Perspective from Jeanette Banobi, mother of two ECFC Players (U-11 and U-13)
Hello ECFC parents,
I don't know how many of you have been following the Seattle United discussions, but my husband and I have been following pretty closely and are quite concerned about the fact that the current plan would completely dissolve Emerald City Football Club. This club means a LOT to our kids, and we're not prepared to just let it be disbanded without a good reason. Here is a summary of the situation and our feelings about it:
On July 9th the SYSA board of commissioners will vote to give final approval to Seattle United, the working name for a proposal to unify all of Seattle soccer. This new organization will have one board to oversee both regional and premier soccer, and they will gradually disband ECFC. Under this plan, there will be no ECFC teams below the U15 level in the first year (2010) and ECFC will be completely phased out by 2014. For documents detailing the plan and some of the history you can check the following website: http://sites.google.com/a/emeraldcityfc.org/seattle-united/
We support the overall goal of Seattle United to improve communication and create a structure that will allow players to move more easily between levels, but we are trying to understand, and haven't yet found any satisfactory explanation, why ECFC should be disbanded as part of this effort.. Both our children have had extremely positive experiences with this club: excellent player-focused coaching, strong volunteer and parent support, structured avenues of communication, and a genuine feeling of community. Families of older players tell us that the club has an excellent reputation among college coaches, something that will not be easy to regain with a new organization. ECFC has spent 30 years developing and improving its premier program. The club has shown a willingness to respond to community needs, for example, by adding more teams at each age level and conducting city-wide clinics for coaches. Certainly there is still room for improvement, but why eliminate an organization that is working on the whole so well? Most of the issues which Seattle United was formed to address concern primarily the regional level select soccer clubs. It seems that it would be more sensible to leave the existing, successful premier club in place, reorganize the regional level teams, and then create better structures for communication and player movement.
One other point that especially concerns families like ours with older children in ECFC is that the current plan would leave the U15-U18 teams "stranded" in an ECFC club that has suddenly lost half its membership. As far as we can determine, no provision has been made to assure that these remaining ECFC teams will be able to support themselves and maintain a quality program. Will they be able to retain coaches with only half as many coaching slots to fill? Will they be able to support a coaching director? And the problem will only worsen as the size of this remnant ECFC club dwindles each year. When our daughter reaches U18 there would be only two ECFC teams left. Seattle United proponents say that these ECFC teams would be welcome to also become part of Seattle United if they chose to, but there doesn't seem to be any procedure outlined for how this might happen. We fear that families who can afford the time and money to do a lot of driving will be fleeing to surrounding clubs like Crossfire, Eastside, and Northwest Nationals. The Seattle United initiative is supposed to improve soccer for all children in Seattle, but have they thought about these kids?
The SYSA website and responses I have received so far from supporters assure that even if the name changes, much of ECFC's "team structure" will remain as part of Seattle United. But we are a club, not a team, so it's not clear at all to me what part of ECFC would remain. They also assure that they intend to retain ECFC coaches. The bigger question I see is whether those coaches will want to be retained.
We would urge any other ECFC families who feel like we do, or even just have reservations about the Seattle United process and would like it to slow down so we can get more information and ask more questions, to PLEASE email the SYSA commissioners (see below for their addresses) and ask them to vote against final approval of the Seattle United initiative as it is currently written. Many of these commissioners don't have a lot of involvement with premier soccer and perhaps don't care that much about it. But we need to let them know that we DO care. Here are their names and addresses:
President SYSA |
Parker Mason |
|
Exec Dir |
Ed D'Allessandro |
|
Ballard |
Wendy Mullen |
|
Beacon Hill |
Stan Harris |
|
Capital Hill |
Merwin Peters |
|
Hillwood |
Phil Herold |
|
Lake City |
Roy Hirschkowitz |
|
Liga Rainier |
Exequiel Soltero |
|
LVR |
John Clark |
|
Magnolia |
Bret McPherson |
|
Queen Anne |
Bill Bassett |
|
McGilvra |
Stefan Cobb |
|
Mt. Baker |
Dave Funke |
|
Shorelake |
Steve Sharrett |
|
TOPS Soccer |
Mike Connell |
|
Woodland |
Duncan Munro |
I've attached a letter from a parent of a player who was on our son's team last year. He expresses his reservations about the Seattle United plan from an organizational perspective. You may want to have a look at that as you are considering this proposal. (* See “Where’s the Data? By Curtis Kopf, also posted on the “Additional Perspectives” page)
Thanks!
Jeannette Banobi
(parent BU12 and GU14)
(* Editor’s note)
>>> Return to Additional Perspectives >>> U-11 through U-13 >>> U-14 through U-17 >>> U-10 and younger