The Pacific Youth Soccer League entered 2022 without two of their most dedicated and influential board members who had over half a century of combined service to the community after both retired from their positions in December of last year.

Patti Ghio, who served 31 years, and Tom Schoettle, who served 20 years, respectively, had an immeasurable impact on the lives of the younger generations across San Diego and their legacy will not be forgotten.

“Every time we started a season and I saw the families on the field, I felt a sense of pride and happiness that I was able to help make that happen,” Ghio said. “My favorite moments were when a person would step up to me at the registration table and say, ‘Do you remember me? I played here as a kid and you were the registrar then.’”

Ghio held the position of league registrar for her entire tenure along with serving as vice president of risk management concurrently for 10 of those years. When she started her position, the PYSL had approximately 200 kids and she made it a personal goal to get the league known in the community.

“I built every form and flier from scratch and begged parent after parent to coach their kids’ teams,” Ghio added. “At that time, hardly any parent had ever played soccer, and we had to teach them how to coach a sport they did not understand well and give them the courage to try to do so.

“There are still many challenges, field space in the beach areas is always a challenge since we can’t use Mission Bay Park lands and there is no room for field growth in our population-dense area. It’s still a challenge to find enough coaches even though so many of the parents played soccer as kids.”

Thanks largely to her efforts, PYSL eventually grew to more than 1,000 players in the fall seasons and about 400 in the spring seasons.

Schoettle wore many hats during his time with PYSL including the president, vice president, referee assignor, field assignor, and coach. Over the years, the league has grown to provide a healthy, safe, outdoor fitness outlet to thousands of children, offering both recreational soccer and competitive soccer options. He never had any intention of getting involved in the soccer program until his wife Kim urged him to because coaches were so desperately needed.

“There are too many memorable moments over the years to include them all, but the ability to work with the kids as players and referees certainly provided me with my greatest memories,” Schoettle said. “It enabled me to remain connected with the youth of our community, and I still see many of them today now that they have become young adults.”

Regardless of what position he held at the time, his top priority was always to make soccer available to every kid who had an interest in playing. This mission was complicated over the last two years with COVID-19 creating unprecedented challenges for the league.

“I would like to thank every volunteer that ever coached, or worked on the board, or provided any support to the league because they are the ones that make this all possible,” Schoettle said.