Great news! For a short fall season before the holiday break, we are restarting a number of our live, in-person E-Sports soccer, basketball, karate, and fitness programs around the Bay Area which have only had online sessions since May 2020.
The following in-person programs are available for fall season: Sunnyvale Soccer/Hoops/Fitness; Foster City E-Soccer; USF E-Hoops (indoor/outdoor); Walnut Creek E-Soccer; Hayward E-Soccer; and Pleasanton/Dublin E-Soccer. Redwood City E-Karate offers both a virtual or in-person option. Go to the program page for these above locations where season details (dates, time, field location, etc) are posted.
This has been a fluid process in preparing to restart, so we really appreciate your patience as we have been finalizing our season details and protocols for these programs.
Important New Health Protocols: Below are 5 areas that E-Sports is implementing for fall 2021 season. It is very important we maintain the safety of all involved, especially as children under the age of 12 are not vaccinated yet.
1. All coaches, coordinators, and admin personnel must confirm full vaccination to serve in E-Sports.
2. Standard health screening questions will be asked weekly of all coaches, coordinators, admin personnel, and participants upon arrival in order to participate. (Temperature check is also required at certain locations per city youth program requirements.)
3. Masking for all coaches, admin personnel, families and kids from check-in to check-out and departure.
4. Any child needing “hands-on” instruction must have either of the following: 1) a parent (masked & fully vaccinated) involved shadowing to assist with any close contact instruction. This applies to all parents in the Rising Stars youngest group, for example; or 2) a coach explicitly approved to work with the child hands-on – approving the coach to make appropriate contact when necessary to keep the child on task, in the activity, and/or not straying from the field or court.
5. Maintaining small group sizes no larger than about 12 participants. (Any group larger will be split into two.)
Here is a short video that details our important new health protocols as well as fall 2021 program locations getting back in action:
Download the weekly health questionnaire here (also referenced above and in the video) so you can do a self-check on Saturday mornings before heading out to your local E-Sports session.
We are working together here at E-Sports to make sure we provide a very safe and encouraging experience for the families, kids, and coaches as we get back together. We had a great preseason meeting with our coordinators and many of our coaches on October 23rd to do training and discuss implementation of the new protocols and changes. Let me simply say, everyone is very excited to get going again!
The coordinators for your local E-Sports program will be emailing all enrolled participants/families with more info regarding any further season specifics before day 1 of their programs. We have all missed being together and cannot wait for the kids’ faces to light up being back with each other on the soccer fields and hoop courts.
Gratitude for all who’ve helped us get here since March 2020
When the pandemic hit us all in March of 2020, all our E-Sports programs came to a quick halt. For all of us at E-Sports, we quickly began missing each other and all of the “E-Sports family” – the kids, families, coaches, coordinators and everyone involved! And since then we have missed the regular interaction, coaching, and relationships that we have all enjoyed weekly on soccer fields, basketball courts, karate dojos, and dance studios for many years. It’s been an experience foreign to all of us.
However, we are so grateful to the incredible coaches we have who pivoted quickly to create online E-Sports offerings. By April 2020 we had weekly Facebook Live and Instagram Live “Backyard E-Soccer” sessions going every Saturday morning. In the following months, our USF E-Hoops coaches started weekly “Hoopin’ at Home” series, that eventually grew into a partnership with the USF Dons men’s and women’s basketball players joining in with weekly skills and drills videos to inspire the kids! Before we knew it, E-Karate and E-Dance were doing weekly Zoom sessions online for their families and kids.
It’s been an incredible ride with all of you who have participated or helped in some way with our online, virtual efforts over the last year and a half – learning together, creating and innovating together, and supporting and encouraging each other to get to the present. And I believe I speak for all of us when I say we are beyond ready to get back to seeing each other again “on the field”!
Practicing drills
