Longtime executive Kathie Diapoulis resigns from Washington Area Girls Soccer League
Longtime Washington Area Girls Soccer League executive Kathie Diapoulis will no longer be involved with the 41-year old league that has been home to countless elite female players over the decades, including former U.S. Women’s National Team star Mia Hamm and 2015 Women’s World Cup-bound defender Ali Krieger.
+NOTE: Krieger will attend a World Cup send-off event with her home club PWSI at 6:30 p.m. ET tonight at Forest Park High School in Woodbridge, Va.
A league official confirmed to SoccerWire.com via email Wednesday morning that Diapoulis had submitted her resignation. Diapoulis acknowledged that she did issue a letter of resignation, and that the league has accepted.
“I will always think of my years as a volunteer for WAGS fondly,” Diapoulis said.
Diapoulis first became involved with the league as a team manger in 1992 and then a club representative for Little River SC three laters later. She was elected president in 1997, and served in that role on a volunteer basis until accepting a position as a full-time paid executive director in 2014.
She was the second to serve in that newly-created Executive Director role in 2013 for the historic all-girls soccer league, which also hosts a highly respected showcase tournament each Columbus Day weekend.
The league’s prestige as the nation’s premier competition platform for girls has waned of late due to the rise of more geographically diverse regional and national leagues.
But WAGS is still home to more than 600 girls travel teams from across the greater Washington, D.C. region, with some traveling from as far away as West Virginia and a steady stream of teams seeking entry each year.
The league wraps up its spring season on Sunday, June 7 and will host its third annual WAGS Qualifier Tournament in Leesburg, Virginia June 27-28, where the finalists from each age group will earn an automatic spot in the nationally-renowned WAGS Rael Vodicka Memorial Tournament in October.
The league’s Annual General Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 18, where the primary order of business will see club representatives cast weighted ballots (based on their number of teams in the league) for several key board positions.
Editor’s note: Due to the personal nature of this story and its emotional aspects for so many, we have decided not to allow comments on this news.
