ABYS, Acton Boxborough Youth Soccer, provides 1700 boys and girls between the ages of 5 through 18 an opportunity to play organized soccer every spring and fall. We are the largest youth organization in Acton-Boxborough and among the largest youth soccer associations in Massachusetts.

ABYS age groups kick off with enrolled kindergartners. Kids not at this level will have to wait for Fall 2003! Our In-House program runs up through U10, generally 4th grade, and emphasizes constant and expanding skill development and maturation. The first age groups begin with individual ball skills in a clinic format, and run through 4v4 and either 6v6 or 8v8 play as they move into the middle years of elementary school.

On your registration, you may request a coach or a friend, especially in the early formative years of the program. Please limit these choices or they will be limited for you, and understand that, while your requests merit consideration by the registrar and by your child's respective division directors and coaches, we cannot guarantee that every request will be met.

In U8, 2nd grade, all players play 'In-house'. By U13, 7th grade, all ABYS players are placed on travel teams as the overall numbers in the age group, and the desire of a large percentage of these children to travel preclude the viability of forming in-house league play.

How, you may ask, does one get from U8 to U13? This is answered by individual families in individual ways, but the long and short of this transition is that ABYS works very hard to find a skill level appropriate to fun and skill development for each child that we serve.

If your child is of 'swing age' either U9 through U12, typically 3rd through 6th graders, where travel or town are registration options, please check your preference on the form. Again, selecting travel only means that you have articulated the desire for your son or daughter to be considered for placement on travel teams during these two years. It is not a given, in every case. Keep in mind that ABYS limits the travel teams in ages U9 though U12 to those teams capable of competing at Division 1 or 2. While there is value in travel play at these ages for exceptional players, we believe that we can provide a recreational experience that is at least the equivalent as BAYS division 3, with much less time being spent traveling to and from.

Our division directors, our coaches, and our parent and highs school volunteers are at the heart of what makes this program among the most successful recreational soccer programs in the state. They regularly meet and communicate by e-mail on a wide array of topics, primarily centered on the continued and steady development of ALL soccer players involved in the ABYS program. As a group, they make every effort to make open-minded, fair, and comparative evaluations of their players throughout the season and try their level best to match this skill with the best opportunity we can make available for each child going forward. 

Developing soccer players is a constant process. By favoring the factoring of many criteria into team placements, ABYS is aware that our team selection process, at all levels, might seem more opaque to folks not involved in these decision, and those used to limited tryouts or drafts as a basis of selecting teams, but we firmly believe that these very limited methods mentioned have limited usefulness. We prefer the continual give and take of coaches, directors, and parents, based on long-view past experience, recent team performance, and other evaluation tools like skill sessions and summer pick-ups. 

One of the very best ways to have more impact on ABYS is to become more involved yourself as a volunteer.

This goes for our coaches too! We are blessed with many volunteers who have played the game in their own youth, some at a very high level. We also have many who continue to play amateur league soccer through their forties and beyond. ABYS offers ongoing training sessions and special topic clinics, targeting many different levels of coaching, throughout the year. Look for them on the ABYS calendar page. This is a "two column" page template. Simply copy and paste.