Eastern Region Soccer Online

Your first stop for high school soccer news in the VHSL AAA Eastern Region!

easternregionsoccer@yahoo.com

March 14, 2011

Website is getting a facelift (sorry…)

Due to some foreseen and unforeseen measures, Eastern Region Soccer Online has had to make a change to how we present you all the latest  news, statistics, schedules and more on high school soccer here in the VHSL Group AAA Eastern Region.  I know I don’t have to explain it to you but I feel obligated to get it out there so everyone is on the same page.

First of all, I apologize for not getting things rolling sooner in preparation for the new season and take full responsibility.  I accepted a new position at my full-time career outside of sports that has come with the launching of a multitude of new Company-wide projects.  While I am happy to say it was a good move for me personally and I am really excited for the new opportunity in front of me, it is also very nerve-wracking as many of these projects are in its infancy and have been the past month or so.  I also have a busy schedule these days as an independent contractor in athletics which leaves me with very limited free time and energy to stay on getting E.R.S.O. up and running again.

I want to keep this site—after all, the local soccer community and even its media has shown its support by visiting us in pretty modest numbers the past few years.  The LAST thing I want to do is bring it down; then again, I’d ideally like to oversee an operation where others would provide the content but that demand just doesn’t appear to be there from our area or other fans of the game to help me out there.  It doesn’t help that I am not one to reach out and ask for help so I, again, put a lot of that on myself.

As an aside, just about all of my hard work and research on high school soccer went up in flames back in August of last year when my prior computer’s hard drive stopped reading to the point where it prevented me from loading up my operating system.  This is a good lesson for everyone to, for goodness sakes, buy some external hard drives and back up your information and, unfortunately, I learned that the hard way.

That brings me to today where, it had appeared about three weeks ago when I loaded the software into my new computer, that it would operate and update in Windows 7.  Since then, I have found that is not the case, so I am now having to rebuild a site from relative scratch.  Not much I can do about it—c’est la vie.

So, what happens next?  Well, you will notice a couple of different things for my site when it is up and fully operational. 

First, in addition to the new layout which is very dumbed down at this stage, I am going to try and streamline the 2011 Composite Schedule to automatically update the schedules and results anywhere on the site for this year and then archive years past that I have saved.  My reports are going to remain daily postings in layout but will be released on a weekly basis once we are up and running here.  Until then, I’m going to be playing a lot of catch-up so please understand I’m doing what I can.

Next, I am trying to establish a relationship with MaxPreps, a high school reporting service operated by CBS Sports.  After monitoring how efficient the reporting services have been with basketball and football here in the Eastern Region on MaxPreps and with all the difficulties I have experienced on competitor sites in the past, I went ahead and looked into the possibility of establishing a soccer presence that doesn’t exist on that site for our local teams.  If I can get this fully operational, this will help not only to allow each team to have a facebook-like presence about their team with easy-to-use controls, but also has college-like capabilities of posting and tracking statistics and getting their information out to the public through an advanced platform that I am honestly not capable of putting together more efficiently myself.

Speaking of facebook, I would also like to establish an Eastern Region Soccer fan page eventually with connectivity to this site to help further bridge the gap between fans, players, coaches and the information that we put together.  I also want to re-establish archived material on this site under the new format, and a few other bells and whistles on the way.

Until then, I am trying to find whatever time I can to get everything up to speed and really need the help of the coaches to make it happen as you, like it or not, are on the front lines of what I need to make this site tick.  Fortunately, Marc Velbis has helped me out over the years with statistics and occasional action photos, and he is helping me structure the composite schedule for 2011 but I need your help. 

Coaches: If you can, please e-mail me with your roster and schedule so I can give you further instruction on what’s coming up and how you can help me get you established on MaxPreps so we can link that page directly to this site and expedite this process.  Honestly, I don’t have the time to track down all 78 of you about this stuff, so anything you can do to help me in this process, please e-mail me soon to easternregionsoccer@yahoo.com.

Thanks again for your continued support of high school soccer in Hampton Roads.  Fans: get out there and enjoy the games that get rolling this week!

-DR

(until then, please enjoy the existing site with info from the last two years while it is still there by clicking on the following link: www.easternregionsoccer.com/index4)