June 2026 marks a turning point for the Find Your Club platform. For the first time, a single month's verified story output spans four sports, eight programs, and five states — with three clubs publishing on the platform for the very first time. The data tells a story about what happens when families start using summer as a research season, not just a recovery period.
Michigan Jaguars FC: What a National-Level Club Looks Like From the Inside
Michigan Jaguars FC published two of June's most compelling verified stories — and together they make an argument that very few clubs can make with evidence: that the program develops athletes at the highest levels over the longest timelines, and that late starters belong here too.
Jovie Kasgorgis started soccer at ten years old with no prior organized experience. She is now on the Girls Academy roster. Evelyn Dziadosz joined Michigan Jaguars FC out of geographic convenience. A decade later, she is competing at the GA Aspire level. Both stories answer the question families are actually asking when they research elite youth clubs: Does this program deliver on its promises over time?
"When Jovie walked onto the pitch for Michigan Jaguars FC at ten years old, she had never played a single minute of organized soccer. Today, she is a high-level competitor on the Girls Academy roster."
— Jovie Kasgorgis · Michigan Jaguars FCLong-tenure athlete stories — athletes who joined young and stayed for five or more years — are the most powerful content a competitive club can publish. They prove the program works. If your club has athletes who have been with you for a decade, those stories should be your first call, not your last.
The Summer Camp as Trust Accelerator: 7 Stories That Reveal a New Family Behavior
June's most surprising pattern: seven of the month's sixteen stories came from summer camp experiences — five from NCR Volleyball alone, one from CC United Soccer Camps, and one from UK International Soccer Camps. This is not a coincidence. It reflects a shift in how families use summer.
Families are increasingly treating summer camps as low-risk evaluation periods for clubs and programs they are considering for full-year enrollment. A week at an NCR Volleyball camp is a tryout for the relationship. The verified stories from these camps describe not just the experience but the decision process: families who came to evaluate and stayed to commit.
If your club runs a summer camp, verified testimonials from camp participants are among the most cost-effective content you can publish. They reach families at the exact moment they are evaluating programs — and they convert at a higher rate than any general club testimonial because the family already has direct experience with your coaching staff and culture.
International Programs Enter the Family Decision Mix
Two of June's stories came from programs operating at the intersection of youth sports and international experience — Travel and Play International Soccer Tours and ID Sports USA. Both represent a growing category of program that families are researching alongside traditional club options: experiences that offer competitive exposure, international travel, and in ID Sports USA's case, direct college recruiting pathways.
The Garry Laidlaw story for Travel and Play and the Ray Dunshee story for ID Sports USA describe the same underlying family motivation: access to experiences that a domestic club season cannot provide. For families with athletes targeting college programs or international competition, these stories are highly relevant to their research process.
International and showcase programs are not competing with local clubs — they are complementary to them. Families who invest in a Travel and Play tour or an ID Sports USA camp are the same families who take club selection seriously year-round. These stories signal a sophisticated family audience that Find Your Club is increasingly reaching.
New Clubs on the Platform: Maplebrook, Manitou FC, and Minnesota United FC
June brought three clubs to the Find Your Club platform for the first time — each representing a different tier of the youth sports ecosystem and a different model of what verified storytelling looks like at launch.
The Minnesota United FC story is particularly notable — it marks the first MLS-affiliated program to publish verified testimonials on the Find Your Club platform. Coach Peter Munkittrick's story about building better players and lifelong fans through the camp experience represents a category of content that no other youth sports discovery platform has: verified testimonials from professional club academies sitting alongside local competitive programs.
The presence of an MLS-affiliated program on the platform changes the context for every club listed alongside it. When a family researching local soccer clubs sees Minnesota United FC publishing verified testimonials through the same platform, it signals that Find Your Club is where serious programs tell their stories — at every level of the sport.
Frequently Asked Questions
What June Tells Us About Where This Is Going
The platform's June 2026 story output spans soccer, volleyball, international tours, and MLS-affiliated programs. That range is not a coincidence — it reflects what happens when verified storytelling becomes a standard practice across different tiers and sports of youth athletics.
The summer camp pattern is the most significant new signal: families are now using the platform to research programs during the evaluation window, not just the tryout window. That changes the audience clubs are reaching with every story they publish.
The July 2026 report will cover the summer's full story output. View all reports →