May 25, 2006

By Lauren Heaton

Every spring and fall for the past 40 years, scads of Yellow Springs kids have gathered at an open field to stretch their muscles, hone their coordination and build team communication skills by playing soccer in the village’s oldest ongoing recreation league.

This spring, more than 185 youth ages 6 to 14 played on one of the 13 teams in the local league. Every Saturday morning, the teams practiced on the Morgan fields at East Enon and Dayton-Yellow Springs Roads.

Now the organizers of the Yellow Springs Recreational Soccer League have started a campaign to raise $95,000 to restore the playing fields behind the Greene County Educational Services building and enhance the program’s sustainability.

Yellow Springs Soccer Incorporated, a nonprofit organization, was formed a year ago by board members Bob Curley, Emily Fine, Jocelyn Hardman, Sarah Wallis, Lauren Miller and Karen Crist. The group is well on its way to reaching its goal, with $9,000 in gifts received in memory of Saul Young, a $20,000 donation from the Morgan Family Foundation and an additional $20,000 available to match whatever the community is able to raise on its own, according to Fine, the group’s treasurer. The organization has also applied for a $25,000 grant from the Yellow Springs Community Foundation.

The group hopes to raise the funds by the end of the year, start the renovation next spring, and be done in time for the fall 2007 soccer season, Fine said.

The property, owned by the Yellow Springs school district, is uneven, often soggy after it rains and vulnerable to pock marks caused by vehicles.

The renovation will include installing drainage tiles and drainage swales, installing a protective fence and leveling and reseeding the field, Fine said.

Organizers also hope to generate revenue to create sustainability for the soccer program by offering coaching clinics and training for referees and volunteers, and eventually making the fields available as a tournament site for traveling teams, Fine said.

Lynn Hardman, a soccer coach and board affiliate, said the soccer program’s popularity alone justifies the need for better, safer fields on which kids can play. But the program’s value, she said, is largely due to its accessibility and affordability that draws together a broad and diverse group of young people.

“This league has always been something anyone who wanted to could do because it’s free,” Hardman said. “It’s always been representative of the community’s diversity, even with the coaches.”

In addition to the young players, the league has always relied on dozens of parents and volunteer coaches, referees and people willing to do things such as outlining the fields with paint and setting up the nets.

Back in 1964, when local resident Joe Robinson helped organize the league, he relied on support from villagers such as Tom Clemens, who made the first scoreboard, and Jim Rose, who kept score for the games, as well as sponsorship from local businesses whose names were incorporated into the team names, such as the Webb Associate Vikings, the Village Barber Shop Rams, the IGA Packers and the Village Ford Colts.

Robinson said he was stationed at an Air Force base in England when he became impressed with the little-known sport of soccer because of how little money was needed to play. While the college Brits were focused on the more elitist sports of rugby and cricket, neighborhood communities gathered informally to play soccer, also known as association football, he said.

When his family moved to Yellow Springs in 1962, Robinson said, he wanted to provide an alternative to the few high school sports that were offered, and one that was safe and affordable for the community.

“The ultimate goal was to develop fair play, character, physical development and good sportsmanship, and it also encouraged kids to meet with people they weren’t ordinarily associated with,” he said.

Fine, an alumnus of the program whose children went through it and are now on a traveling soccer team, said she values the diversity of a program that is rooted in supporting youth as opposed to the profit-making of this “millennium of money in sports.”

Robinson said he is proud of the program he and the community put together because he is committed to supporting youth to develop their talents. He also believes they should have as many opportunities as possible in Yellow Springs to discover what their interests are.

“If the kids are good at something, there should be a program to help them develop that and encourage them to get better at it,” he said.

And so it goes for soccer. If kids show interest in soccer, Robinson said, they should have good facilities on which to practice, and the community should work together to make that possible.

“It would be a great thing to be able to have an area developed and to have a program that would sustain the facility where they could utilize it and get the most out of it,” he said.

The soccer league welcomes the community’s involvement. Inquiries may be directed to Lynn Hardman, 767-8433. Checks should be made out to Yellow Springs Soccer Incorporated.

“This effort is really to continue the success of a successful recreation league,” Fine said.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com