Efforts being made to establish boys and girls soccer at IRMS

No one can argue the immense popularity of the youth soccer in Leavenworth. Nearly 50 percent of all the elementary age children in the school district participate. Unfortunately, once a child is done with youth soccer and ready for middle school, there is no soccer team until high school.
The Leavenworth Soccer Club is trying to change that. Cascade High School Athletic Director Dom Coffin briefed the Cascade School Board on recent developments toward establishing a middle school soccer program.
“It was officially brought up to bring in middle school soccer for girls. With us, if we are going to do it for the girls, we want to do it for the boys, just to make it fair on both sides,” Coffin said at the Jan. 22 board meeting. “We actually have more girls sports than boys. With soccer, if we add it, there could be a Title IX issue, so if we are going to add it, we want to add it for both.”
As for the budget, Coffin said they would have to add four coach stipends, for the head and assistant coaches for both seventh and eight grades.
“That is a good startup cost. There is the cost of uniforms, transportation, balls, goals...it’s all a big concern for us. What is nice, Leavenworth Soccer Club reached out to us and said, we’re willing help you purchase uniforms and balls. We’ll loan you the goals we already have with all our rec teams,” Coffin said. “That was a huge relief to us because starting a school team can be very difficult because it requires a lot of equipment. We can cross that one off the list.”
Middle school soccer would be on the same schedule as the high school, girls play in the fall, boys play in the spring. Board member Trey Ising asked how many other schools have middle school soccer.
Coffin said most of the big school districts do, like Wenatchee, Eastmont and Moses Lake. Smaller schools district like Cashmere and Chelan do not. When soccer is added, Coffin said there is drop in participation in the other sports.
“If kids are wanting to do it, and LSC has a majority of our community out, why would we stop those kids from having the opportunity to play?,” Coffin said. “It’s going to be something we are going to look at harder and try to find a way to do it.”
Transportation will be big issue, especially in the spring, he said. Only two buses may travel out of district in a given week during spring.
“Spring is the crazy time for us with transportation. We have six sports at the high school level. We have two at the middle school and now we’d be adding a third. It would be nine different sports teams to balance throughout the week and make sure not more than two of them are playing away,” Coffin said.
It’s already a nightmare to schedule spring sports, he said.
“I try to work around that. Another sport would be tough. Talking with Tim (Bentz, transportation director)..we are going to try and see if we can make it work. It will be tough to do,” Coffin said. “Luckily, middle school seasons are short, so it would be four or five trips away we would have to work around.”
The biggest impediment toward starting a middle school soccer program is field space, he said.
“We are pushed all together in the fall. Middle school football and high school football share the middle school field since we lost the practice football field,” Coffin said. “The big thing that is really stopping us from adding middle school soccer is getting that field (Alpine Lakes Field) finalized. As of right now, it looks like it will be towards the end of summer when that field will be done.”
If that field is not done, Coffin said they will not commit to doing it.
“I’ve met with LSC a few times and we’ve talked about all these different situations and ways they can help us. They really want to see the program happen and we want to try to make it happen. We will continue to work on this in spring,” Coffin said.
Board President Brenda Biebesheimer asked they were shooting for next school year.
“It really depends on the field, how fast the snow melts and how fast we can get up on it. We have to confirm because the league makes schedules in April. If we don’t have that field all the way done, we’ll wait and reevaluate,” Coffin said.
Leavenworth Soccer Club President Aaron Simon said they have been in discussions with Coffin about adding middle school soccer.
“What this accomplishes is fill in the gap between rec soccer, which usually ends at U13, which are 12 year olds...it fills that gap between rec soccer and high school soccer. Currently, there are 10 other middle school soccer teams in north-central Washington. With our growing soccer program here in Leavenworth, it just makes sense to have middle school soccer. I don’t know why we haven’t in the past,” Simon said.
Simon said LSC is willing to help get the program started.
“Dom has been working on a budget. He said, if they can make it work, he asked if we could donate balls, goals, etc. We have presented that to our board and our board is willing. We don’t have a number, but if there is anything we can do to get that program going, it would be one of biggest accomplishments,” Simon said.
At this point, field space seems to be the only barrier. If the field space is ready, Simon said it should be a done deal.
“The Alpine Lakes ball field, we actually are in the running for a $100,000 NFL Grassroots Foundation grant. We should find out in February if we are the recipient of that. That would help a lot to develop these ball fields, which would be used by all sports,” Simon said.
Simon hopes the program can start next fall.
“The girls program is in the fall. That is, by far, the biggest need. That would a good group to start with. We figure there are between 20-30 girls available for team. The coincides with the high school season,” Simon said.
Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.