I wrote a story for last Tuesday’s paper (Sept. 18) that looked at Highland Christian Preparatory School’s first-year football program. You can read the story here.
I later learned that because of students’ overwhelmingly positive response to the addition of a football program at the Arlington private school — 40 of Highland’s 62 boys enrolled in grades 8-12 were playing football as of Sept. 18 — it was forced to eliminate its boys soccer program.
“We tried everything,” Highland principal Mark Brown wrote in an e-mail, “including running a co-ed (soccer) team. But we just couldn’t get 12 kids to come out.”
About 17 kids turned out this fall for Highland’s junior high soccer squad, so Brown is hopeful that next year they’ll be able to bring back varsity soccer.
Highland, formerly known as Master’s Touch, constantly struggles to keep athletic teams going, Brown said. The main challenge is lack of facilities: Highland doesn’t have exclusive use of any fields or gyms and struggles to squeeze into facilities shared by several other Arlington youth leagues.
“I’m not even sure what we’re going to do about basketball season,” said Brown, who explained that because of a local gym’s first-come-first-served policy he won’t know if Highland’s hoops players can get gym time until the first day of the season.
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