Hi Parents,
Thank you so much for your support of the league! All of the feedback from our players and coaches is that our daughters and coaches are extremely happy with the chance to play the game they love. Our first scrimmage games are coming up and we wanted to give parents information about our plans for games, including how we are going to address social distancing restrictions.
First, a big thanks to Angie Anderson who worked tirelessly and spent hours and hours on the phone since social distancing restrictions eased up working with school superintendents, cities, and other youth sports organizations to negotiate and secure fields for us to use to hold games. The task was difficult because many cities refused to allow any games so those who would allow games were swamped with requests.
Jordan School District and Herriman City agreed to rent fields to the league under strict conditions. We had to submit a plan of execution demonstrating how we would comply with the state and county COVID19 restrictions. Under these restrictions, the city and district limited gatherings at each field at a location to 50 persons, including spectators. If we used all four football fields at West Hills Middle School at the same time we could have a maximum of 200 people at the school: 50 at each of the four fields. Doing so would limit attendance at games to just players, coaches, and referees; no spectators would be allowed.
Our solution to accommodate parents was to rent twice as many fields (at a greater cost to the league) and schedule more game times so we could dedicate half of the fields to spectators. We will have two fields dedicated to games with two adjacent fields dedicated to spectators.
Each player will be able to invite two, and only two, spectators. We will have ropes separating the fields and cones placed five yards apart that we will assign spectators. Players, coaches and spectators must leave the fields after a game before players, coaches and spectators for the next game may enter the fields. We will have a short break between games to accommodate the restrictions.
Both the league and the city are going to have police officers in attendance at games to ensure that social distancing requirements are strictly enforced. Again, this was a condition of renting the fields.
We also must comply with additional conditions. We will have thermometers to check the temperatures of players, referees and coaches prior to games. Any participant with a temperature over 100.4, sore throat, cough, or other symptom will not be allowed to participate. Players and parents will not be allowed to congregate before or after games. No handshakes or high fives. Players must wash hands prior to the games. We will sanitize the balls and chains between games.
Players must bring their own water bottles! We scheduled games in the evening and mornings but it is getting hot and girls will drink a lot of water. We don’t want them to share water bottles so please provide a water bottle for your daughter.
We are excited to announce that the league plans on paying for a company to stream games. The league will also provide coaches and parents with video from games. We found a vendor to provide the streaming and video service and have reached a tentative agreement with the company but a formal agreement is not yet in place. Thus, there is a possibility that video will not be available for the first set of games. We will do everything we can to try to make it happen for the first game.
Please note that the cost to stream and video record games is very expensive. The league was quoted $11,000 for the season before the coronavirus outbreak that we planned on paying with fundraiser funds. Since we are not doing fundraisers, one of the league’s donors is paying for the service out of his pocket on condition that coaches and parents share the video on their own social media pages to help promote the league. This was a very generous gift that will help ensure that family members and friends who are fans of our daughters can still watch them play.
These restrictions, conditions and plans are subject to change.
Parents, this league would be nothing without the wonderful people who are dedicated to providing a unique opportunity for our daughters. Please take a minute at the games to thank the coaches, referees, team parents, and others who put in countless hours making girls football a top-level sports activity for our daughters.
Let’s play ball!
Jason Dixon
President
Utah Girls Tackle Football League
