Sonoma Valley is a vibrant, exciting place to live. Yet it has divisions. In fairness, so do most towns, but one division Sonoma has no longer is within its active soccer community.
Some 1200 of our youth play soccer; it’s a big deal for Sonoma families. For decades, the Sonoma Valley Youth Soccer Association has run an active recreational soccer program, arranging for use of school and community fields, organizing teams for all the children who signed up, and scheduling games among those teams. While “select” teams were organized, with competitive tryouts and with games against teams from other areas, those teams were few in number and also reflected the largely Anglo make-up of the SVYSA participants.
Enter, little more than a year ago, the Sonoma United Football Club, formed, according to one of its founding directors, “to offer more opportunities for competitive soccer to local youth, and to ensure that those opportunities came equally to Latino players.” The club’s creation challenged the comfort the SVYSA, and its rapid growth was closely watched.
Was synergy possible between the two organizations? Could some accommodation be made that would enrich the recreational and competitive offering for a broader range of our youth? Some people thought so, and last spring SUFC approached SVYSA for official recognition. That request was unanimously rejected by the SVYSA board.
What a difference a year makes! The new club implemented its concept of collaborative coaching among its teams, for consistent, sound instruction. Vikki Griggs-Demmin, a SUFC director, was elected to the SVYSA board. And the members of that board began to recognize its own opportunities.
Last week, the deal was struck! Sonoma United would fold itself into the SVYSA organization, and the revitalized body would support a competitive team in every age group from 10 to 16, for boys and for girls. SVYSA also committed itself to make competitive soccer available to all players who qualify, even if the families cannot afford the cost.
We salute efforts of everyone involved, especially the directors of the two organizations, listed below, and we cheer the positive result. Mimicking the catchphrase of Sonoma Mayor Joanne Sanders, in her campaign to expand local governance for all of Sonoma Valley, we’re excited to see soccer unified within the 95476 zip code and trust that this step will create another common bond between our neighboring cultures.
Former SUFC directors: Danny Jiménez (president), Salvador Chávez, Vikki Griggs-Demmin, Anna Pier, Joe Troiano.
SVYSA directors: Sam Honey (president), Vikki Griggs-Demmin (vice-president), Eamonn Fay (secretary), Becky Jasperse (treasurer), Lynn Abate-Johnson, Rudy Bryson, Karen Cline, Jean-Francois Ducarroz, Victor Garcia, Eran Glago, Rick Hicks, Edwin Richards, Eddie Robles, Stacey Schoeningh, Deidre Verdu.
