Courtesy: Sun Journal


Youth Soccer: Kicking's a habit

by Kalle Oakes

Mar 20, 2011

Sixty degrees and sunshine thinned the white blanket surrounding Mt. Abram High School on Thursday.

Weeks will evaporate before the snow does, however. That’s when the ankle-deep puddles at every corner of the parking lot form the equivalent of mud anywhere grass usually grows.

So what happens when you’re a kid and you don’t have the ability or the resources to ski? Endless sessions of indoor gaming, social networking and snacking, most likely.

“Probably sitting at home getting out of shape,” said Jake Riendeau of Strong, a Mt. Abram junior.

The Western Mountain Youth Soccer Association may not hold the cure for cabin fever. But three days a week during an endless March, it puts boredom and inertia in a chokehold.

While many local gyms are dark and most recreational sports programs are in a holding pattern, youth from the communities of RSU 58 and a few from Farmington are celebrating soccer.

Indoor soccer, to be precise, played on a high school basketball court temporarily infused with the personality of a hockey or roller rink.

“It’s dead time in the gym,” association registrar Darren Allen said. “Mud season’s here. What can you do outside, sink?”

Now in its third year, the late-winter league is fully involved in keeping kids’ athleticism and activity levels afloat.

The league’s 122 players are almost evenly split into three classifications: Division I for Grades 8-12; Division II for Grades 4-7; and Division III for Grades 1-3.

Games are played on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday in the echo chamber that is the Mt. Abram 'Runnerdome.

Where spectators are accustomed to seeing basketball stanchions, there are soccer nets. Sidelines and baselines have been replaced by PVC panels, flashing the ivory sheen of hockey boards.

“The first year we did it, we just had the side walls and the end walls. That was horrible,” Allen said. “All I ever said was ‘goal kick.’ Last year we used cafeteria tables on the sides, and it was … OK. There were liability issues.”

“Last year we had somebody flip over a table,” Mt. Abram freshman Colin McCarthy-Edwards of Strong explained. “This is definitely better.”

Allen, formerly coach of the Mt. Abram boys’ varsity soccer program, hatched the idea for the league several years ago along with Mt. Abram girls’ coach Marc Keller on the way home from a national conference.

In some Maine communities, youth leagues begin at age 4. Mt. Abram didn't have any program for pre-teens.

“We drove back from Baltimore the whole way saying our kids need to be exposed to more soccer,” Keller said.

Even though the early numbers and family support were outstanding, the association’s board saw room for improvement.

There was uneasiness about the delays while chasing the wayward ball, and more importantly the safety issue.

Keller went online and researched what it would take to transform the school gym into a makeshift soccer pitch.

“I played at Sukee (Arena in Winslow) when I was in high school and in men’s league and in stuff like that. What we’d done in the past just didn’t seem right,” Keller said. “We wanted to do something better, something the kids would enjoy. This turned out way better than what I expected.”

One giant obstacle: The PVC boards sell for $70 each, and they require braces of lumber to hold them in place.

Jordan Lumber of Kingfield came to the rescue, donating half the materials and furnishing the remainder at cost, Allen said.

Allen and his wife, Keller and other volunteers chalked up more than 180 man-hours over February school vacation putting the project together.

The team benches are equipped with swinging doors, a la hockey. Basketball bleachers blend into the wall on one side of the arena. The resulting bullring of activity contains twice the number of students that could compete in the hoop environment, creating a scene worthy of a rodeo or a circus.

“It really adds a lot. The most exciting to me is Division III, the young kids. It’s awesome,” said Allen, whose three sons play in the primary and senior divisions. “The crowd is going nuts. Actually it’s too loud. I had a headache last time.”

Games are played in 10-minute quarters. Because the ends of the floor are only 84 feet apart, the game is played with a 'futsal' skills ball — similar to a workout medicine ball — to make scoring more of a challenge.

Still, especially in the senior division, there are no lulls in the action or transitions from offense to defense.

“You’re definitely running around the whole time,” Riendeau said.

Every classification is co-ed, creating unique challenges for the two or three high school girls competing in each game.

While Keller stood far from the action and watched dispassionately due to Maine Principals’ Association off-season coaching guidelines, two of his fall players — Sam Werzanski of Phillips and Helena Williams of Carrabassett Valley — went toe-to-toe with the boys.

“They’re a lot bigger than us, and there are a lot more of them than us,” Williams said. “It helps you be more aggressive. You play better because they play well. And the boys push you around.”

Williams attends Mt. Abram during the fall and Carrabassett Valley Academy in winter and spring, so soccer supplements her daily activities at Sugarloaf.

Werzanski would be among the masses simply waiting for spring. And waiting. And waiting.

“There’s not much to do around here, but the soccer program is really big,” she said. “A lot of little kids are playing. They have indoor soccer, then soccer camp, then fall soccer.”

It wasn’t always that way.

Mt. Abram plays in the same Class C division with St. Dom’s, NYA and other southern teams stocked with year-round travel team players. That tangible difference in the level of play prompted Allen and Keller to put soccer on the pedestal most schools in the region reserve for basketball.

“You have to start from the bottom up. That’s the other reason we’re doing this. A lot of these kids (wouldn’t otherwise) see a soccer ball until they’re in eighth grade,” Allen said. “When I first started, it was basketball, and soccer was not even a worry. Now somebody said there were more people here for the little kids’ soccer games than the high school basketball games.”


Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com