Columbus Soccer Organization Registration - 7/8/20

WCBI's Eric Crosswhite interviews Tom Velek of the Columbus Soccer Organization about their recreational program and registration drive.

To find out more, visit www.columbusmssoccer.org

Eric crosswhite: welcome back everybody.

We're speaking now with tom velek, from the columbus soccer organization.

Tom, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us.

Tom velek: well, thank you for being out here on this beautiful morning.

Eric crosswhite: absolutely.

It is warm out here, but this is the time of year where people really get to thinking about soccer, kicking, sports are going on and you've got a couple events coming up that you wanted to let us know about.

Tom velek: sure.

So columbus soccer organization's recreational soccer program opened its registration july 1st.

It is going to be running its registration through the middle of a we have been able to lower prices this year.

So our registration fee this year starts at just $25 for the little kids, goes up to $35 for our six and seven year olds and then $50 a little bit above that.

Tom velek: you can do that registration online.

This year we're taking our registration at the lowndes county recreation department and you can also mail it into our office and all that information can be found on our webpage.

Eric crosswhite: is this something that you're hoping to see grow over the years?

Tom velek: so, yeah, and we have a lot of new things for all of our constituents, for our coaches, our players, our families.

For our players, for example this year, we're introducing something called the cso training academy and that is a weekly certified, coach led training program.

So every week kids can come out for free, earn points and at the end of the year, they can turn in those points for tee-shirts and lots of goodies.

Tom velek: we're doing the same thing for our coaches.

We're going to have a weekly set of training sessions for our coaches who want to come out.

You can earn points toward free registration for your kids, all kinds of stuff.

So we're really looking forward to offering more this year and having more people come out.

Eric crosswhite: and on top of becoming better soccer players, getting people in the sporting activity, what other good can you see come from kids and people joining this group?

Tom velek: well, what we'd like to say, is soccer is a game for everybody.

You don't have to be tall.

You don't have to be the fastest.

There is a place on the field for every person.

So we start at three years old.

We go all the way up to u18 and no matter who you are, whether you're just trying to find a sport, whether there's someone who's played soccer with us for the last four or five years, we'd like to see you come back.

Tom velek: it's a great sport.

It's a great way to just build team, build skills.

And we really want to support our families this year.

We know that it's been a tough year economically.

So like i said, we've lowered our registration fees, but we also have a new program called the cso soccer closet, where if you need socks and cleats and balls and things that you just need to outfit your kid to play soccer, you can come in and get all those things for free this year.

We know it's been a tough year economically for a lot of our families.

Eric crosswhite: has the organization seen an interest in soccer grow here in columbus?

Tom velek: yeah.

So last year, we've been averaging between about five and 600 players in the recreational side.

I think where we've also seen a lot of growth is we have an adult soccer program.

We now have over a hundred adults playing in that program.

Our top soccer program came back last year and will be back this year.

Tom velek: our competitive program, columbus united has 170 or 150 people who are playing in it.

So, we have four programs and we've seen growth in all four of those programs. eric crosswhite: that's great.

And so if anybody wants to find out more information about some of these things that you talked about, you've got a lot going on, what should they do?

Tom velek: i think two things.

First thing is to go to our webpage, which is columbusmssocce r.org.

You can always contact me directly at just tvelek@yahoo.com .

I'll answer every single email.

I'd put out my cell phone number, but i think that might not be the best idea.

But you can contact me, you can go through our webpage