ELBERTA - Several members of the Elberta Youth Sports Association attended the December council to ask councilmembers one thing: please consider the possibility of hiring an Athletic Director to manage all Elberta youth sports. The town’s program is a nonprofit, volunteer run organization over all youth sports within town.

“We’re building a new complex out on Breman Road, and when that comes online I’d suggest that the town would need to hire an athletic director and assume responsibility for running the sports,” said Matt Ulrich, president of the Youth Sports Association. “Over the last year or so we’ve had a great deal of difficulty finding help, volunteers … Most of the folks doing this have been doing so for many years, most don’t even have kids in our program anymore. But they’re still volunteering because there’s no one to replace them.”

Ulrich stressed that he and the other volunteers were not planning to leave the organization. Rather, the volunteers wanted to formally approach the town council to make them aware of their concerns for the future of the program. Ulrich said if possible, he and the other members would like to see council consider adding an athletic director to the town staff for the 21/22 budget.

“It’s hard for me to come here and admit this, but we’ve got families and kids and jobs of our own and we have just not been functioning on a level that I would like to function as far as providing a service to the parents and kids that they deserve,” Ulrich said. “We’ve fallen short on several occasions on providing the proper experience. Regardless of the effort that we put forth it just takes more people than we have and more time than we have … I’m not saying that we’re not trying our best, but at some point the program exceeds what you can do with volunteers, and we’re at that breaking point.”

Ulrich and other organization members feel confident a fulltime athletic director working 40 hours a week with their sole focus being on the sports in Elberta would be able to do everything needed. Some voiced interest in remaining a volunteer with the organization as coaches, while the director could oversee the scheduling of events, handling registration fee collection, ordering and repair of equipment, prepping concession stands for games, plus more. As it currently stands, Ulrich said he has to take off work to meet with other municipalities’ athletic directors to schedule, while all volunteers use their lunch breaks to buy concession stand supplies, order supplies, or handle other organization business.

“With how busy work has been lately, I don’t feel like I’m able to give 100 percent to these kids and this organization, and that’s not what I want,” said Jamie Jones, flag football commissioner with the organization. “Once the Sports Complex is open that could help generate revenue for what we’re asking. Please consider within this next year to possibly put somebody on staff next year who could take the reigns and keep this program running, and make it more than what it is today.”

Mayor Jim Hamby says he sees an athletic director in the town’s future, and believes that is where they are heading. However, he is hesitant about putting a firm date on when such a position will be created due to monetary reasons. The Sportsplex is currently still under construction and thus not generating revenue. A large amount of spare funds in the current budget have been unexpectantly used due to Hurricane Sally.

“We’re still at least half a million dollars from completing the Sportsplex, and that may be a conservative estimate and that’s not using an engineer’s numbers,” he said. “That’s using Elberta’s numbers, with somebody donating this and somebody donating their equipment to do that. So even cutting every corner we can and using every resource that we can muster from our community, we’re still half a million dollars from getting that project finished.”

Once the project is complete, he says the town will no longer be putting money into the lights, fences, and other things needed at the Sportsplex. At that point, when the town isn’t putting money into the complex and teams are using the fields and generating revenue, he believes it will be feasible to look into hiring an athletic director to handle all town sports. Currently, there is no end date for the project.

“I can say it is going to happen, the fields are going to be finished and we are going to have an athletic director in Elberta,” Hamby said. “Is it going to happen next year? I don’t know the answer to that question. Things are happening in town, there are two significant businesses, one that we know is coming and one that may be coming in the police jurisdiction that would bring additional revenue to town, and 172 homes are coming. All those things change the equation, but we don’t know if it will happen next year or in five years, so it’s unsure when that revenue will be seen … I don’t know if the council can commit to much more than working in that direction as quickly as we can possibly get there.”

To learn more about Elberta Youth Sports Association, get info on volunteering/coaching, or becoming a sponsor, check out www.elbertayouthsports.org.