While Seymour Middle School already offers a variety of sports, it never hurts to add more to give students more options.
Some may not be into football, volleyball, cross country, cheerleading, basketball, wrestling, swimming, track and field, tennis or golf. The only club sport is bowling.
Starting in the 2021-22 school year, though, a new sport (soccer) and a new club sport (archery) will be offered.
“We’re always looking for anything we can find to get kids more involved,” Athletic Director D.J. Henkle said. “We always want kids learning to compete. We think competition is a positive thing. Then it’s just the ability to represent their school.”
Adding soccer bridges a gap because it’s currently available to elementary-age kids through a recreational league or a travel program and they can’t join a school team until high school. Archery currently is only offered at Seymour High School.
“We want kids being in a feeder program and learning what the high school is going to do and learning that here at Seymour Middle School,” Henkle said. “That’s what we’re hoping both of these are going to be able to bring.”
Henkle said SMS Principal Daniel Mendez came from an area that offers middle school soccer and thought it would be good to get started here.
“We have a Spanish-speaking population of students who have asked numerous times why we don’t have it,” Henkle said. “It’s a sport that you don’t have to have a whole lot of background knowledge on to play, you don’t have to have a whole lot of equipment. A lot of our students do play outside of the school anyway, so we’re hoping that translates to getting more students involved in school activities and getting them soccer.”
The school had initial costs of buying goals and equipment, but it’s partnering with the Boys and Girls Club of Seymour next door to use its property for practices after school. That’s helpful because the football team practices on the field where the soccer games will be conducted.
“A lot of people working together to get it going,” Henkle said.
Soccer will be for boys and girls in seventh and eighth grades from SMS and also the Seymour parochial schools that don’t offer that sport.
The boys team will be coached by Luke Horton and Jordan Jones. SHS boys soccer head coach Matt Dennis said he coached Jones.
“It’s pretty exciting to have new blood injected into our system while at the same time getting a player to give back to the game who has gone through and loved our program,” Dennis said. “Jordan was a captain for me in high school and is exactly the kind of player we want our program’s members to emulate.”
Getting a middle school program going is really exciting, Dennis said.
“It gives students a chance to do something for their school,” he said. “It also will be a way to play soccer without the cost of travel or rec leagues. It gives that extra step some may need to be ready for high school and being part of education-based athletics.”
Offering soccer after school also takes away the barrier of having to go out to a program hours after school at a different location, he said.
“Kids can stay after school for training and are provided transportation to away matches. It’s going to be a terrific fit,” Dennis said.
Samantha Browning, another SHS graduate, will be the head coach of the SMS girls soccer team. SHS girls soccer head coach Greg Musser said an assistant coach is still needed.
“I love that our student-athletes will get to represent their school with soccer now,” Musser said. “There is a great sense of pride competing for your school. I’m also excited as this will give more kids the opportunity to play this great game.”
He said it will be great for all involved — the school, players and community.
“The more opportunities we give to our kids to play, the better the area programs get. This in turn leads to better competition and lifelong skills for the players involved,” Musser said.
“This is another avenue, along with rec and travel, that players can develop and get better prepared for the high school program,” he said. “Allowing the players to get used to drills and systems the high school uses will also help that transition to high school ball. I am very excited for this program to get up and running and cannot wait to see how it changes the incoming classes at the high school.”
Archery will only be available for SMS seventh- and eighth-graders since the National Archery in the Schools Program has a rule that archers must attend the school offering the sport, Henkle said.
SHS started an archery program six years ago, and it has taken off and been very successful. That led head coach Jill Purkhiser to begin talks about offering it at the middle school level.
“The high school team competes against teams who have archers that have shot for as many as eight years,” she said. “The most any of the archery Owls have is four years by the time they graduate. I look forward to taking the archery Owls to another level of competition. Middle-schoolers will be exposed to discipline, focus and inclusion in a team sport like no other.”
She said boys and girls are required to make up an official NASP team. In the coming school year, the plan is to have 24 on the middle school team, and they will practice with the high school team at SHS.
“We are looking for staff to fill the head coaching position and assistant coaches,” Purkhiser said. “I’m here to help get it started, but I can’t take on both programs long term.”
Henkle said physical education teachers Andy Glover and Noelle DeHaven have completed NASP training and are excited about teaching it in class and encouraging kids to join the SMS team.
Since the teachers have completed the training, the school is eligible for NASP grant funding for archery equipment.
“I know Mrs. Purkhiser and the high school soccer coaches are excited about this,” Henkle said of the new sport offerings.
“It’s going to get (students) involved in playing against these other kids and schools that they are going to be seeing when they get up there with them, hopefully competing for conference and sectional championships and those types of things,” he said. “Plus, it’s another avenue that our kids can get out and be a part of something outside of the 8:30 to 3:30 area in school.”