Getting Their Kicks : North County Home to New Soccer Trends

Look around on any fall Saturday--from Del Mar to Oceanside, Encinitas to Escondido--and you’ll see soccer uniforms. All day long, children scurry after black-and-white balls on every available field in the county.

Having successfully competed with other traditional youth activities like Little League, soccer has firmly established itself in North County as elsewhere. The area also finds itself home to some new trends, decried by some and applauded by others.

“The population in North County is growing fast, but the numbers of kids playing soccer are growing even faster,” said Judith Wesling, a district commissioner for the United States Youth Soccer Assn., one of two national organizations overseeing soccer in the county.

As the number of children playing increases, so do the options available and the confusion for many parents over the right choices for their own children.

In most communities, boys and girls can choose to play purely recreational soccer in their own neighborhoods or try out for more competitive teams. For instance, the Encinitas Soccer Club offers three levels of play: A or recreational teams play locally; AA teams are more competitive and may travel to other communities for their games; AAA teams are the most competitive and travel far afield. Any child may sign up for a recreational team, but for the two competitive levels, team members must actually try out and be chosen.

At the AAA level, soccer often becomes a 12-month commitment, especially when combined with high school soccer. In fact, this region has acquired a reputation as a hot bed for year-round soccer.

On any given weekend, AAA teams like Poway Vaqueros, Escondido Heat, La Jolla Nomads and Rancho Bernardo Pegasus, may face each other or travel outside of the county for distant tournaments. For instance, the San Dieguito Surf under-17 boys team (and many of their family members) will spend Thanksgiving in Tempe, Ariz.

Tryouts and traveling are not the only relatively new wrinkles in youth soccer. In many cases, the coaches of the AAA teams are not volunteer dads and moms; they’re paid non-relatives who play soccer themselves.

“Ten years ago, paid coaches were not the case, but now there’s a definite trend in that direction,” Wesling said. “As the youth players get better and now have national role models in the pro players, they’re looking for a higher level of coaching. The paid coaches have the expertise and skills that parents who didn’t grow up playing soccer don’t have.”

One of those coaches is Joseph Giacalone, who has played for a pro soccer team in San Bernadino and is trying out for the San Diego Soccers.

This season he’s coaching the Rancho Bernardo Hornets, a team of 10- and 11-year-old girls. He said income from coaching and giving private lessons allows him the freedom to continue playing professional soccer.

“The kids and parents at the AAA level are more motivated,” Giacalone said. “I try to put as little pressure as possible on them and still try to teach them to be good soccer players.”

According to Robin Schultz, whose daughter, Jennifer, plays for the Hornets, the trend toward paid coaches seems to be working: “The kids are playing better, and, since this is the livelihood of these coaches, they have to be good with the kids.”

Paying coaches and traveling to distant tournaments do not come without a price tag. One mother whose son decided to try out for a AAA team after having played on recreational teams said she was ready to write a check for about $35 but found out that a check for 10 times that amount wouldn’t cover the cost for the season.

The coaches’ paychecks come out of the parents’ checkbooks, as does the cost of team travel and uniforms. Each league collects the money differently, but a fee of several hundred dollars is not unusual.

The United States Youth Soccer Assn.’s counterpart is the American Youth Soccer Organization, which emphasizes the recreational rather than competitive aspects of the sport.

The American Youth Soccer Organization has leagues in Mira Mesa and the San Marcos area and plans to open a new region in Carlsbad next year.

“Although we have some paid staff in the national office, every one else is a volunteer in our organizations, from the coaches to the registrars,” says Eric Brummond, the national development coordinator for the organization. “We place an emphasis on having fun, staying fit and teaching skills.”

The organization’s philosophy revolves around four principles, says Brummond: every child should play at least half of each game; each team should be balanced so children don’t get discouraged; clubs should hold open reservations with no tryouts so that there is no discrimination on the basis of skill, and all coaches should practice positive coaching.

Actually, all teams in the county, regardless of national or state affiliation start out at the recreational, nontraveling level. The competitive option kicks in around the age of 9. In most leagues, organized play begins at the age of 5.

At the North County Soccer Park in Poway, many parents from surrounding neighborhoods have decided to take advantage of the soccer park’s organized leagues for children as young as 4. The younger children play their games on a new kind of indoor-outdoor field designed by co-owners Mark Bentley and Tom Schwartz.

The soccer park’s mini field measures about 85 feet by 50 feet and has been built with sand-filled turf and smooth walls with injury prevention in mind. The teams field four rather than the traditional 11 at one time, so each child gets more contact with the ball.

Why sign up kids for organized sports before they even go to kindergarten?

According to Bentley and the parents whose children participate, this early introduction to soccer will accelerate their development of skills. Besides, as one dad says, “the kids get to associate with other kids and just have fun.”

Although the adults involved in youth soccer may disagree about the right age for children to start playing and other fine points, there is almost universal agreement that soccer, on the whole, is a good sport for kids.

“Soccer is definitely one of the better sports,” said Dr. Howard Taras, a pediatrician at UC San Diego. “There are fewer injuries in soccer than there are in football, and, unlike baseball, it’s an aerobic sport.”

The aerobic advantages of the sport come at a time when a number of studies have concluded that American children have become couch potatoes and are at risk of developing serious health problems because of their poor eating habits and poorer exercise regimens.

When youth soccer was young it managed to avoid the scenario of adults reliving past glory or re-inventing their playing careers through children. Most Americans knew next to nothing about the game.

As a sport, soccer came to this country late. Although Americans assaulted each other on the gridiron, the rest of the world played an entirely different kind of “football.” Ethnic teams began playing this new kind of football in the ‘60s and, slowly, youth soccer teams sprang up around the United States.

As the sport became more popular and familiar, the archetypal “Little League” parents--the ones whose veins bulge as they shout abuse at players, coaches and officials--have taken their places on the sidelines.

Many soccer leagues have tried to set standards to encourage appropriate conduct on the part of everyone involved. The American Youth Soccer Organization, for instance, has a bill of rights for young athletes as well as codes of conduct for coaches, referees, parents and players.

Pediatrician Taras stresses that children need to learn how healthy competition differs from unhealthy competition, and that unhealthy competition should be guarded against at all ages. He also offers these recommendations for parents contemplating soccer for their children:

* The younger the child, the less structured the activity should be.

* Children should never be forced to play.

* Younger children especially should be viewed as competing against themselves instead of other children.

* Activities should be increased gradually to avoid injuries.

* In hot, humid weather children, especially younger children, need to be encouraged to drink lots of water.

* Children should never be told to continue playing if they say they are hurt. “If a child is hurt, he or she shouldn’t stay in the game,” Taras said. “If pretending to be hurt, the child really doesn’t want to be playing at all.”

SOCCER SOURCES

U.S. Youth Soccer Assn.:

488-1359

Cardiff Soccer Club:

436-9356

Carlsbad Soccer Club:

434-5600

Del Mar Soccer Club:

755-3255

Encinitas Soccer Club:

632-0138

Leucadia Soccer Club:

436-9356

Mira Mesa Soccer Club:

549-2938

North County Youth Soccer Assn. (Escondido):

489-0169

Poway Soccer Club:

486-1425

Ramona Soccer Club:

788-6698

Rancho Santa Fe Soccer Club:

436-9356

Solana Beach Soccer Club:

481-7166

Vista Soccer Club:

940-8804

For information on leagues in Penasquitos, Fallbrook, Rancho Bernardo, Scripps Ranch and Valley Center, call 488-1359. American Youth Soccer

Organization

Mira Mesa: 566-3575

San Marcos: 489-5454

North County Soccer Park:

748-4260

Sign-ups for fall soccer have ended, and league play is going on now. For information on future sign-ups, call these numbers or contact local schools and recreation centers.