Cloudy Corvallis skies broke just in time for the annual Corvallis AYSO Five-A-Side tournament this past Saturday. U8 to High School division teams playing in the Spring season took part in this event at Adams Elementary School. Although the event is called a "tournament" it is more like a festival. As an AYSO event the focus in placed on participation rather than wins and losses.

The tournament began at 9:00 AM and final games were played at 4:00 PM. The teams played four games spread out over a few hours or so leaving plenty of time for the players to paint one another between games. Face and hair painting is a regular tradition at the Five-A-Side event and even parents, coaches and referees get into it.

The atmosphere at the field could not have been better. A full eight fields had games running at the same time. Lawn chairs and tents were crowded around each field. The sky was clear and the cheering was constant. It was a great big celebration of soccer for the Corvallis community. This is really what AYSO is all about.

Youth soccer seems to be gravitating towards polar extremes. On one end you have AYSO, a completely volunteer driven organization deeply rooted in the local youth community, and on the other are professionally run clubs that focused on developing skilled soccer players. If we could just combine this grass-roots sense of community with the more formal soccer training offered by club soccer we would be onto something.