Dear Shadow Premier Players and Parents:
It has been quite the winter, though living in Spokane always presents something unique each year! This year we have had a wet, wet February and March, coupled with a brand new field facility we have had to deal with some interesting scheduling.
Certainly there have been quirks with the City (for the first 3 weeks of March we were getting less than 3 days notice about what our allocation would be for the next week,) but just yesterday I met with the head of the Parks and Recreation program for the City and he assured me he values the customers that need their services. They are quickly making changes to help facilitate faster and quicker communication. We have already seen fruits of that today!
The grass fields at Dwight Merkel Complex will remain closed for another two weeks. Yesterday, the grass experts made that decision and rightfully so. The grass is still young and the roots need time to grow and strengthen, coupled with the wet winter, the grass fields need their rest. This causes a shift in allocations and trying to get every one of our teams onto a turf field.
While seemingly last minute notice, I know this has caused grief for families and coaches. I hope we can understand some of the challenges, which also include other users needing to use the complex. Please understand that the weekly updates are not because of anything in your team manager's or coach's control. We have been dependent on the City to assign us fields. This communication process took time, and again, thankfully as evidenced by today's response by the City we are moving at a more productive pace.
It is also important that we value the need to keep the facility a first rate one. I am sure many of us can remember the "old" North Complex. Those fields became hardly playable in their last years. We need to be thankful that the City at least wants to try to preserve them, while at the same time knowing they need to be used. It is a tough balancing act for sure. However, it is most important we have fields for the rest of the year. If they are to be damaged now, there would be no turning back on them as there is no time to see them rest and recover from here forward.
As a club we have worked as quickly as we possibly can with the information we have been given, and we have spent numerous hours these past 5 weeks to help ensure our kids have a place to play. Connie Stark of IEYSA has also been of tremendous help in scheduling and rescheduling of our games under heavy stressors out of her control. This does not mean, however, that you have not had to endure some challenges of your own. I can certainly appreciate that our kids have busy lives and we need to organize and plan just to try to stay sane. We continue to work in earnest to help us all do so!
Enjoy your soccer,
Sean Bushéy
Technical Director
Spokane Shadow Youth Soccer Club
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