West Allegheny Youth Soccer Association (WAYSA) traces its roots tothe late 80's when it was founded as the North Fayette Youth Soccer Associationby Jim Marsetti. The soccer group eventually evolved into WAYSA in the early 90's and was administered by subsequent presidents, Beth Kramer and later, the Ron Parrish/Jim Whetsell tandem. The youth association saw strong and steady growth during this decade.
In the mid-90's, Kevin Amos and Dave Tissue took over the reins and, a couple years later, added Derek McCracken as technical director. By the late 90's, this trio group instituted sweeping changes to how the games were practiced and played. They instituted the stations format for practices, which kept kids more interested and focused, and introduced small-sided games (smaller fields and smaller number of players) which helped to improve players' skill levels. These smaller-sided games have only been mandated by the United Stated Soccer Federation (USSF) in 2014; Over a decade after WAYSA required the same changes.
Those modifications instituted during the Amos/Tissue regime helped the West Allegheny High School soccer teams win 5 WPIAL Section titles, 1 WPIAL Championship and reach a State Championship between 2009 and 2014. Some of the WAYSA-trained players also won State Championships with their respective Cup/Classic teams, such as Beadling and Century. The training changes also helped to produce many WPIAL All-Section players, a number of All-WPIAL selections, a handful of All-State awardees, and one Regional All-American and another National All-American. Our players have gone on to play, and succeed, at D1, D2 and D3 college soccer programs.
The small-sided games and continued efforts to de-emphasize winning and concentrate on skill-building during the children's in-house and early travel ages by the current administration, led by Michael Pons since 2017 should lead to continued enjoyment by the youth in our region and success at the high school level.
