Soccer club plans ties to island's Rec Center'Diminishing numbers' bring about partnershipBY KATHLYN CLORE, The Island Packet
Published Saturday, July 8, 2006
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Of the scores of small children learning to avoid "bunchball" on the soccer fields of Hilton Head Island and Bluffton, only about 10 percent will progress to play club soccer for a local team.
The Hilton Head-Bluffton Soccer Club wants to change that.
"With the diminishing numbers in the club, we realize we need to use the Rec Center as a resource, to get more players out for club soccer," incoming club president Chris MacMurray said.
In part because its numbers have halved since 2000, when the club fielded about 180 participants -- 10 teams of about 18 players -- the HHBSC is now forming an administrative partnership with the Island Recreation Center.
Officials said the Rec Center will provide the club with a storefront, a stable corps of permanent staff members working with the club, publicity and a pool from which to recruit.
"It's kind of a bricks and mortar thing," said Frank Soule, executive director of the Island Recreation Association. "We're having tryouts and initial meetings right now. Hopefully, soon we'll be able to finalize the agreement."
The two groups aren't unfamiliar with each other. They have for the past six years worked together to orchestrate the annual Soccer by the Sea tournament, which last September drew 60 teams from at least three states. Four of the HHBSC's seven board members also sit on the Rec Center's board.
Bob Rozek, the recreation director who runs the Rec Center's soccer program, said he'll be assisting coaches with schedules, helping to identify prospective club players, coordinating field usage with the county and handling phone calls.
"That's a big one," he said. "When people want to get some answers, it's hard with a group of parents running the program to get ahold of somebody during the day."
Ernie Suozzi, a high school soccer coaching mainstay on the island, led HHBSC teams on and off for about five years, but said he got out of it because of the parental politics. Now he spends the school year coaching at Hilton Head Christian Academy and devotes two hours each morning to training a group of eight to 12 college-level players at Hilton Head High School.
"If the Rec Center takes it over, it'll be better," Suozzi said. "They've got to get rid of those political elements. The parents need to stay out of it."
Right now, some of the kids are staying out of it, too. Chris MacMurray's daughter, Hilton Head High graduate Katherine MacMurray, plans to play soccer this fall at Kentucky's Centre College. During her high school career, she played for a club in Mt. Pleasant, then a team from Savannah.
"She wanted to play at the premiere level," Chris MacMurray said.
The HHBSC fields teams on only two of the three levels of club soccer played in the state -- challenge and classic. It doesn't have any premiere teams. The organization has had some success at the challenge level, though, particularly under Hilton Head High coach John Kerr, who helped the club begin to train its players in pools.
Still, board members said Beaufort County is never going to produce a powerhouse club like the Carolina Elite Soccer Academy, which claims to be the largest and one of the most successful youth soccer clubs in the state.
Contact Kathlyn Clore at 706-8123 or
kclore@islandpacket.com kclore@islandpacket.com. To comment on this story go to islandpacket.com.
