By Randy Vogt, Director of Public Relations, Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association
February 6, 2018-Over 100,000 kids, both boys and girls, from the East End of Long Island to the Canadian border are part of the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA). They obviously play soccer, not Cupid, but our non-profit organization is so large that many have a name or nickname that makes the upcoming Valentine’s Day special to them:
Four boys and two girls in Eastern New York have Valentine as a first name and 70 kids have Valentine as a last name.
Two boys in Eastern New York have Valentino as a first name and 78 kids use it as their surname.
52 girls have Valentina as a first name and two players have Valentina as a surname.
98 players definitely agree that “Love will find a way.” After all, four use Love as their first name while 94 have it as their last name.
If you said, “That’s Amore,” 13 players in Eastern New York would turn around as three players have it as part of their first name and 10 use Amore as their surname.
Seven players are named after the Roman goddess of love. Two have Venus as a first name while five have it as their last name.
Nobody has Cupid, the god of love in classic mythology, as a first name. But one of our players has the last name of Cupidore.
There are 133 kids in Eastern New York named Rose and 112 named Rosa and they are used as both a first name and last name.
24 players have Flowers as their last name and two list it as their nickname.
53 players has Sweet as their last name and six list it as their nickname including those nicknamed Sweet Loo, Sweet Cheeks, Sweet Pea and Sweet Baby James.
Perhaps one of these hundreds of players with a name associated with Valentine’s Day will become as famous as another New Yorker with a Valentine’s Day-themed name, Rudolph Valentino. Born in Italy, he emigrated to the U.S. and starred in top silent films such as “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and “The Sheik.” Valentino died in 1926 at the age of 31 because of severe pleuritis. Scores of despondent women attended his funeral at St. Malachy’s Catholic Church in Times Square as an estimated 100,000 in Manhattan that day paid their final respects to one of the top actors of the 1920s.
With over 100,000 youth soccer players––both boys and girls––and more than 25,000 volunteers, the non-profit Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) stretches from Montauk Point, Long Island to the Canadian border. Members are affiliated with 11 leagues throughout the association, which covers the entire state of New York east of Route 81. ENYYSA exists to promote and enhance the game of soccer for children and teenagers between the ages of 5 and 19 years old, and to encourage the healthy development of youth players, coaches, referees and administrators. All levels of soccer are offered––from intramural, travel team and premier players as well as Children With Special Needs. No child who wants to play soccer is turned away. ENYYSA is a proud member of the United States Soccer Federation and United States Youth Soccer Association. For more information, please log on to http://www.enysoccer.com/, which receives nearly 300,000 hits annually from the growing soccer community.