Vortex Ready to Take Vegreville by Storm

Vortex Ready to Take Vegreville by Storm

Michelle Pinon News Advertiser

Dellas Baxandall remembers the day her son told her he wanted to play football. So does her daughter Wyllie, who replied: “Really?” puzzled by the announcement.

Both ladies credit former coach Colby Coers and his dad Gary for keeping football in Vegreville alive. The Vortex football club was established in 2006.

“When there was nobody to keep football going in Vegreville, Colby and his dad stepped up to the plate. There were many other parents and community members that helped out as well, too many to mention them all individually. Many people contributed their time and money over the years.

Dellas Baxandall is the current president of the club and her daughter Wyllie Lunden is the secretary. Both ladies can hardly wait for all of the action to begin. (Michelle Pinon/Photo)

I got involved with football because my son wanted to play. When we started with football the team was doing ok financially but had no extra funds and could use lockers, newer equipment and had everyday expenses that a football team would incur like transportation costs during the season, line paint and maintenance of the field, refereeing expenses, post-game meals, just to mention a few of the expenses. It didn’t take long to rally a great group of parents, players, and coaches to see the need for making football more prominent in our community.

At this time in our football history, we were running a 12 man high school program, that has changed now and we are running a 12 man Bantam program. Despite our efforts and dedication to the high school program with a new principal at the time moving into Vegreville, he alongside the principal of the other high school decided to “take over” the team and it failed to exist in 2017. There is now a 6 man high school team at the Composite high school only, and no team at St. Mary’s. We would love to be involved in the high school program again one day and return to 12 man football.

The football association has worked very hard over the years to accumulate an announcing tower and lockers as well as all of the assets needed to run a team (we own all of our equipment) a sound system, and the list goes on. We couldn’t stand to see all of this go to waste so we started a 12 man Bantam program in 2019. Bantam is Grade 7-9. We have created a field where one of the old soccer fields was. This will be our forever home! And we are very happy about that!!

To date, we have added a locker room and that now houses our lockers as well as a storage shed for some of our practice equipment. Our future goals are to add a visitor’s locker room and extra storage as well as get power trenched for the tower, score clock, and locker room so generators don’t have to be brought to the field every game or as needed. We are currently still looking for 2 additional sponsors for our home locker room. We plan to continue to work hard and raise the necessary funds to reach our goals.

We would love to name the football field we are using, but that remains a surprise while we work on it.”