by JoAnn Grbach
,
Staff Writer
Many Montgomery County parents with soccer-playing children will have to kick in an extra $10 during registration this spring to help pay for a new soccer complex in South Germantown.
The Maryland SoccerPlex Foundation, Inc., a consortium of private individuals and soccer groups that plans to raise $10 million to open the park, is hoping to raise $2.5 million from soccer youths over the next six years through the registration fees.
Their efforts will help fund a $14.9 million, 24-field soccer complex at South Germantown Recreational Park.
"We recognize that the county cannot do this on its own and since we're the users, we're willing to support the development of those fields," said Trisha Heffelfinger of the foundation. "If you do a survey of sports in the area, soccer is still an incredible bargain."
Politicians have already committed a combined $4.9 million for the project. The state will give the county $3 million from its Program Open Space fund, and County Executive Douglas M. Duncan successfully gained the Montgomery County Council's support. The council is expected to approve the remaining $1.9 million next fiscal year.
The council voted in April to allow a three-phase plan for 24 fields to be built, barring any environmental constraints at the 658-acre park, located off Schaeffer Road and Route 118.
The foundation will unveil a concept plan Thursday for the Montgomery County Parks Commission to review. That design will lay out the soccer fields, championship field, indoor arena and public facilities, such as an indoor pool and tennis courts.
That planning costs $700,000 and is the only money the county will require of the foundation this year, according to Heffelfinger. It hopes to use money from the increase in player registration and that of John Hendricks, who originally proposed the complex.
Hendricks, a Bethesda resident as well as chairman and chief executive officer for Discovery Communications in Bethesda, has promised $500,000.
He has already given $250,000 and has promised to give $1 -- up to $250,000 -- for every $2 the soccer community raises above the registration increase.
Since the proposal's inception last fall, quiet South Germantown -- a rural area set off from more-populous Germantown -- has fought the size of the plan for fear it will bring a complex of problems to the area.
But the soccer complex has been received enthusiastically by soccer moms, dads and their soccer-playing children in a county where an estimated 25,000 boys and girls take to the fields across the county in the fall and spring.
And now that enthusiasm will be tested as the county's soccer communities are being asked to help fund the project. While registration for fall soccer programs has just gotten under way, the cost increase, in some cases more than 25 percent, has not been criticized by many parents.
"This wouldn't happen without the support of the community," said Janet Hughes, Montgomery Soccer Inc. (MSI) executive director. "It's our way of putting up. We want it -- we're willing to pay for it."
MSI has been holding soccer registration for three weeks and has not received any complaints about the increase. The board of directors voted to ask for the $10 -- increasing the cost from $37 to $47 -- after going to soccer games and asking parents.
"I think it's a good idea [because] the fields they use now are terrible," said Cyndy Martin, a Bethesda resident whose son plays for MSI. "It makes the county a nicer place [and] since I'm somebody with a kid, I want to keep it that way."
And while MSI is the largest recreational soccer club in the county with about 16,000 participants each season, other smaller soccer clubs and youth sports organizations have expressed an interest in collecting the extra money to help the cause.
"We haven't had that many people asking about it and once they have [asked] and we tell them it's for the soccer complex, they say, 'Oh, OK,'" said Lynn Ellis, president of Seneca Sports Association based in Germantown. "I think they're excited we're going to have some good quality playing fields right here in Germantown."
Seneca Sports, which is increasing its cost from $45 to $55, $55 to $65 and $65 to $75 depending on a player's age, is the only other organization in the county that has committed to the program. But other clubs are expected to do so once fall registration begins.
The foundation plans to collect the additional $10 each soccer season until at least 2003 when the three-phase plan has played out, according to Heffelfinger. That charge to each of about 22,000 county soccer players will raise $440,000 each year.
The foundation will also seek corporate sponsors that include major soft drink and sports' apparel companies, as well as support from the United States Soccer Foundation.
"Corporate sponsors and donors and the foundation want to see this is an effort supported by the beneficiaries," Heffelfinger said. "They want to be behind something the community supports."
But the foundation is already looking beyond the Germantown soccer complex and planning to bring more fields to the county.
"We look at South Germantown as the jewel in the crown," Heffelfinger said. "But we are also exploring other locations in the area where we might put three or four fields."
From the Gazette Papers