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RSL breaks ground on youth training academy in North Logan

Posted at 9:48 PM, Nov 20, 2016
and last updated 2016-11-20 23:48:07-05

NORTH LOGAN, Utah – Real Salt Lake recently broke ground on the first of what will become a series of youth training academies.

RSL Owner Dell Loy Hansen said the facility in North Logan is part of a master plan.

“We’ve set the goal to have the best youth training organization in the United States, and we’re not going to stop till we get there,” he said.

Hansen and North Logan Mayor Lloyd Berentzen along with others broke ground on the first of many Real Salt Lake Training Academy Youth Centers.

“It’s just a big deal, this is one of those things that really kind of sets a community apart,” Berentzen said.

Jacob Haueter, President of the RSL Youth Academy Foundation, said they are trying to strengthen soccer in Utah.

“I mean I think the whole vision behind what we’re doing is to promote organized soccer and to supplement and support what the clubs are doing,” he said.

The RSL Training Academy will look somewhat like the club's main training headquarters currently being built in Herriman. It will feature indoor and outdoor fields.

“It gives kids the opportunity to play organized soccer year-round—due to snow, due to weather—that's not going to be an [obstacle] anymore,” Haueter said. “Kids continue to play year-round, and it gives adults and families, and not only clubs, the chance to play the game that they love."

Real Salt Lake says youth training centers will also be built in Ogden, West Valley City, Murray and St. George. There will also be locations in Arizona in the coming years. But it is Hansen’s home town that gets a youth academy first.

“This is a tremendous partnership, not just for this community, but really for the entire valley,” Berentzen said.

Hansen said he has close ties to the community here.

“This is a city that I’ve been a resident of for 39 years,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of the kids here that I want to have the benefit of this. The North Logan City Council and the Mayor have done remarkable things to help us get this vision off the ground.”

The Herriman and Logan locations are expected to be complete by fall of 2017.