yeah.
Kaissa Gurvine (12:12.902)
And I think this way people can do it the way they want it. Like, you want it lined every other day? Great, you do it. As opposed to we can do it once a week and you're like, wow, it rained and you mowed and we can't see the lines anymore. So yeah.
Lance (12:17.353)
Yeah.
Lance (12:27.06)
Yeah. Got it. Yeah. So I mean, there's definitely a lot of hustle though with all that. You got to kind of drive around, know where the fields are, what the availability might be. You also kind of hustled your way into working with some existing leagues. So you kind of knew you were a commissioner and knew the space. And then yeah, even hustling to get your own lines drawn and sort of just make it happen for sure. Okay. So Friday nights.
You said nine and 10? you doing 90 minute format with 11V11 or?
Kaissa Gurvine (12:59.773)
No, we never could do 90 minutes because there was never enough field space. So we have always been in the like 70, 70 minute range. 70. So what we were comparing to the other league in town was doing two games a night. And I think they were doing the 45 minutes. So then they had a break in between. And so they were still using the fields from like the six to 10 o 'clock range for two games.
Lance (13:09.93)
17, you're okay.
Kaissa Gurvine (13:28.38)
and we decided to do the six o 'clock to 10 o 'clock range for three games. we just changed things up. We're like, okay, we can fit in more games, a little bit shorter halves, people, it's recreational kind of level. They're gonna be okay with it and you can modify it that way. Anytime you're older or haven't played in a long time, when 45 minutes you're like, when is this game gonna be over? Like that's what people are saying, right?
Lance (13:53.608)
Yeah
Right,
Kaissa Gurvine (13:56.604)
And frankly, let's be honest, people don't pack their rosters either. Like we had to make a minimum to require people to have what we thought was the right number, because otherwise they will sign up a team with 11 players like, we'll be fine. We have 11 players. you're like, hello. Like what happens when, you know, two don't show up, let alone five? Because with adults that happens, right? They're out of town. Their kids need something like whatever it is. They're not there. They're not. It's not.
Lance (14:12.924)
All
Kaissa Gurvine (14:26.49)
It's not their official team. It's not like college or high school or something where that's what you do. You always show up. So you have to kind of take that into consideration. And so the less time is a lot better. Because any time I've gone somewhere now and played a 45 -minute game, even though I will pack my roster, I'm still thinking, when is this game going to be over? Just not used to the 45 minutes.
Lance (14:34.047)
Yep.
Lance (14:49.546)
Yeah. So was this your demographic? Like, I mean, you said it was a lot of parents of kids. So were you starting off like, this is a 30 and up league or was it just like open to anybody in up or how did you think about the demographics?
Kaissa Gurvine (15:00.93)
No.
Kaissa Gurvine (15:05.016)
Yeah, it was definitely 18 and up as far as who was being allowed, but who we were talking to and who was interested in looking for it probably was about the 30 and up, but we didn't cap it. We didn't make it that a requirement when we started, but I found that we didn't have necessarily a lot of 18 year olds. Although the kids that age out of these youth programs are looking for somewhere to play, but there's a few things about those that age groups.
Number one, they're not ready to be a team manager. So, and that's what you need when somebody's starting their own team, which is what essentially is happening when you're running an adult league is that you're not providing them with a captain or a coach or whatever it is. So like, they have to step up and say, I know some people and I want to organize a team or I'm willing to organize a team if you can give me people. That's another conversation with like open players or free agent. And so I think there was the kids that
Lance (15:58.89)
Mm -hmm. Yep.
Kaissa Gurvine (16:03.287)
that were aged out, so the 18, 19 year olds that would be interested in playing, but they're not very committed. they, Friday nights, come on, they want to go do something else, right? So like for them, Friday night's not the best night to play, but I don't know what night would be best for them to be honest, right? Like they're working, they're going to school, they have a social life, that type of thing. So I didn't want to base it around what they would need anyways, because they didn't seem like they were the ones that were knocking at our door as much
Like you said, the 30 year olds, the people that maybe were just starting families and they're like, you know, I need something to do to stay in shape and to exercise. I've played soccer before. That sounds like fun. And who doesn't love like a team and like the camaraderie and the, like you almost get like you, make friends, like all my friends, all my friends play soccer. That's what we have in common, right? Yeah.
Lance (16:52.638)
Yep. Yep. Yeah. So was it the, so you saw that age group and then did you keep it like, was it coed from the beginning? Or was it totally open or did you put some rules around what
Kaissa Gurvine (17:02.486)
So it's crazy.
Kaissa Gurvine (17:06.42)
It was coed and so we also did something different. Everything we did was different. So coed, we made it true coed, which meant that there had to be five women on the field to five men on the field. Okay, the keeper not counting. So most other leagues would do like two women or three women. And part of what I didn't enjoy about that when I played in other leagues was that it was dominated by the men and not on purpose just because there was more of them.
If you're playing coed, at least from my perspective, I felt like I want to be part of the team. I don't want to just be that token woman that's standing out there to make it so that anyways, but I think a lot of that comes down to the dynamics and the personality of the players you have, because I'm sure that can still happen even with five of them out there, but that was something different we did. So we require five on the field. If they do not have five that show up, they can play.
down girls, but they have to play down guys as well. So like it has to match.
Lance (18:07.402)
Got it, so if you only four girls showed up, you'd have to play six guys, girls, you'd have play down to 10. Got it, okay. Yeah, I could see maybe how that would add like a better social dynamic maybe in terms of, you people making friends and all that. So did you feel like the culture right off the bat was really good with what you had created? Because I know there's this whole sportsmanship thing I want to kind of get into as well. So what was it like from beginning with that kind of setup?
Kaissa Gurvine (18:12.82)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (18:30.588)
Yeah.
I think what it created was couples. So like my husband and I both play in that. So to me, that was all that I knew was like, well, if I play soccer and my husband plays soccer, anybody else I meet, that must be the case. That's not always the case, but that's not to say that oftentimes people are athletic together. So we would find a lot of couples that were willing to try it out, whether one of them hadn't played, but was willing to try it out with their spouse. But it made a good atmosphere for couples and therefore families like
Lance (18:46.196)
Yeah.
Kaissa Gurvine (19:03.866)
Everybody would have all their kids on the sideline. So then we also had a rule that was much different than other leagues, which was no foul language. you know, a lot of times adults will say, that is the stupidest rule. I'm an adult. I can say whatever I want. And that is true. You really can't. But they needed to know from the beginning that because we were trying to create a family atmosphere, it wasn't that I can't hear that word. It was that that's not fair to those children that are on the sideline. And we are trying to invite that
family atmosphere. And so we had to weed some people out that didn't appreciate or want that. And the good thing was they could go play in the other league in town because they will allow that. They'll allow slight tackling. They'll allow the language. They'll allow fighting with the refs or whatever they allow. And we just wanted to have something different. And I knew it wouldn't be for everyone. And I know there's people that would say like, well, that's stupid. But it...
It must not been too stupid because we went from eight teams to we doubled the next season and then quickly from there continue to rise at least two teams per season until we got up to where we've kind of been at for a good solid four or five years at 50 anywhere between 52 and 56 teams. So we, we have gotten to where I kind of think is a plateau as far
the area and the region and what we're offering.
Lance (20:35.466)
Got it. Okay, so did that, I love that, the idea that the family dynamic and like really kind of focusing on this. I wanna ask more about that, but also, so was that growth just purely organic the whole time or did you do any kind of anything?
Kaissa Gurvine (20:48.844)
Yes. No, the only advertising we did was that first season when I was handing out at the registration for AYSO parents and got it started. And after that, I never advertised again. Yeah. And we didn't even have a, I mean, we had a website from the beginning. I had an amazing webmaster parent, you know, that did that. But people aren't, unless they're just searching, like unless they're new to the area and they, you know, Google adult soccer.
you know, right? Like in Toothland, like they just moved to the area. I think he did a good job making sure that they would, that it would come up first and they would see us. But, but it wasn't advertising. That was just a way. And, and as soon as we had him to do our website, we quickly formed a way to register players online that was done before all these companies that started providing that, which is an amazing thing that they do because
Lance (21:26.846)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (21:47.25)
It made all the difference in the world. We went from when we first started to turn your check in and then having to go to the bank and deposit a bunch of checks with the paper registration form. We went away from that really quickly to doing it all online.
Lance (21:54.216)
Yeah, yeah.
Lance (22:02.302)
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess to go back then to the family thing, because my wife and I, we have two littles. They're about to be three and six. So I'm imagining we both love, obviously, soccer and things like that. So were people just bringing little kids out there? did you ever, because I had this thought at one point with our leagues about helping with that aspect of it. Because with us, I don't think I could leave my three -year -old on the sideline. She wouldn't.
Kaissa Gurvine (22:30.218)
Yeah, I hear you.
Lance (22:30.568)
I don't know what's going on. So this kind of family atmosphere, did you ever lean into that and provide, I don't know, childcare services? was there any sort of like people watched out for each other and their kids? Or was it only a certain age children that would show up? Or how does the family thing play out with couples and their kids all being out
Kaissa Gurvine (22:51.817)
Well, to answer your question, we didn't provide any sort of services, but what happened also organically was that people would watch out for each other. So it seemed like back then, especially there was more spectators. So, know, grandma and grandpa came or like, and for me, my kids were younger, you know, like 10 and under the whole time. And so rather than getting a babysitter,
and having, leaving them at home to come, which sometimes we would do, they would just come to the field and you're right, if you have like a two or three year old and they're gonna run on the field, but so to answer your question, it's gonna be spectators. It's gonna be a family out here within the team. There's always someone that comes that's watching, that's not playing and not that you wanna be like, you have to watch my kids, but you start forming relationships where, know, like, and maybe husband and wife, I'm seeing this where,
One, the husband's playing while the wife's out and then they switch. You when he subs out, she thubs in type thing. But really it's that the kind of comes together as a community, as a team, they kind of help each other out. Maybe the older siblings can kind of keep, at least keep the two -year -old off of the touch line. there was, the park was nice because there was a lot of grass between the touch line and the fence.
And it was fenced in, which is also very nice because if you got like field, field, field, and you got the kids kind of running wherever, you might lose them, right? But we were lucky enough that because they were baseball fields, they were like fenced all the way around. And so the kids had a contained area to be in and the only place you had to keep them off of was actually just running onto the field. Not to say it didn't happen, but because we were all families, we're like, you know, just watch out for the kid or, you know, the ref would be nice and like,
Lance (24:39.551)
Right?
Kaissa Gurvine (24:41.649)
get off the line, know, and just help them off the line. But it just worked really well. I have the most perspective from my own team, but I would pay attention being the coordinator and the league president, whatever. I would pay attention to the other games. And I saw that everybody has family. had people, lots of people coming and watching. And the only time that this has kind of disintegrated over time has been some of the complexes that have opened
over the years had requirements like, you can't bring food in or like different things like that. And that deters the kids, the families, the spectators from coming because they're gonna be sitting there and they want something to eat or drink. And if they're not selling something in the snack bar or you don't want to go buy that at the snack bar, they may choose not to come out as much. And so that's a whole nother story with someday I would love to build my own fields and also continue this legacy.
Lance (25:16.51)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (25:40.02)
family -friendly and allowing that not to control it like for a money thing or I don't know. I don't know if it's a trash thing. I don't know what their reasons are, but I know that that really kind of cut back on who was coming and watching. But when we first started it was like just packed and we didn't have a requirement of like which side of the field the team sit on or that kind of thing. So we're all kind of sitting together and you know, you could be talking or getting along even with the other team. You know, that doesn't always happen.
again that always come down to people's personalities and the dynamics and the competitive nature and it's not to say that we haven't had fights happen but we have a system for it that's a whole other thing we have a DNR committee and a whole system for taking care of that
Lance (26:24.938)
Yes, I want to dig into that because the sportsmanship thing, mean, this family atmosphere, the angle makes sense and the way you set it up. But yeah, I mean, I've also seen lots of fights and a lot of the league we've run have been competitive 25 year olds and have gotten pretty wild. So there's definitely a lot of learnings and we've done some things with sportsmanship ratings between teams and kicking teams out that are just, which was a big lesson for me at one point was
sometimes you have to fire your customers because they are, they're kind of the product with other people, right? The refs are a product in the fields, but the other team as well. And if you have one, one toxic team can ruin a a whole league. So yeah, let's talk about that. How did you think about sportsmanship in the atmosphere and how you were going to control all of
Kaissa Gurvine (27:12.749)
Well, when I started, I think the key to running any sort of organization is who you're, I want to call them employees, but they never were employees, but the people that, the volunteers, the staff, those that are dreaming the same dream, right? They're seeing the big picture. So when I started it, I started with three really amazing people and then our board grew from there. But you know, I had a lawyer so she could help us do like the incorporating and the bylaws and all
all the legal stuff that you can do to make yourself official. And then another player friend that just had the same vision as far as it being really family friendly and him at the time, he hadn't even started his family yet, but he just had the same like idea about it could still be good soccer. So that was number one was having a really good foundation of people. And over the
that has grown or has changed. Like this person couldn't do it anymore and then I had someone else, but they always had the same vision. And then the sportsmanship thing derived from that, us all having the same ideals. But AYSO, I don't know if you've ever looked at it. And I know a lot of times people like poo poo on it because it's like, well that's just recreational soccer. But what's beautiful about it is their philosophies. And so
operate with certain philosophies. Now, I've been out of it for a while, so I can't recite them, but back when you're in it, you can recite them. And one of them really relies on the sportsmanship. And so to be totally transparent and honest, I basically, not necessarily copy those, but I piggybacked on what they were trying to teach the children for how they can play and still have really great sportsmanship, play great soccer. And I
Lance (28:57.322)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (29:04.416)
kind of just elevated a little bit and put it over into adults. Now, just like I said before with people saying, we can't cuss or we can't slide tackle and hurt people. People weren't always happy about the fact that we had these philosophies, some people, but those that I think have been attracted to it or that once they're there, enjoy it. So you end up weeding out some of the people that don't appreciate the fact that we want to go to work.
on Monday. We want to have as positive experience as possible. That's not to say that it doesn't get competitive, it doesn't get heated, right? That things don't happen because it's the nature of sports, right? For people to be competitive. And there's nothing wrong with being competitive, but I have a really, really strong belief that because I'm very competitive, but I don't ever get ugly. So I assumed that there could be people that also could do this. And so I thought how
Lance (29:57.546)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (30:03.849)
Can we create it? And we started with very few rules. And as things would happen and occur, it forced us to have to create a rule so that this wouldn't happen again. okay, you're gonna behave that way. Okay, this is what we need to do to make it so that the next person that comes in that doesn't understand how this all works, they have to have it written out and they have to have rules. Because we didn't have a DNR program, which is Discipline.
Lance (30:07.688)
Okay.
Lance (30:17.865)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (30:34.022)
discipline and rules, right? Where we didn't have that at first because we didn't really think we needed it. But we quickly learned that you need to have a guideline set up so that when you run into the situation of people misbehaving, which is gonna happen, but if they know and it's now, you know, it's posted on the website where it says exactly if, you know, this infraction happens, this is the punishment. This is how long you sit out. And it
Lance (30:39.22)
Yep.
Kaissa Gurvine (31:02.436)
Anything that happens in our league, any misbehavior that is documented by the referee, which is a really key part of it, is not just an automatic one game set. Every single thing is reviewed and therefore can be more than one game set. So that's our leverage, right? If you establish that you have a disciplinarian committee that takes care of
situations, you then don't have to just follow FIFA law, which is just that like a red card is a one game set. Well, guess what? If it's a violent conduct or it's something else after being reviewed, we can based on our established guidelines, you can say, you know what? This goes against everything that's in our mission statement and our philosophies and how we operate. And therefore it says you're going to have to two games, three games.
and all the way up to just being kicked out. There's just some things that can happen. I have a big belief that we need to give people a chance, whether that means a second chance or an opportunity to fix their behavior or change their behavior, because maybe they've never been in a situation where maybe they only played high -level competitive soccer where you could yell at the referee or you
Lance (32:26.356)
Yep.
Kaissa Gurvine (32:27.432)
know, swing at someone and it was just like, you just got to sit out for a minute. Like it's not a big deal. They need to know like, if you can get this under control, you're welcome to stay. And one red card, even one red card a season isn't going to kick you out of the league. But if you have an established behavior of kind of always acting this way, maybe this isn't the place for you.
Lance (32:47.678)
Yeah. So how did, yeah, so I'm just curious about like the, how do you enforce this? So you've got a committee, who's on this committee that reviews?
Kaissa Gurvine (32:57.052)
So what we try to do with the committee, I've always been a big fan of volunteers getting as many people involved in as possible. That's kind of changed over the years what that's looked like. But anytime there's someone that's willing to help because they kind of see the big picture of things, I would try to find places where they could contribute. And I try to make it so it never took too much of their time. And so then my job was just to kind of manage and oversee all these
committees if you will. So you've got a referee, a signer who when we first started wasn't, I think he was an official signer, but anyways, so they have to sign the referee. So they already have like a big job of coordinating all the referees. So we got a separate person to be in charge of DNR and they would manage their separate committee. And ideally it would be one volunteer from every team if they would provide a volunteer. But what you find
even though people wanna complain about it not being fair, they don't necessarily wanna take the time to volunteer, right? So what we're saying is every team is welcome to have a representative. So anytime something would happen, it would be emailed out to this committee that would be one person. didn't have to be the team manager, but one person from the team that was willing to look at what was happening on other teams. Now, if it was about their own team, they had
Lance (34:03.498)
Hmm, yep.
Kaissa Gurvine (34:24.226)
sit out of it because that was a conflict of interest, but they were part of the process so they could see how fair it was. It was that you guys get to say, these are fellow players in your league and they're behaving this way. What do you think should happen to them? Right? And that's kind of how we started establishing what would those guidelines be. Now we had a really amazing referee administrator that helped establish this program formally after we had
Lance (34:37.318)
Mmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (34:52.473)
tried out different things for a long time. He was the one to write it all down because he's an engineer. So he was very, you know, meticulous about systems. And I found over the years that that's very helpful. And it's great to have somebody like that. That may not be the people person or the face of the league, you know, but the behind the scenes, like writing the rules, whether it's your rule book or your DNR, which are separate, you can put your DNR...
levels or sanctions or whatever within the rules. But for us, it can even be like a separate page, right? Like on your website so that people know, like they can go to it and see really quickly like what happens if I fight or what happens if I miss dissent, right? For the longest time, it was dissent. People just couldn't get it in their head that they just needed to stop yelling at the referee. Like you could have depression, but like we're not here to abuse the referees. And that, happens a lot and it chases a lot of people away.
Lance (35:44.298)
Yeah.
Kaissa Gurvine (35:51.947)
from being referees and people don't realize if you don't have referees, you can't have a league. You would like to think that you could just play games and like, come on, let's just, like I got my team, you got your team, let's just get out there and play, it'll be fun. But if they've grown up at all playing soccer, they're used to having someone tell them what to do or what's not okay and that's what a referee's about. And so you have to keep that in your mind when you're playing. It's not that the referee is gonna stop things from happening, that's not their
Lance (35:56.872)
Yep. Yep.
Kaissa Gurvine (36:20.618)
Their job is to make sure that you are staying within the guidelines of, I'd like to think safe play, but it's just gonna be whatever the FIFA laws are. Then you as a league, you can add in rules at any time. You can modify and still be sanctioned because you are an adult league. You're not US soccer, you know, high level stuff where they have to stick to like the FIFA laws specifically. So we can change the size of our field because we don't have, most of our fields are not,
you know, regulation size. But as adults that are playing regulation, we're grateful for that because we played on a few regulation size and you die. It's big. smaller fields, small, less amount of time. And then when we get into the referee thing here in a minute, also adjusting how we do some of our referee stuff, which I will explain in a moment. yeah.
Lance (36:59.23)
Yeah.
Lance (37:15.408)
How do so okay, so there's like this enforcement mechanism you had a basically an engineering sort of approach to like the documentation and the process and how do players how do you make sure they know what's up from the beginning is this just like when they register you're just like hey please make sure you read these rules and stuff just to let you know we're kind of a different league it's much more family oriented is it just kind of part of registration or do you do anything when you kick off a league or there's a new team that shows up or
Or do they just kind of figure it out as they go?
Kaissa Gurvine (37:46.964)
Probably a little bit of all that, but I'll tell you the things that we do. Since the beginning, even when we had a paper registration, there was a waiver or that same, that information you're talking about. And so we kind of spelled it out and it was maybe just 10 things like, you know, pick up your trash, no slide tackling. I don't remember how we worded it, but no foul language, but like more specific because.
profanities, think is the word that was used, but no profanities, no fighting, respecting each other. know, just so like 10, they seem basic, but I think they need to be spelled out. But a team manager, when they sign up the team, their waiver or list of responsibilities that they're required to uphold, because we can control if they get to stay as a team manager as well, meaning, you're not managing your team.
And I don't want to say controlling because it's hard to control players, but they can be, they could be that person that can remind their players like, that's not how we behave, which means that they have to be bought into what the league is about. So that team manager form says, you know, here, I should have, I can send it to you, but it's so long. We wrote it way back when, but we've been operating for 20 years. So some of this stuff is just like, it's just there, right? But it spells it
what they're required to do to be able to maintain the position of team manager and that it is a privilege and not a right to be a team manager. Now, we try to tell them often that we appreciate them and the work that they do, because I know it's a lot of work to round up a team. It's like herding cats and we call it adult daycare because you are just, you're managing people that you would think, like we say, when I'm an adult,
Right? Like I take care of myself. But when it comes to this kind of stuff, it's tough, right? It's tough to get people to register on time, pay the money, show up to the games and you have to communicate with them. So there's a lot of responsibility to the team managers and we used to pay them, like give them like they could play for free or give them, you know, rewards. That's a big part of our sportsmanship program, which we'll go into in a minute as well, which is that we we reward for that as opposed to winning your game. So
Kaissa Gurvine (40:10.151)
Remember the playoff thing when we tried that it was like here we were rewarding teams for winning when that's not what is actually important. What's important is how are we treating each other when we're playing so that we can come back next week and next month and next season and you're going to see these same teams. Let's not have something ugly going on all the time. Let's find a way to kind of get along while we're playing. You can go beat them. You can go win, but we don't need to hurt each other to do it. Right. So.
Lance (40:18.822)
Bye.
Lance (40:39.146)
So let's go into the, I guess kind of as the last couple things, the sportsmanship program that you just mentioned and then the referee program as well.
Kaissa Gurvine (40:49.328)
Okay. On the DNR though, do, you did ask this and I didn't actually get to the way we communicate with the players is now that we have this, the registration is all done online. have their data, meaning like their name, their email address. So we have a way to, to then send the information. So once, once the game cards, which we'll talk about that on the sportsmanship program part of it, but once that information is inputted into the, into the database,
the DNR committee chairman can then communicate with the team manager of that player that committed the infraction or the misconduct and send them the letter that just states like, this is what happened, this is when it happened, this is the consequence. And then at the bottom they sign. And they can choose not to sign, but the point is that we've communicated with them what it is that happened, what the penalties are and what that looks like. So if it's multiple games,
Lance (41:40.808)
Mmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (41:46.566)
then it gives them the data when they can return. And then we have to coordinate all of that between DNR and our registrar, which is managing our rosters. That's a whole nother conversation too, which has changed over time depending on the platform that we've used online, you know, to gather that data and then to be able to have the rosters. And so the players can be removed from rosters if they have red cards, if they have misconduct that doesn't allow them to then be eligible to play.
That all connects to how they check in for games, which is probably different for every league. But for the longest time, we've done ID, not photo. We had done photos for a long time, but then that got a lot to manage. So we do ID and it has to match their name on the roster. And it doesn't have to match birthday or anything like that. Because once when they registered, they've already determined that they're over 18. That and that's the only requirement. They just have to be over 18 to be eligible to play.
So then sportsmanship. We've had this set up from the beginning as far as like telling people what we expect as far as being sportsman -like. But then we needed to have a way to like rate it. So our rosters that we used to do by hand with the webmaster that we had that developed our online system before we could use other platforms, he actually was able to take that information
from people registering and insert it into the team that they registered for. And it printed out a roster that had their names on it. At the bottom of this roster that would be printed up each week and delivered to the field for referees to have to check players in, it would have the sportsmanship guidelines on the bottom. So we did that, the engineer did that to make it very clear so the referees didn't have to have the program memorized.
but they had the information right there at the bottom. So if there was dissent, they could minus one point. If they left trash on the sideline, minus one point. they, their spectators, know, sometimes it'll be spectators are just kind of yelling, you like, you're stupid ref, that was a bad call, whatever it is. they had, like it spelled everything out, how they treated each other on the field, meaning like, if someone, you know, fell down, did you help them up? It didn't say that specifically,
Kaissa Gurvine (44:11.276)
that's what they were looking for. And it doesn't mean that you had to do that. It just means you didn't kick them when they were down, right? So it was mostly focusing on, you know, the positive stuff, but, and trying to discourage the negative type of behaviors. Okay. And, and so they could like mark on the card minus however many points and every team started out with 10 points, 10 sportsman points when the game started, which means if you didn't have any of that stuff happen, you got 10
Lance (44:16.328)
Right.
Lance (44:41.034)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (44:41.12)
But there were things that the referee was like specifically, you you you could even like unsportive and like, is like, you know, the ball's right near the touch line. And instead of just like tapping it out of line, you kick it way far, right? Or, right? Maybe like shooting after the whistle and just some of those things that, wasn't necessarily an automatic, like, that's one point. It was just overall, the referee's like, yeah, you know, your team kind of just wasn't acting very nice. You know, you were charging
Lance (44:55.038)
Yep. Yep.
Kaissa Gurvine (45:10.25)
the keeper or, you know, trying to block somebody from throwing their ball. I don't, I don't just the things that kind of. It happened. And so maybe they had one or two points marked off and the goal was for every team to have eight points average by the end of the season. Cause what we found when we first started tracking or doing sportsmanship was some of the teams, like you said, that you noticed you had to sometimes kick out cause they just weren't working out. And it was just
that attitude or that way that was just kind of tainting it for everyone else. And they're like, yeah, we like playing all the teams except for that one team. And you know, and you have to think, well, actually I've got, you know, 20 teams now and there's this one that's making everyone happy. You got to kick out the one because it's not fair to the 19 teams that are left. And the way that we did it rather than just kicking out our first team was to have the sports and strip rules knowing that they weren't abiding by them. We could just tell, right? So if we set up these guidelines now or these rules,
they may kind of kick themselves out, if you will, kind of, you know, not qualify. And so then the rules were saying it rather than us saying, you know, we just don't like you and you're just not working out. You'd say, sorry, you got seven or six points average and you have to have eight. Your team has to sit out or you have to disband or someone else has to be in charge. You can come back and try again. You know, we'll give you a second chance, different name, different somebody, different managing it, maybe showing us that you,
Lance (46:18.14)
just yeah.
Kaissa Gurvine (46:37.64)
dismissed some of those players that just tend to be the issue because sometimes it's just one or two players, right? It's not the whole team. So every team situation is different, whether they're kind of all just poopy or if it's just one or two players. And so that system kind of helped us start the program to weed out some of those teams that just weren't behaving that way that just seemed like what we wanted. And since then, we've been able to maintain this with then rewarding teams that get the 10.
Lance (47:00.318)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (47:07.558)
what we were finding when we first started it was there would just be like one or two teams that would get an average for the season. And we're like, well, good for you, great job. Here's a pizza party or here's shirts that said, know, the name of the league or had a cool logo on it or one of them. had a, we had a cool t -shirt guy that would just make us different t -shirts. And so we'd buy them in bulk and we'd have them ready for the end of the season to hand out. And in the hopes that people would be like, this is so cool. I get a shirt.
But then what we started finding was that often those teams that worked hard to get the sportsmanship and enjoyed the reward or just doing the work to get that, they're like, we have quite the collection of t -shirts. There's nothing else you can do. So over time, we've had to be creative with, sometimes it was taking $10 off of registration the next season, but anything you do, it takes work, right? It takes work to track it, to organize it.
Lance (47:49.752)
Hahaha,
Kaissa Gurvine (48:03.941)
to hand it out. so this, like I said before, comes down to who are your volunteers? And I say volunteer because now we're at a point where we're big enough that we do have like paid staff because we couldn't function without it. But in the beginning, I mean, I could go show up at the field and there'd be three games a night and check everyone in at the table as they walked in because the games were happening on the two fields in between where I was sitting. you know, so it like it worked, right?
But when you get bigger than that and now we run eight to nine fields at a complex with three games a night, you can't that. So the systems start taking more effort and costing more and therefore having to pay staff. But in the beginning, good volunteers could help us hand out the shirts, help us do what we need to
Lance (48:40.714)
Yep. Yep.
Lance (48:56.532)
Yep. Yeah. So I should have asked this at the beginning, but you mentioned like having a board and some of these things. Are you all set up as a for -profit or nonprofit? Set up as a nonprofit. Okay. Got it. And so I know we're kind of a little over time, but I do want to get at least briefly to the staffing and the referee stuff. So what does the staffing, like the paid staff, do you have one sort of commissioner that's like out there kind of adult in the room sort of person? That's how we have it sort of set up or there.
Kaissa Gurvine (49:05.094)
We're a nonprofit.
Lance (49:26.182)
Is there more than that in terms of like the staff and then what's the referee kind of high level program look
Kaissa Gurvine (49:32.549)
So when we started paying staff, which wasn't always, so for the first 10 years, me and everybody that helped just did it, just did it so that we would have the league. But then it became such a job that that's when we incorporated and became an official separate nonprofit from the AYSO pilot program. And so we were operating under them up to that time. And so,
Lance (49:55.711)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (50:00.899)
So I'm the president and CEO, get paid for like overseeing and manage all that. But then I've got a scheduler, then that's like a full -time job and a registrar who for a long time, same registrar from the beginning did it for free, but so much work now in putting and managing all the rosters. And so, but then the referee, so referee assigners,
there's a system where they have to get paid, right? So like if they're officially a referee center, they get paid. And so they kind of dictate what that cost is and bill us if you will. And then the referees get paid as well, but they're independent contractors, right? So they're not employees that we're paying payroll on or anything like that. In fact, everybody is an independent contractor because they have.
certain guidelines of what they need to establish, but I'm not telling them what time to show up and how they need to do it. And that's what differentiates between, because we did do the payroll employee thing for a while and I was like, this just doesn't work, right? Like, costs too much money to pay all those tax, the payroll taxes. And since we're nonprofit, we don't have to pay any taxes. So why are we doing that to ourselves? But it took some time to figure that out. And so most of our costs, our budget goes to paying referees.
Lance (51:04.798)
Yeah.
Kaissa Gurvine (51:20.083)
and then second would be fields and lights.
Lance (51:23.821)
your referees are more expensive than your... fields.
Kaissa Gurvine (51:28.127)
Well, yes, but currently that probably isn't accurate because the facility that we do play at is very expensive. And we've chosen over the last few years to go from playing at multiple field locations all over town. Cause there was only, you know, one field here, two fields here, right? Like no, no multiple field locations. we chose to go from that to a one location, but it does cost probably
Lance (51:47.582)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (51:58.056)
five to six times as much as any other field in town. And so we did have to raise costs. That's a whole nother conversation that is never fun, never pretty, but we retained our numbers surprisingly, but we had to do it for field quality. mean, we had fields that had divots and holes and rut and poofs of grass and it's just dangerous. And we just had injury after injury. And I can't tell you that
Lance (52:19.69)
Yeah.
Kaissa Gurvine (52:27.971)
That doesn't mean we still don't have injury because stuff still happens, but not because of the field. We do not. We have way less injuries happening with a really clean, smooth surface. Anyway, so that was what was the last. OK. No, that's OK. Yeah, because the normal referee part of it's the same as anybody else would do. They have an assigner. We know how many fields, how many referees we need, and we can go in there and just assign referees.
Lance (52:38.43)
Yep. Nice. So the ref reprogrammed us. You have an assigner. I kind got an architecture of your staff,
Kaissa Gurvine (52:58.045)
But the thing that we've done differently over the years is that we've wanted to develop our referee program, meaning how can we grow it? And again, this all stemmed from AYSO and how they do it. I was part of that as well as being an advanced referee just within the AYSO program. And then like what I did is I would recruit the kids. So like, hey, what's a way you could give back to soccer? well, you are like 14, 12, 13, 14. You can ref these U10 games and
You know, like you're volunteer, it looks good on your resume. You could earn money later. Like there's all these perks. So, so I kept trying to like round up all these kids, but it was the retention and it was how people treated them. You get these youth out there, they're doing a game and you got parents that are idiots and they're yelling at the referee and you're like, the kid's 12. Why are you yelling at them? Like, I guess it's 10. Like this is just supposed to be for fun, but it would chase away so many kids.
Lance (53:48.605)
Yeah, yeah,
Kaissa Gurvine (53:56.7)
got out of the AYSO thing, but now I'm like, hey, we could do the same thing in our adult program. The kids need to probably be 14 or up because now you're a referee. Because usually the rule is you need to be older than the people you're reffing. Okay. Well, that's hard to do when you're an adult because if somebody's 50 or 60, you wouldn't. Okay. So a 14 year old can do it, but we, that's why the sportsmanship program, once we had it established really well, we could ding people for the way they would treat a referee and get them out of there and keep the referee.
Right? That was more important. But it took some time and I'm sure there have been some youth referees that still have left because of one stupid person and it ruins it, right? It ruins it for everyone. So we tried really hard by training these youth. But then the other thing was I have the really great referee administrator that was like, hey, we can do trainings. I am authorized or trained to train referees. So we started recruiting within our own league. Who wants to be a referee?
Lance (54:26.949)
Mm -hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (54:56.375)
like we have people that stop playing just for whatever reason, they, but they may be a spouse or a family member still playing, or they just love the game. They're willing to ref. They make money when they're roughing or maybe they think they know all the rules because they're the ones that are always yipping at the referees. Like, Hey, why don't you come be a referee? And then one of two things will happen. They have a little bit more respect for the referees or then now they really think they know everything. Either way.
Lance (55:22.346)
In their way.
Kaissa Gurvine (55:24.611)
They're putting their energy to good use, right? And then so the third thing is, that by recruiting within our player community, they can ref and play. So they can ref a six and seven o 'clock game and they can play the eight o 'clock game or whatever. Because our referee is a signer is willing to work around that. Now, the signer cannot assign somebody if they're just a volunteer. So you got, we have different levels.
So the fourth thing is, that we also have volunteer referees. So we have people that want to learn how to be a referee, but they want to give it a try first, but they're willing to help. Now they're still going to get paid. So like we still give them a state, you know, a small amount of money. It's not the same as what the certified referee gets, but they get something for their time and their effort. They wear a shirt that says volunteer. So the players need to know this person's volunteering. And the reason they're volunteering is because we don't have enough other
So like we need them, we need them to be trained and to learn how to do this. so it takes patience and it takes time, but you have to foster this to be able to get to the point where you have so many referees that now he has to turn people away. Right? But it wasn't like that. And we played all through COVID, that's a whole nother story. And it was because we had our own, we had enough referees because we could use within. And so there was a lot of people that suffered youth leagues and all sorts
Lance (56:32.938)
Hmm.
Kaissa Gurvine (56:48.131)
during that time that like, we don't have enough referees. And I was like, wow, we actually have enough referees. So surprisingly, these things, even though I didn't forecast the future with them, really created an atmosphere that fed into everything that we wanted, right? We wanna play, we wanna have fun, we want families around, and we wanna be able to play until we're older. So like I'm getting on the older end now, but I still wanna keep playing.
So then we also have an over 35 for the women's and soon we're going to start some men's divisions and things like that to allow them to also have like a daddy league or that's not what we call it. But when, when my husband played, he, they joked, all the guys would say, this is the old man's league, but they, but they could still play some good soccer, but they could just chill a little bit when they did it. So they weren't all hurting each other. And so I think that's the beauty of being able to do the whole gamut 18 and up all the way
Lance (57:26.43)
Haha,
Lance (57:43.346)
you reach that size right where you can start to kind of fracture off and maybe offer something more specific for people. I think that's kind of tough in the beginning is that you want to like be everything for everybody but there's like four teams or something signed up.
Kaissa Gurvine (57:47.798)
Yeah.
Kaissa Gurvine (57:56.522)
Yeah. And divisions do make a big difference. That's what you're talking about, right? Like we can have our true recreational is down there in D. We do ABCD. Not anything more than just a number. We tried numbers or a name for it, but you you got your advanced, intermediate, beginning, and then recreational. But you can't do that unless you have a lot of teams to do it. And so it does make it nice because then people fit somewhere and they're not trying to compete against an A advanced.
team when they truly are beginning.
Lance (58:29.13)
Totally, yeah. I know, that's a huge part of it. Okay, sweet, I think that was it. That was a... I mean, that's a lot of great stuff. That's super just thoughtful. And it sounds like you just kind of iterated a lot over 20 years to get to a spot where it's like just runs super smoothly and it sounds like one of the more family -friendly. I don't think I've heard of another league that exactly has that kind of angle that you're going for and the fact that you've pulled it off. I like it a lot.
Kaissa Gurvine (58:57.449)
it.
Lance (58:59.167)
obvious when you think about it that there's going to be a lot of people that would be drawn to that style of league.
Kaissa Gurvine (59:05.79)
Yeah, but I hear what you're saying. That's interesting that you say that there's not others. But it does, yeah, it does take. Yeah.
Lance (59:14.498)
Yeah, it sounds like takes a lot, right? The links that you're going to and the things that you've developed for it all to work. Like I it's thoughtful, for sure.
Okay, I think that's it. Thanks again for your time.
Kaissa Gurvine (59:30.887)
Yeah, you're welcome.
The AREENA app and leagues offer an immersive rec sports experience for adults, with stat tracking, skill matching, leaderboards and team messaging. Subscribe and play soccer or basketball year round, or pay by game or match with zero commitments.
