Musco Lighting - USSF Is Good For The Game

Good for the Game
U.S. Soccer Foundation offers facility lighting grants

The mission of the Foundation is simple: to enhance, assist and grow the sport of soccer.

The 1994 Soccer World Cup provided a spur to soccer’s growth and popularity in the US. It also provided an endowment which continues to help soccer grow, and Musco is a partner in the effort.

Endowed with approximately $35 million generated by 1994 World Cup events, the U.S. Soccer Foundation has steadily pursued an ambitious agenda in its guardianship of soccer in the U.S. The foundation’s mission is straight-forward: to enhance, assist, and grow soccer. Musco Lighting has joined a team of organizations carefully selected by the foundation to help meet the growing needs of the sport.

Foundation directors paid a visit to Musco facilities in 1999 and came away impressed with the benefits of Musco’s systems and successful working partnerships, such as Musco’s support of Little League Baseball®. A trip to the lighted Muscatine Soccer Complex — a state-of-the-art community soccer facility — demonstrated the degree to which Musco’s lighting and sense of community can benefit local programs.

As a result, Musco has joined an elite group and has been named a Foundation Resource Center Partner. The status reflects the nature of the relationship between resource partners and the foundation: In order to be funded, grant applications for facility lighting need to demonstrate that the proposed project will follow standards adopted by the Foundation.

By stocking their Resource Center with a wide variety of partner-provided soccer equipment, such as goals, bleachers, and turf, the foundation eases the burden on the development of new soccer facilities at the local level — a key foundation goal. In addition to simplifying the grant process, the Resource Center web site (www.ussoccerfoundation.org) acts as a virtual planning tool, enabling project developers to create turnkey plans for local facilities.

Focusing on three themes — urban programming, field development, and player development — the foundation has funded and promoted some unique efforts:

The San Rafael, Calif.-based Canal Youth program combats low test scores and a high drop-out rate by providing a Homework Center — staffed with a professional academic coordinator — that combines tutoring and homework guidance for youth soccer league players.
Turning a problem into an opportunity, community members in Rantoul, Ill. — a city without any soccer programs — used a $25,000 foundation grant, donated construction materials, and volunteer labor to convert a former Air Force base into a soccer complex with three new fields. The result: A city soccer league and high school soccer program are thriving.
A $62,000 grant enabled the YMCA of York & York County, Penn., to expand an inner-city program from two teams to 18 in just two years.
The Maryland Soccerplex, in Germantown, Md., received grant money to help start an ambitious project: a 24-field complex to serve local leagues as well as bring revenue into the community by hosting regional tournaments. •

In its five-year history through 1999, the foundation has averaged $2 million annually in grant giving. With more than 450 applications received in 1999 alone, the foundation wants to increase efficiencies to meet the challenge of managing the process.