2020 Comets 8/14/20
Good Morning Comet Parents
Wednesday night on 8/12/20 @ 6 PM we held the regularly scheduled monthly SEYFA Youth Football League meeting as expected. We’d like to start off by saying that this has truly been a grueling offseason for all communities, and their leaders. We actually began the 2020 season back in November of 2019. We took December off, and went right back to work in January with all boots on the ground. We had developed and approved new rules, formed committees, interviewed and approved new quality league members, and overall registration numbers appeared to be up in most communities. We really have a tremendous group of communities working together for the betterment of youth sports. Our past few years have brought in new communities that are joining only because of ALL the good things they continue to see annually from our member communities which includes all of YOU at Stateline.
Then along came March. And then April….and you know the rest of the story as you have all been living this daily as well.
In a league with 14 communities from two neighboring states, dozens of rules surrounding Covid-19 from Federal, State, County, HS, Community, Parks and Rec, HS and Youth Sports, etc.. Through all of this, nothing seems to align in any community to make any form of foundational and safe play for our league. Wisconsin has delivered a few recent alarming messages, and Illinois continues to share equally heightened concerns and restrictions nearly every single news announcement. From a State level, IHSA, and most recently our D2/D157 announcement that was just sent out last Thursday stating students would not be attending the first quarter minimally (FULL remote learning), and moved the actual start date back to 8/24/20.
As much as all community leaders want to kick off a 2020 football season, we continue to find it far too challenging, uncertain, and without support of many entities and governing bodies needed to safely host a Fall football season. The concerns of so many far exceed the answers or cures that we all have to “safely” move forward. We have looked at no less than ten plus options to do just “something” and nothing comes without a high risk or cost that we cannot safely or legally afford and most importantly “safely” provide. There are only a few communities that have some clearance (with restrictions) to proceed with a highly modified football plan.
Having said all this, it comes with much sadness that we will not be hosting a Fall 2020 season. We will continue to keep the doors open for a possible Flag, Indoor league, or even Spring, but we know for a fact this doesn’t fit all families and we certainly understand that as well. One of such is included in a link below if there is any interest. The few of our orgs that have some wiggle room, will attempt to play 2 games ea against each other and without playoffs if allowed. All others are forced to sit this season out. We can only hope and pray this is the LAST time that we EVER have to go down this road in the pre-season. Our Board with many years of football experience (50+ combined), feel this is probably the hardest thing that we’ve ever had to deal with over the many decades. What hurts us most, is having our 8th grade team sitting idle in a pivotal year (entering HS), or even our HS Senior Rockets having to sit in limbo after such a stellar year in 2019 for the HS team that won a state title. Our hearts hurt for ALL kids and families involved as we feel this is much more than a game.
So as we go forward, we will continually keep you abreast of any/all updates and discuss options as they become available.
If you need to call or ask any questions, we’re all ears.
Please continue to stay safe, count your blessings daily for the things that we currently have, pray for a better tomorrow, and a cure for this unplanned worldwide health storm.
GO COMETS!
From one of our community Members (Kenosha BGC)
Arena Flag Football starting on Sept. 16th for 3 Divisions: 1st/2nd grade, 3/4th grade, and 5th/6th grade. The fee is $60.00. It runs for 7 weeks with the first week of Sept. 16th being an instructional/practice night. Games will be played on the next 6 Wednesday’s with Thursday being an overflow night depending on enrollment. There is no play-offs at the end, just a play only league.
Games start at 5:00 pm. This is a 5 on 5 league.
Registrations will be limited to the time slots reserved on the turf.
The registration link is below.