The other week, while I was driving out to the Otis M. Andrews Sports Complex, I learned the city’s soccer camp had been cancelled.
“There weren’t enough kids that registered,” I was told on the phone as I turned onto Wilder Road.
I thought it was pretty strange. Not every kid in town plays baseball on an all-stars team, currently ongoing.
There wasn’t a whole lot else going on at the time.
I made a few inquiries about participation numbers over the past few years, and I couldn’t help but notice, for whatever reason, sign-ups have not been going so well since 2012.
According to the Plant City Recreation and Parks Department, which sent me data for every summer since 2012, the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World spent three years on a slow decline, followed by a crash that’s still going on.
The Plant City FC Lancers hosted the city programs from 2012 through 2014 and had registration totals of 29, 24 and 18 kids, respectively. In 2014, a separate organization, FC Plant City, was unable to attract any sign-ups and cancelled all sessions.
In 2015, FCPC played host to the city’s programs while the Lancers made sweeping changes to its board of directors and, because there were only two registrations, had to cancel. This summer, the city chose to go through U.S. Sports for its camp and, despite bumping up to 12 registrations, once again failed to meet the threshold, 16, in this case.
The Lancers organization stated it decided against hosting a camp of its own since the city went through U.S. Soccer this summer.
Neither the Rec and Parks Department nor the Lancers seem to know why this struggle to attract sign-ups has been happening.
On the other hand, as I covered in our May 20 article about Optimist soccer’s 40th season, regular-season participation in the city’s leagues is on the rise.
Also, the Lancers told me enrollment in the yearly competitive program has “more than doubled” since 2014. I don’t know whether kids are too busy with other summer activities or, taking a leaf from NBA legend Allen Iverson’s book, would rather be in the game than even talk about practice.
What makes it even more confounding for me is looking at the stats from 20 years ago. The city hosted British soccer camps from 1996 to 2005, and the Rec and Parks Department claims more than 100 kids would come to these camps in the early years. The number did decline eventually, getting to its lowest point, 24 kids, in 2005.
What’s the deal here? Is it that kids have gained access to more summer sports (or other) opportunities and chose to pursue those instead? Is it the cost of certain programs that turns families away (which I believe may have been the case after the 2008 recession hit)? Are kids getting bored of soccer, a sport that needs an adrenaline shot of interest if we ever want to see the United States men’s national soccer team win anything in our lifetimes?
I may have the questions, but I don’t have the answers.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.