Sometimes life makes decisions for you.

Such is the case for the Ballistic United Soccer Club General Manager Tim Ryerson.

Ryerson has been governing BUSC daily, steering the club to be among the elite youth soccer clubs in the United States.

Over the course of the last year, Ryerson was diagnosed with colon cancer. He has gone through treatments and in his latest screening he is still all clear.

But it was while going through the process, Ryerson and his wife Leslie did some soul searching. "Going through the cancer changed my perspective on life," Ryerson said. "Going through what I went through changed everything."

With his son (Trevor) in the Washington D.C. area attending grad school, his daughter in Virginia with Tim's son-in-law (Ashley and Pat) and granddaughter Eliza, and his aging parents in Maryland, there was a desire to be close to all.

And it was with that in mind that Ryerson, who grew up in Maryland, made the decision to leave Ballistic and accept the position of associate executive director with the McLean Youth Soccer in Northern Virginia.

"We were only seeing the kids and my parents a couple of times a year," Ryerson said. "Once we went back, saw the kids, and told them there was a chance I could be coming back there, and we saw how excited they were, it was an easy decision."

BUSC President Scott McMillin knows the club will miss Ryerson, but at the same time, fully supports the move.

"We want to thank Tim for his seven years of service at Ballistic United and getting the club to the next level," McMillin said. "We will miss him but know that he is only leaving us to spend more time with his immediate family in the Virginia area."

McLean Youth Soccer is twice the size of BUSC -- or the same size if Ballistic and the Pleasanton Rage merged. While in most ways it was an easy decision to make, there are some bittersweet emotions.

"I am going to miss Ballistic of course," Ryerson said. "I know I am fortunate for having worked for them. I just tried to do my best and wanted to leave the club in better shape than it was when I got there."

Which he did, and helped get the club through some difficult stretches.

"Tim started with BUSC in 2017 as a business development manager and after much success was quickly promoted to director of business development in 2018 taking on the additional responsibilities of recreational director of coaching and director of events," explained McMillin. "Tim was then elevated to the role of general manager in early 2020. Tim proceeded to create a strategic plan and used that to guide the club to financial stability even in the face of a worldwide pandemic. In addition to being a great GM, he was also one of my closest friends."

Also, the Ryersons will miss Pleasanton.

"We love Pleasanton," Ryerson said. "I could stay here forever. We love that small-town feel of Main Street. We will miss all the time we spent down there -- the Farmers' Market and the other stuff we used to do. We will miss all the relationships we have made."

Ryerson will stick with Ballistic through the summer, with the family moving back east the first week of September. An announcement will be made soon as to who will be taking over the GM role for Ballistic.

Ballistic United sending off players to college

Recently we ran a story naming the BUSC players heading off to college. There were some names omitted from the list we received, as well as a pair of misspellings. Here is the correct list!

The players are Allen Zhou, Fernando Cavazos, Sam Montoya, Jack Lingle, Rohan Sethna, Javier Mena, Zach Watson, Razin Choudhry, Branden Misquita, Faheem Naik, Andy McMasters, Ezra Lynch, Aarnav Reddy, Arvind Saravanakumar, Brandon Correia, Dante Ruiz, David Wright, Elias Rousta, Ethan Reeves, Fionn Conway, Gabriel Hersch, Isaac Light, Kalyan Manickaraja, Kishore Saravanakumar, Mick Maier, Nate Fluker and Ryan Wu.

Isaac Light, Arvind Saravanakumar and Ryan Wu were the three players selected as National Merit Semifinalists.

The list of colleges the players will be attending include CSU San Marcos, CSU Chico, Colorado State, Emory, Indiana, Las Positas, Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine, Santa Clara, Santa Barbara City College, Stony Brook, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, Michigan, Oregon and Tennessee.