By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
A Chiefland couple was given encouragement but no formal approval Monday by Chiefland City Commissioners when they asked the city to back their new youth sports league this year.
Aaron and Victoria Larkin said they spent several months talking to parents about what they wanted from the new league and the answer was good communication, transparency, an outreach program, and different sports.
“People want change and something different,” Victoria Larkin said.
The Larkin’s are building the Tri-County Athletics Commission. Its sports teams will practice at Eddie Buie Park in south Chiefland.
They said TCAC won’t be competing or conflicting with the Chiefland Area Athletic Association (CAAA), the longstanding group that operates out of Charles Strickland Park.
Mayor Chris Jones said the city must gather additional information from the Larkins. He emphasized he doesn’t want TCAC or CAAA to add more work for the small city staff.
“Your group along with C-Triple A should have everything scheduled so it’s not adding administrative or logistical duties to our staff,” Jones said. “We have a minimal staff. We don’t want to add more work just for that. That would be the one thing we keep in mind. I think everyone is receptive to it.”
City Manager Mary Ellzey said she and Aaron Larkin have talked and Larkin was given a registration application to complete. She said the Larkin’s are going to provide schedules for practices and games to avoid conflicts with CAAA.
She wants the Larkins to provide all the information she has requested in time for a presentation to city commissioners at the next board meeting in two weeks.
Aaron Larkin said TCAC plans to be associated with Act 4, an Alachua County-based youth sports league serving Gainesville, Newberry, Trenton, Bronson, Williston, and other communities. Larkin said Act 4 wants TCAC to be endorsed by a city.
“We are asking the city just to back us. We’re not looking to take the place of anything that’s in place – just to give parents options,” Victoria Larkin said. “Originally we were going to do tutoring, football, and cheerleading but over the last month we have had a number of people asking for other sports – soccer, basketball – they want something new.”
Aaron Larkin said TCAC has all the licensing and insurance in place for all the sports as well as bylaws and board members to run the organization. He said the organization will operate under Pop Warner football, but parents also wanted soccer, volleyball, and basketball.
Victoria Larkin said soccer starts at the end of March and they have 32 children ready to play, enough for three teams. She said soccer is for ages 5 to 15 but this spring they are offering the sport to children ages 5 to 11.
She said ACT 4 doesn’t object to having two sports leagues in Chiefland. She said TCAC won’t be competing for field space with CAAA. In fact, she said, it won’t be competing with CAAA at all.
“We don’t want conflict,” she said. “When it comes to football they do the regular local league football. We’re going to do Pop Warner, which will be out of Gainesville, Dunnellon, Citrus, and Cross City. We’ll do all the practices at Buie Park, whereas they are at Strickland; it’s not a conflict.”
She said TCAC has 19 cheerleaders who will be part of the organization’s outreach program. Eight of the cheerleaders are straight-A students who will do tutoring for TCAC along with several retired teachers.
“We also have some parents who say they need tutoring (for their children). This has been a horrible year, as we all know. Tutoring in this area is very expensive. We have several parents who won’t come necessarily for our sports, but we said we want to be for our city, we want to be for our community,” she said. Children won’t be charged for the tutoring.
“They have the FCAT (student testing) in 33 days and half of them are not ready, so our cheerleaders – 8 of them are straight-A honor roll students – when we do practices from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., the first hour, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., will be tutoring.”
“The organization that we’re trying to build is for the community, it’s for the children. That’s what we’re focused on,” Victoria Larkin said.
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City of Chiefland Regular Meeting February 8, 2021; Posted February 11, 2021
