Soccer Symposium Task Force Report

Browse Search

Durham-Chapel Hill Strikers has a total of 450 participants, with about 44 percent of these residing in Orange County. Approximately 70 percent of participants are male and 90 percent are white. The program has no paid staff and 50 adult volunteers. Fees average $68 per season. The group rents six fields for practices and four for matches; in Orange County, the Strikers lease Scroggs and Homestead fields. In addition to these larger programs, instructional soccer is offered by the Orange County Recreation and Parks Department and by the Chapel Hill/Carrboro YMCA. Orange County Recreation and Parks offers Micro Soccer in the fall to Orange County residents aged 12 and under; the program had 143 participants last fall and currently has 166 enrolled. In 1999, approximately 54 percent were females and 91 percent were white. The program has two paid staff and 12 volunteers and uses a softball field at the Northern Recreation Center. Fees are $30 per person. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA offers lessons and league play to approximately 300-400 youth in Fall and Spring. The cost is $55 for members and $70 for nonmembers. Available Facilities The task force also completed an inventory of all available soccer fields in Orange County, as shown in Table I. The inventory reveals a severe shortage of fields available for public use. As of mid-summer 2000, there is only one full-size field that is generally open to the public, and this field (at Efland Cheeks Community Center) is reserved at times for recreation department programs. The other three fields currently open to the public on a regular basis are one mid- sized, multi-purpose field (at Hank Anderson Park), one partial/mid-sized field (at Scroggs Elementary School), and one undeveloped play area (at the Northern Human Services Center). Another full-size field that will be available to the public is under development with funds from the county and the town of Carrboro at the site of the Smith Middle School; this field will not be available until Fall, 2002. There are five privately owned or leased full-sized soccer fields available for play, including one at the Kantner School and four fields at Glen Lennox which are owned by the University of North Carolina and leased on a year-to-year basis to Rainbow Soccer. Private entities own four partial/mid-sized fields and one undeveloped play area. Only one of these nine privately controlled fields is generally available to the public. The remaining soccer fields in the county are owned by the school systems, which have: • three full-sized soccer fields currently constructed and another two under development; • nine multi-purpose/football fields; and • two partial/mid-size fields. Because the school systems operate soccer in both Spring and Fall, and for both boys and girls, the school fields are generally not open to the public. Eleven of the school-owned soccer fields are conditionally available, either by contracted use or prior arrangement, solely at the discretion of the school principal and athletic staff. Looking at the entire inventory of soccer fields, apart from the issue of public availability, research conducted by the Task Force also showed that fields are not in good shape. Of the thirty fields (two of which are simply level playing areas) in the county, most are overused, only fourteen are irrigated, and only five currently have lights.