After much prayer and discernment, Rocky River UMC has chosen to do our part to aid families in this pursuit of normalcy by moving forward with the 2021 Upward Basketball and Cheerleading season.
As you might expect, things will look quite a bit different this year.
Several themes you will notice within the planned changes for the 2021 season include intentional efforts to limit the frequency of your visits to RRUMC as well as the total number of people present in the building at any one time. To these ends, for the 2021 season, weekly practices and weekly games will occur back to back during one prolonged visit to the church building. Players and cheerleaders will practice for approximately 45 minutes, then, following a 15 minute rest, will participate in a 45-60 minute game. Your child’s team or squad may be scheduled for a weekday evening, or one of three time slots on Saturdays, and these times may change each week. Within this new format, the league will be unable to accommodate requests from families for their child’s practice/game to be scheduled in a particular day and time slot. For the 2021 season, teams will begin practicing in their assigned day and time slot the week of January 4. Games will commence, as described above, beginning the week of January 25 and ending the week of March 15 (for a total of 8 weeks).
Upward registration will open on November 15 at 8:00am and will end on November 25 at 10:00pm.
The cost for registration this year will be $110, which must be paid online at the time of registration. If you are interested in a scholarship to cover all or part of the cost of registration, please contact Quinn Bennett at qbennett@rrumc.org. Due to the inability to safely offer evaluations for team placement here at the church, parents will be asked to evaluate their child’s proficiency in a few skill areas and report on these as well as your child’s height during the online registration process. Your honest and best efforts to evaluate your child’s skill level will ensure balanced teams and a fair and competitive experience for all players during the season. In addition to parental evaluations, previous coaches and evaluation scores will be consulted (when available) to aid us in setting balanced teams. Uniform sizing will also be guided by information provided by parents during registration.
In order to limit the total number of people present in the court space during games and practices, a change for the 2021 season is that parents will be required to assist in one or more of several roles that are essential for their children to receive a positive Upward experience. Parents will need to sign up to assist as a coach, announcer, referee, or to offer half time devotionals. More information on this will be available after registration. We understand that this will not be a welcome change to all parents, but to ensure health and safety for all, and due to a much smaller pool of available volunteers, the Upward experience will be conducted almost entirely by those individuals who are already expected to be in the court space. In addition, due to space constraints within our two “gymnasiums”, we will only be allowing one parent or guardian to attend each practice/game. RRUMC is working on creating an option to view some Upward games during the 2021 season via livestream so that other parents, extended family, etc. can still watch and support their child athlete from a different location.
RRUMC will clean and sanitize each gymnasium prior to team usage. Unfortunately, there will be no concessions offered during this Upward season. Spectators will be required to wear facial coverings over mouth and noses, and to follow social distancing guidelines at all times when in the building. Players and cheerleaders will follow the same guidelines, except that players will not be expected to wear masks when on the court engaged in a game or practice. We ask parents to conduct a self assessment of their child’s health prior to coming to every practice and game. This should include warning signs of COVID-19 such as fever, headache, dry cough, rash, and congestion. If your child is displaying such symptoms, please do not bring them to Upward. Players will also be expected to bring their own personal basketball to each practice to help ensure minimal communal use of basketballs. K-2nd grade use a size 27.5" ball, and 3rd-6th use a 28.5" ball.
As the Upward season is scheduled to begin in January, it is impossible to anticipate the state of COVID-19 at that time. In the case that conditions worsen and it becomes unwise or impossible to continue forward with Upward 2021, we will contact those who have registered to inform them of the cancellation of the season. If this occurs prior to the purchasing of uniforms, you will be refunded your league payment in full. However, if this occurs after uniforms have been purchased, your refund will be approximately $40 (depending on final cost of uniform orders). Please note that the funds paid in registration that do not go directly towards the uniform purchase are used to purchase other Upward supplies, including for this season additional cleaning supplies.
Also, after many years of devoted service to the Upward program at RRUMC, Jason Kraft has stepped down as league director. As many of you likely know, he leaves some humongous shoes to fill. However, we are incredibly blessed and tremendously excited to introduce our incoming league director. Beginning in the 2021 season, Heather Lutz will be the new league director of Upward Basketball and Cheerleading. Heather and her husband, Jason, have been active volunteers in Upward in numerous different capacities over the past several years while their children, Tobias and Anastasia, have participated in basketball. Ms. Lutz is enthusiastic about working both with parent volunteers and your children to make this upcoming season a terrific experience for all involved.
Please know that RRUMC is making every possible provision and adjustment to ensure safety for all individuals who are part of Upward 2021. Nonetheless, all risk cannot be prevented. We hope the information provided here can help you make a wise decision regarding your family’s participation.
Despite the necessary changes, we remain excited to get better acquainted with your children, to share some special time with you and your family, and to help your children grow in their knowledge of basketball and cheerleading skills, and especially in their faith in Jesus Christ.
If you have any further questions, please contact upwardrrumc@yahoo.com.