In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Elks Soccer Shoot program; the Grand Lodge Activities Committee is pleased to announce the Elks Virtual National Soccer Shoot Competition; A national soccer shoot contest that will be based on a competitor’s winning scores at the State and Regional levels to determine a national champion.
Starting this year, the program will run from April 1st to March 31st of each year, and the Committee will announce the national champions for each age and gender group in April 2020. The program will be phased in over the next three years as follows:
- Phase 1 (2019-2020) State Contest Scores Only
- Phase 2 (2020-2021) State or Regional Scores (highest level of State Participation)
- Phase 3 (2021-2022) Regional Scores Only
The Grand Lodge Activities Committee fully understands that many states do not currently participate at the regional level, so the use of regional scores will be phased in over the next three years. This will give the state associations an opportunity to participate, while forming a region with bordering states or to join an existing region.
By 2022 and beyond, regional scores only will be used. Any state that is not part of a region by that point will be placed into what will be referred to as the “Virtual Region.” This will allow State Associations and Territories to participate in the competition, and the highest scores will represent the Virtual Region. In other words, everyone will still have an opportunity to participate.
So, what will be different for this year’s State Contest (2019-2020)?
- Each State Soccer Shoot Director is requested to submit a State Contest Report following the completion of their State Soccer shoot. This form is available for download from the Activities Committee page of Elks.org.
- For Territorial Lodges; the Lodge representing that territory (e.g. Puerto Rico, Guam, Panama, and Philippines) will represent their territory in the contest, and the Lodge’s local director would complete and submit the State Contest Form.
- For Hawaii; with Lodges on different islands; a virtual state score will need to be determined. Each island is encouraged to hold a soccer shoot; the scores for each island should be submitted on the State Contest Report; indicating the island name and the contest director for that island. The highest scores from all Hawaiian Islands will represent that state in the national contest.
- State Contest winners will be requested to complete three 5-Shot tiebreakers for score (regardless if they are needed for the state contest). These will be used to break any ties from scores submitted by other states. If tiebreakers are needed at the state level to break a tie, the actual tiebreaker scores should be used, but only the first three need to be submitted on the State Contest Report. If a state omits this information from their form, the tiebreaker score for the competitor will be counted as a zero.
State Associations that would like to form a region with bordering states, join an existing region, or move to another region are requested to complete and submit the Soccer Shoot Region Change Form which can also be found on the Activities Committee page of Elks.org. This form will allow the committee to keep track of which states belong to a region, and which states would default to the virtual region.
Winners will be awarded with a special certificate and national champion’s lapel pin which they can wear with pride. These awards will be sent to the State Association (or Lodge) sponsoring the winner for presentation locally.
The Grand Lodge Activities Committee is excited to bring this program back to the national stage fulfilling our Grand Exalted Ruler Robert L. Duitsman’s theme of: “Honoring the Past—Embracing the Future.” If you should have any questions regarding this program, please feel free to contact me.
Fraternally,
Wayne D. Cotterly
Soccer Shoot Coordinator
Grand Lodge Activities Committee-Area 1