(Image Credit: Bob Woodall / JH News and Guide)
In 1978 a brand-new sport — soccer — came to Jackson and Teton Valley with an unorganized handful of residents who would get together in Wilson to play each week.
Nowadays you’d be hard-pressed to find a snow-free weekend when the fields near the high school are not covered with footballers big or small.
This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the Jackson Hole Football Club’s home tournament, the Ted Jonke Invitational. The tournament will host 14 teams from all over the Intermountain West as well as several area teams. On top of that this weekend’s tournament will include a number of women’s teams as well.
Jake Elkins was one of the players in those first informal games in the spring of 1978 and was also around for the first home tournament hosted in Jackson later that fall. Elkins said the first teams “were heavily made up of ski patrolmen or other workers from Teton Village. ... The club also added players from the Jackson Hole Ski Club who had an informal soccer squad for a couple years in the ’70s, too.”
Fields were hard to come by, Elkins recalled.
“We lucked into a set of goals and nets from the parks department,” he said, “but the first five years or so we painted our own lines during warm-ups and moved fields around town a good bit.”
From Owen Bircher Park in Wilson to several other locations, some no longer around, the early years saw the club bounce around a lot.
“The club has been around a long time,” said Ron Levy, the current club director, “sort of keeping steady as we build team talent and camaraderie year-to-year.”
Levy first got involved shortly after moving here in 2001.
“I saw some guys who looked like they knew what they were doing with a soccer ball.” Within a day, Levy said, “they had figured out I played in college, and I was thrown in the back of a truck for that weekend’s tournament.”
This year’s invitational director, Jackson Hole High School boys coach Tom Bresnehan, is excited to continue the tradition Elkins helped start all those years ago. Now, as then, fields pose some challenges.
“Availability is less of a problem than the early days,” Bresnehan said.
But a hurdle today is rising prices set by Teton County/Jackson Parks and Recreation.
Another challenge is availability and cost of lodging for out-of-town teams.
“All the money we make on this tournament goes back into the club,” Bresnehan said, “usually to run more tournaments and provide scholarships around the valley,” such as youth soccer scholarships.
The club also puts up money in memory of longtime member Ted Jonke and for an annual scholarship given to a student with a passion for soccer.
A few years after Levy joined he helped lead the transition from Jackson Soccer Club to Jackson Hole Football Club and geared the organization in the direction of a nonprofit structure.
“Having the nonprofit focus helped us be able to really look at fundraising for scholarships, home referees and travel,” Levy said. “After my early years with the club it just didn’t make sense not to go the nonprofit route and formalize some processes while also working with the youth program.”
The youth program is something Levy, Bresnehan and Elkins all mentioned as a major by-product of the Football Club’s long presence.
“Eventually my teammates and I started having kids,” Elkins said, “and they wanted their kids to play soccer, of course.”
“We have a lot of dads on the teams,” Levy said. “Many of them have definitely served as impetus for the success of our youth and high school programs today.”
One of many Jackson teams playing this weekend will be the Football Club’s Diablos, a team both Bresnehan and Levy have played for.
“Last year was three in a row,” Levy said of the Diablos’ losing streak in the finals versus Jackson’s Hispanic league team Mexico.This year focus at home will be key, as the Diablos had a lackluster showing at a tournament earlier this summer in Montana, going only 1-2.
“We felt the first two there were games we should have won,” Levy said.
Regarding the women’s side of the club, Levy said “It’s been a struggle” fielding consistent teams for tournaments. But both he and Bresnehan are looking forward to a successful tournament this weekend to help pave the way for a new co-ed tourney in the fall.
“Hopefully,” Levy said, “the Jonke tournament and the co-ed tournament on the horizon can help get participation back up on that side.”
Jonke was an original member of the Jackson Hole Football Club and is credited with founding the soccer program in Jackson. He died in 2000. In addition to his contributions to club soccer in Jackson, Jonke organized adult leagues and coached youth soccer in Jackson.
Games will take place all day on the high school fields Friday and Saturday, with a $10 all-you-can-eat barbecue during night games.
Bresnehan and Levy anticipate a great weekend of soccer for the valley.
“It’s the 40th anniversary,” Bresnehan said, “and that makes it especially awesome to have the community show up there to watch and support the sport and the teams.”
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