Cougar Soccer Club Donates $2K for HS Soccer Efforts

The Cougar Soccer Club recently donated $2,000 to the Columbia High School Boosters. The funds are earmarked for capital investments to support all levels of soccer in the high school. 

In addition, the club announced an annual scholarship award for both a girl and boy who are graduating seniors who played in the Cougar Soccer Club a minimum of four years. Scholarship award criteria can be found at www.cougarsoccerclub.com. Winners will be announced at the end-of-year Columbia High School soccer banquets.

The $2,000 donation will be part of a campaign that may include the purchase of permanent scoreboards or other equipment for high school games.

The two generous gestures are a way for Cougar Soccer Club (Cougar SC) to acknowledge that 95% of the Columbia High School boys and girls soccer players began their playing days locally as nine and ten year olds as part of the Cougar SC before heading off to Columbia High School's soccer teams.

Past club president, Derek Romanaux said, "This is Cougar Soccer Club's way of giving back to the high school teams, recognizing many of the Columbia players who are alumni to the Cougar SC and providing donations that support a capital campaign for overall soccer development in both the townships and high school programs."

Hank Zona, president of the CHS Boosters indicated that the Boosters look forward to working with the Cougar SC on a fundraising campaign to provide for high school soccer. Columbia High School varsity coaches, Gene Chyzowych, the boys soccer coach, and Steve Jones, departing girls coach, both said they appreciated the long-standing efforts of the Cougar SC to develop Columbia's future high school players.

And the relationship between Cougar SC and CHS soccer is a two-way street: Last May, the Columbia High School soccer players and their families played an integral part in running the Cougar Memorial Day Tournament—a signature event run by the Cougar SC. The students helped work many jobs over the weekend to ensure the tournament ran smoothly for visiting teams. Local businesses that helped sponsor the Memorial Day Tournament and the high school teams' tournament efforts were: Maplecrest Ford, Bauch/Zucker/Hatfield LLC, Seton Hall University, UK Elite, Ashley Soccer, St. James's Gate Publick House, Stony's, Village Service Center, Caldwell Banker-Robert Northfield, the Township of Maplewood and the Village of South Orange, Keller Williams Realty–Perri Feldman,  and the CHS Soccer Alumni Association.

The Cougar Soccer Club is a non-profit organization that is open to residents of Maplewood and South Orange. The Club, founded in 1965, has provided a travel youth soccer program for over 45 years. It is a self-funded organization of parent volunteers. Since the beginning, well over 10,000 children have played in the club and hundreds of parents have volunteered. 

By the way, folks often confuse the various booster groups for various school activities. Hank Zona helped straighten us out when we were unsure of the distinction between Cougar SC and Cougars Boosters: "That's a relatively common confusion," wrote Zona.

"Cougars Boosters is Columbia High School Cougars Boosters [of which Zona is currently the president and working towards raising the profile and clearing up the misconceptions]." Zona explains that the Cougars Boosters supports all official school activities, not just soccer and other sports. "For example, we give money to the senior class Midnight Madness every year...and in one week this past spring, helped fund the girls track team trip to the Penn Relays and the school-wide Shakespeare Festival, to show you the range.  In twelve years, the Columbia Cougars Boosters has raised and distributed about $200,000."

But that's a story for another time. . . .