Dear Parents & Athletes, April 29, 2020
We appreciate your continued patience through this time. High Country Soccer, Summit Strikers FC (SSFC) and Colorado Soccer Association (CSA) have officially cancelled the Spring 2020 season.
In attempt to mitigate losses to the club that will build exponentially with multiple refunds due to credit card fees, website fees and accountant fees associated with writing a check refund to our participants, we will be sending out unique coupon codes that will be good for any of our programs in the next 13 months in the amount of $415 that will cover the full Fall 2020 or Spring 2021 season. You will use this coupon code after tryouts when your athlete is accepting his/her spot on a SSFC team. While we understand this method will not work for everyone, we encourage our families to accept this coupon code to help our association continue to serve our community and our youth past this pandemic.
What we are asking of our SSFC families is that you go register for the SSFC Fall 2020 – Spring 2021 season tryouts online right now. It is open, FREE and the coupon code is not necessary at this point to sign up. Tryouts for each season are carefully dictated by CSA and tryouts are currently scheduled to be held the week of June 22, 2020. Due to the fact that the status of our local field rentals is unknown and that we may still be in restrictive social distancing guidelines – we will be monitoring these factors and potentially making decisions closer to the current tryout dates. If need be, we will apply for exemption/extension from CSA to hold tryouts at a later time if the health and safety guidelines will not allow for an efficient and effective tryout the week of June 22nd. We continue to believe that we have an important responsibility to care for our community, and we will continue to focus on health and security adapting our potential tryouts as appropriate.
Here are a couple of answers to some questions that we foresee some families having:
(1) We understand we have some U15 (2005) athletes who will move on to high school soccer in either the fall (boys) or spring (girls) and our hope and goal, as a united Summit soccer community (both SSFC & SHS), is that you will continue to play club soccer in the opposite of the SHS season with SSFC and will be able to apply the coupon code ahead of that season. Tryouts are held before January and the coupon code for $415 is good through May 31, 2021.
(2) If you will be applying for a scholarship for the Fall 2020 – Spring 2021 season, we will adjust your coupon code to include your credit from Spring 2020 and include the scholarship for Fall 2020 – Spring 2021. Please apply for your scholarship as you normally would (online) and you will receive a scholarship letter/email ahead of the Fall 2020 season when scholarships are given out.
(3) If your athlete does not earn a spot on an SSFC team for Fall 2020 – Spring 2021, we will issue Spring 2020 refunds after the tryout.
(4) While we hope this is not the case, if your athlete will not be returning to tryout for an SSFC team for Fall 2020 – Spring 2021, please reach out to High Country Soccer/SSFC at [email protected].
The “TopYa” app is still available for our athletes and it has over 100 skills videos and challenges for all SSFC athletes. We encourage our athletes to find a piece of grass/turf that is open to the public and practice your skills! Due to the current health and state guidelines, we know that the Breckenridge Recreation Department, Silverthorne Recreation Department and Summit School District cannot/will not support independent rentals until after May 31st. Some entities are not even allowing us to make any reservations. Without the ability to rent space, we as a club are unable to safely or legally organize any in-person training sessions even if they followed current social distancing guidelines from the state.
We are in communication with Vail Valley Soccer Club (VVSC) to see how they are proceeding. We have the latest protocol that they have presented to Eagle County and intend to follow their lead to hopefully reintroduce soccer back to Summit County safely. We do not know the exact structure of these potential options or when we will be able to train or play even within the proper health protocols. We will use Eagle County and VVSC as a model.
Hopefully these answers will cover the majority of your questions. However, if you have other questions of concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected].
Sincerely,
High Country Soccer Board of Directors