Last week’s Westbury School District Board of Education meeting opened with the community’s star athletes being recognized for their accomplishments. The Westbury Youth Soccer Club, a three-year-old organization that has already met with success, honored their athletes as well as thanked the board of education for their ongoing support of the club.
Club president Carolina Guardado noted that in addition to teaching the kids—both boys and girls who range in age from 4 to 16—how to play soccer, the coaches instill positive values to the athletes.
“It’s important to teach kids not just techniques in how to play soccer, but to teach moral character,” said Guardado. “In the fall, we made it a point to focus on sportsmanship over winning. At the end of the season, most of our groups placed in the [top three] of sportsmanship awards or first place in sportsmanship, as was the case with the U11 team.”
And the team didn’t just take home sportsmanship trophies; several of the club’s team won first place in their division, including the U11 White Dragons, U13 Green Dragons and U15 Red Dragons, with the Gold Dragons winning the Long Island and Division Championships.
