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Creation of JV program has varying effects

By RODNEY PAGE

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 15, 2000

In her time at Lakewood, Darlene Lebo has been an assistant soccer coach, head soccer coach, athletic coordinator and full-time Spanish teacher.

Now she can add recruiter to her growing resume.

When Pinellas County added girls junior varsity soccer for the 2000-01 season, most schools had no problem. But at some schools, finding enough players to fill out both rosters has been difficult.

"I'm begging kids to play that have never played soccer before," Lebo said. "I've got 33 girls that came out, but seven are seniors and 11 are juniors. And then five or six of the sophomores are good enough to play varsity. So I only had about 10 girls that were even eligible for junior varsity."

Some schools have been left scrambling to find players and coaches for the junior varsity season. Schools such as Dixie Hollins, Gibbs, Pinellas Park and Northeast often have hard times fielding varsity teams, so the addition of a junior varsity team has made things tougher.

Pinellas County athletic director Bob Hosack said he hopes all 16 public schools will field a junior varsity team. But he realizes it hasn't been easy for some.

"We're trying to get the girls numbers up," Hosack said. "Sometimes with some of the smaller schools, they have to pull girls off the varsity teams in order to field a junior varsity. But it's our hope that after the fall seasons are completely over, all 16 schools will field a junior varsity team. We know a couple of schools have had trouble, but in the future, we think the numbers will go up."

Junior varsity soccer was added in order to boost female participation in athletics to comply with Title IX. By federal law, schools are required to give men and women equal athletic opportunities.

There has long been girls junior varsity swimming, basketball and volleyball, so adding JV soccer was inevitable. Junior varsity teams will compete in a seven-game schedule. All games are against other county opponents.

Even though it's only seven games, most coaches are in favor of the addition of a junior varsity.

"It's been great for us. I wish we had it sooner," said St. Petersburg coach Rui Farias, who estimated nearly 70 girls signed up for soccer this season. "I had some ninth-graders last year that I couldn't play that much. But now I can get them some games."

The same is true for talent-rich Palm Harbor University.

"We're so lucky we have a JV team," PHU coach Holly Freeman said. "This gives a chance to some girls who would be sitting on the bench to get some games. I think in years past, we had a problem getting younger players to come out because they were intimidated. But this year, we had 65 come out, and that was probably because of JV."

Numbers also were up at most other schools, especially at schools with past girls soccer success such as East Lake, Countryside and Largo. Clearwater Central Catholic, which has a rich girls soccer tradition, even has enough girls to field a ninth-grade team in addition to a junior varsity.

If the "soccer" schools are having no trouble recruiting younger players while schools that have traditionally struggled in soccer might not field a JV team, could this be a case of the rich getting richer?

"I don't think so," Lebo said. "It goes in cycles. In our case, it just so happens that we don't have a lot of freshmen. Once this gets more established, we'll have more girls come out."

Boca Ciega coach Jeanne Cobbe agreed.

"A good majority of the younger girls we had come out probably wouldn't have if there was no JV," she said.

"I think this will be a good thing down the road."

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