When Fred told me that his job was moving to San Diego, I felt like my whole world was imploding. I am an official soccer mom, and I helped run the soccer team on which my younger daughter played. My life was highly-organized, and now I saw it crumbling before my eyes. Well, I am no softy, so I knew it was time to get to work. Fred and I scoured the Internet looking at San Diego homes for sale. Over the course of a week, we found a home and negotiated a price. We moved two months later, just before the start of the fall term. When I visited the school with my daughter to sign her up for the soccer team, they told me there wouldn’t be a team this year unless they could find a new coach – the old one passed away.

Before I knew what was happening, I had uttered the fateful words: “I’ll do it”. Great, Sandy, you just moved to a new town and the first thing you do is take over a soccer team! But I didn’t panic, I got organized. Within a week, I had ten different apps on my IPhone to help me manage the team. Many of these apps overlap, and I haven’t quite decided which ones to keep and which ones to chuck. In general, the apps are free and perform a number of tasks:

1. Create and manage a team roster and schedule
2. Notify all the team’s players of news and announcements
3. Upload team and player photos so that they can be shared
4. Maintain statistics on player performance

Some of my favorites so far are:

• TeamTexting: Allows me to create a central email address that all team members can access for the latest team news. It’s a great way to keep everyone in the loop, and it’s free.
• Pinger: This does for voicemail what TeamTexting does for email. Its also free.
• TeamPages: Has all the bells and whistles. Worth paying the premium to avoid the ads.
• RedZoneLeagues: Maybe my favorite free software. It does it all, including player stats, photos and game calendars.
• eTeamz: Much like RedZoneLeagues with the addition of video highlights. You could use this to organize a whole league.
• TeamSnap: Similar to eTeamz, but it’s free.

You’ll be happy to know we won our first pre-season game. I think I’m going to like San Diego!