Updates 15 Feb 2024
Chico Friends of Lacrosse met with Brian Bowen (Owner) and Ryan Sutton (General Manager) of Chico Nissan recently and they have given their formal support of Chico Friends of Lacrosse and its mission to bring CIF High School Lacrosse to Chico High Schools!
Chico Nissan is one of the largest donors and supporters of High School athletics in Chico each year via the Almond Bowl Car Raffle. Through the efforts of all high school athletes at both Pleasant Valley and Chico High Schools, money is raised for PV and CHS Boosters to fund sports at both schools. Brian and Ryan see the benefit of providing more athletic opportunities for all students, and see Lacrosse programs as a way to make that happen.
THANK YOU to the whole Chico Nissan Family for believing in our mission.
Chico Friends of Lacrosse had a meeting with Chico Unified School District this last month to discuss the upcoming student survey. The district explained that due to the release of the first State Budget they would not be able to fund any new sports. While Lacrosse at both schools would be fully funded through Chico Friends of Lacrosse, Chico Rebels, and both organizations efforts, IF lacrosse did not win out on the survey, the district would not have the money to fund the sport that did. We understand this, as anything less would be unfair to the students of each high school. So we are continuing to push for this survey and wait for the Governors May Revise of the budget to hopefully be better news for Chico Unified. In the mean time, we are working to establish club teams at each high school for the spring of 2025 if fully fledged CIF teams do not come to fruition via the survey path.
We remain on good terms with all entities and are hopefull that through a collaborative process our kids will be wearing their schools name across their chest next spring, and we will have a path forward for fully fledged CIF Teams soon.
Practice for all Rebels Teams started this week. There are 12U, 14U, and High School teams for this spring and all teams have 10-14 games . Everybody had gear and a stick in their hand, they were engaged and excited and even parents were asking questions about the game, getting excited themselves. It was pretty awesome to see. We even had two new registrations today alone (HS and U14) and a U12 yesterday. Each team plays between 10-15 games this season which I think has to be an all time high since COVID. And the teams that can't make it to us this year are already planning a Chico trip for their team next year.