Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 27, 1993 TAG: 9305270354
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN MONTGOMERY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Sons Clint, who plays for U-11 white, and Stephen Forrest, who plays for U-9 white, each attend two soccer practices a week and play separate games on the weekend. Monitoring his sons' soccer schedules keeps Morse busy. But that's just the beginning.
Morse coaches a third team, U-10 green, serves on the board of the Roanoke Valley Youth Soccer Club, and has been charged with organizing the club's effort to build a new complex. (Oh, and for R&R, he coaches an 11- and 12-year-old baseball team, Heights Club Orange.)
The new soccer complex will be in the Vinyard area of Roanoke County, near Gus Nicks Boulevard and the Norfolk Southern Corp. railroad tracks.
Literature from the Roanoke Valley Youth Soccer Club describes the project's development as the club's "most recent accomplishment." In a year, possibly two, the club's teams hope to be practicing and playing their games on five new fields.
Teams now practice on assorted fields throughout the Roanoke Valley. This is particularly taxing for the club's executive director, Danny Beamer, and the coaches and families who are involved with more than one team. The complex also will improve the logistics surrounding major tournament play.
"Roanoke County has given us a long-term lease on some property not presently being used for anything at all," Morse said. The land, once owned by Walter Vinyard and later donated to Roanoke County, abuts three soccer fields already being used by recreational leagues. "It is flood plain property, as I understand it," Morse said.
Preliminary sketches allow for the possibility of up to three more recreational fields adjacent to the club's five.
"To give you an idea of how much space we're talking about with five fields," Morse said, "there are four right now at River's Edge [nearly stretching from the Holiday Inn on Franklin Road to Roanoke Memorial Hospital].
"We think this is going to be a win-win situation," Morse said. "The club will have a home-field complex, but recreational soccer games will be played there also."
The complex, yet to be named, will not include any buildings and has a price tag of $365,000.
"These are going to be first-class fields, so it's not just a matter of throwing grass seed out," Morse said. He said the major work includes leveling and installing irrigation and drainage systems.
Morse said that funding will come from corporations and parents, as well as the club itself. He also hopes some of the construction work will be done at special rates. "My sense is that contracting concerns are community-oriented," he said.
Morse expects to gain final governmental approval in June. "The next steps will be to obtain construction drawings and then to arrange the financing," Morse said. He anticipates construction will begin this year.
"And then we've got to give the grass time to mature," he said. "But we may possibly be using the fields next year."
Why have Morse and his wife, Marianne, devoted so much energy to soccer? "Because we're very enthusiastic about what the club has done for our kids and a lot of other kids in the valley."
by CNB