Last Wednesday, close to 200 parents and players attended a meeting of the Peachtree City Youth Soccer Association. The meeting had to be moved to St. Paul Lutheran Church off Georgia Highway 74 because the attendance was going to be vastly larger than any previous meeting. The issue that was driving the spike in attendance was the firing of Brian Moore, the previous director of coaching, and the hiring of his replacement, Kia Zolgharnain.

The parents and players made it known to the board that they were unhappy with this decision, which came with only a few weeks left in the fall season, for several reasons.

One of the main reasons for their displeasure was that Moore was also the coach of a U-18 and a U-16 girls team and both teams had games and tournaments coming up.

Moore is a popular figure among many in the league; he has been a very successful coach, while also helming a program that has produced a national champion, a girls program that ranks 15th in the nation, and a number of players that are involved with Olympic development teams and much more.

On several occasions, people in the audience applauded the passion that other members of the audience spoke with about Moore, often giving the speaker a standing ovation.

The problems started last spring. According to PTCYSA president Debbie White, there was an apparent problem from a few, disruptive select team parents who had heard about the possibility of hiring a second director of coaching to join Moore and were very upset about this.

Peachtree City sent a letter to the organization in June encouraging them to form two separate organizations: one a recreational league and one a select league.

It is in the city’s charter to provide a recreational program for kids and as far as the city was concerned, the select league was simply icing on the cake.

PTCYSA does not get any funding from the city, but the city does allow the league to use their fields and does perform day to day maintenance on the fields.

If the city chose to play hardball, teams may not have had a place to play until the groups split.

At a meeting with the city in August, the board illustrated how the two units work together and that under Georgia Soccer Association rules, there could not be a select league unless it had ties to a recreation league.

The matter was settled but there was still a split between the two groups and Moore and a number of the select coaches were at the center.

The fees that the two leagues paid contributed to the salary of Moore, who trained teams, both recreation and select, and also assigned select coaches to train teams during the season.

Recreation league fees range from $60-$105 for a season, while select players can pay several thousand dollars a season in tournament fees, coaching fees and more.

The recreation league stopped contributing a portion of their fees to Moore’s salary and the pay of select coaches because they felt they were not being trained by the right personnel or at times that were convenient for the teams.

The recreation league has since hired an outside trainer to work with their teams. Several select teams, especially on the boys side, also experienced similar problems and during a time earlier this year when Moore was not coaching either of his two teams.

White and members of the board stated that he continued to train these two teams, but did not train others who were paying for training at that point in the season.

The board stated that three boys who were part of the Olympic development program left the league and that a U-15 boys team ended up short of a full roster and had to cancel the remainder of their season.

Moore, who addressed the board towards the end of the meeting, stated that he wanted to “make it crystal clear that while he trained his teams in February, it was not at the expense of other teams and that he fulfilled his contract.”

The other issue, according to the board, was that Moore was opposed to bringing in another director of coaching to head the boys program and having to share authority.

White summed up the disagreements by stating that “there was a difference in opinion between Moore and the board on how the organization was structured,” and Moore’s contract was terminated.

The parents addressed the board with a variety of different tones. Some tearfully spoke of the work that Moore had done with their children’s teams, while others angrily accused the board of setting Moore up to fail by not having what they felt his goals were in writing.

Many parents felt that their children’s chances of getting scholarships to play in college would erode if the program was not under the control of Moore, who is well-known among college coaches and has had numerous players find places to continue their soccer careers.

Many parents also felt blindsided by the news of Moore’s termination, which was apparently done early one morning in a Chick-fil-A.

The other issue that came up repeatedly throughout the meeting was “what would happen to the two teams that Moore coached?”

A deal has since been worked out where Moore will continue to coach his U-18 team this fall and in State Cup play next spring.

They will still have a place to practice and will continue to play under the PTC Lazer name, which allows them to compete in tournaments and State Cup.

As for the U-16 team, Moore and Zolgharnain may work something out, but as of Monday morning, White stated that Zolgharnain would be the coach of the U-16 team.

One parent made an interesting statement during the meeting, claiming to represent the president of Panasonic, where the parent was employed.

Apparently, the president’s daughter is a member of the Lazer program and the president, who had donated $45,000 to the league, $15,000 of which they had already received, was considering pulling the remaining $30,000 due to the way the board had handled the Moore situation.

The parent then added that the president urged a compromise where Zolgharnain would be the director of coaching for the boys’ side and Moore would be the director of coaching for the girls, but also have oversight over the league.

The parent then added that if this was done, the president would chair a corporate fund-raising program for Peachtree City Youth Soccer and would personally visit companies in Peachtree City asking them for their financial support of the league.

Jeff Shaffer, the 2004 U.S. Olympic diving coach and head diving coach at Auburn University, addressed the board and the audience by stating that the matter was not one of “Brian versus Kia, but rather an issue to do what is best for the athletes.”

Shaffer talked about how the sport of diving is like a pyramid and has four different levels, starting with grassroots at the bottom, which give young divers pre-competitive, fundamental skills and progressing to senior national on top, which has the nation’s top athletes compete on a national and international scale.

“You are reversing the pyramid and putting your base on top,” said Shaffer. “That is wrong.”

The parents and players continued to air their concerns. Sometimes their pleas were very heartfelt, urging the board to “listen to the kids,” while other discussions were very heated.

At one point a few people urged Bruce Thames, the select chair, to immediately resign his position and step down. Thames, who was trying to answer one parent’s question earlier in the meeting, while the parent continued to talk, called the parent an “idjit.”

Ultimately, nothing was decided on Wednesday night. The board and Moore may talk again, searching for a compromise, and White was trying to reach the president of Panasonic on Monday morning to find out more information about the alleged offer to head up a corporate fund-raising campaign, as well as information about the money that was donated to the league.

There were no winners at last Wednesday’s meeting but both sides got to have their say and be heard by those on the opposite side of the issue.

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