It’s the changing of the tide as two of the oldest club soccer programs on the central coast, Central Coast Condors and Coastal Valley Soccer Club are now apart of the Surf soccer family as the Central Coast Surf Soccer Club.
“With the name Surf everywhere you go, everybody knows who Surf is,” Director of Coaching for the newly formed program, Gerry Rodriguez said.
At every club soccer tournament across the country, chances are you’ll see one or more Surf teams with the same jerseys and logos.
“I've always known Surf as this club organization that was really good for older kids," 2013's Girls Head Coach Mark Coverdale explained. "But now that we're part of it, I understand that it's good for kids of all ages.”
In June, the Central Coast Condors and Coastal Valley Soccer Club joined forces, merging with the Surf Nation soccer brand which for many players and families was a shock at first.
“It was kind of a huge change playing around the area to being a huge club that everyone knows," one player said.
But in the past four months, it is apparent, they are more than just a name, but a resourceful banner that creates pathways and opportunities for all of its member programs across the country
“We're a little community out here and we want to make sure that the girls and the boys grow and have those opportunities of college showcases and a bigger window for our players,” 2010's Girls Head Coach Manny Zarate said.
The Central Coast is a hidden gem with talent up and down the area but seldom do programs and scouts realize it’s there. That’s when coaches from both local program realized a change needed to be made.
“What I saw was a lot of this talent getting diluted," Coverdale said of his time when he coached locally before the merger. Some teams had good players and other teams had good players and what this does is it brings two big clubs together.”
Since the merger, Central Coast Surf has added Legacy United from the Paso Robles area as more local teams are getting to be a part of many more opportunities than ever before including being apart of Surf Select which allows the best players from all the teams to try out for a regional select team that plays at a high level across the country.
“We don't want to be just another local club," Rodriguez explained. "We want to be able to have the bigger opportunities for these kids to keep growing, have higher division leagues and a lot more opportunities to go to select teams and national teams.”
With costs low and resources abundant, the parents and kids aren’t shocked anymore, they’re actually excited about the change.
“Personally, I've been seeing improvement in myself and my team. We just we have more resources now, thanks to Surf. We have access to more fields, access to more equipment and it's just a lot more support, especially since it's a huge club.”
