Courtesy: Record Pub.com


Orf's hands-on approach with soccer has international impact

by Sara Welch

July 14, 2011

Otto Orf retired in 2004 after 21 years of playing professional soccer.

He didn’t hang up his jersey and walk away from the sport for good, however. His decision to retire gave him the opportunity to expand his summer camp program and developed a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating opportunities for less privileged youth in Northeast Ohio, as well as around the world.

In no way did Orf’s retirement mark the end of his lifelong relationship with soccer.

Orf’s career as a goalkeeper began 30 years ago at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He made his first professional appearance for the Buffalo Storm in 1984. Throughout the duration of his career he played for the Columbus Capitals, the Fort Wayne Flames, the Toronto Blizzards, the San Diego Soccers, the San Diego Nomads, the Orlando Lions, and in the fall of 1989, he signed with the Cleveland Crunch, who were renamed the Cleveland Force in 2002.

He was also part of the United States National Futsal Team from 1996 to 2000. This particular team won the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football regional championship game for the first time and moved on to play in the FIFA Futsal World Championship game in Spain. Otto was named top goalkeeper of the tournament.

In 1991, Orf introduced his summer camp program, HandsOnSoccer. When the program began, he was only training goalkeepers. There was so much interest within the first five years that he had to start hiring professional and college soccer players as instructors. The program quickly expanded to encompass skills sessions for all soccer athletes, instead of just goalkeepers. The camps are a week long and participants can either choose full-day or half-day sessions. His goal is to teach children from the ages of four to 18-years-old the fundamentals of the game and give them a good foundation, he said.

“With a good foundation, kids can improve as they play instead of developing bad habits,” Orf said.

Orf has written three instructional books for soccer coaches based on his own techniques that stresses fundamentals.

Aside from his summer camp program, Orf also started a winter Futsal league in Northeast Ohio that has grown to include over 200 teams. Every February he takes the teams he coaches to the National Futsal Championship in Kansas City.

“It’s the best form of developmental soccer for youth,” he said.

In 2005, Orf started the Otto Orf Charity Golf Classic. The outing was started to benefit those suffering from spina bifida, a condition his younger sister was born with. The money from the outing benefits Akron Children’s Hospital. This year it will take place at Lake Forest Country Club in Hudson and it will benefit Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, as well as Akron Children’s Hospital.

Orf expanded his philanthropy in 2009, when he founded the HandsOnSports Foundation. His nonprofit organization is committed to bringing soccer to the inner-city youth of Akron and its surrounding areas, as well as to impoverished countries around the world. He hopes to provide opportunities for youth through soccer and donations.

One of Orf’s current enterprises, Project Retread, has reached out to eight countries including Ecuador, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Uganda and Nigeria. Orf collects used soccer balls and cleats from thousands of Northeast Ohio families, so he can later distribute them to children without the means to have such luxuries.

Recently he traveled to Costa Rica and personally delivered the donations to six different schools. Along with the shoes an soccer balls he took a food processor, school supplies, fans and money to purchase concrete block.

“The goal of Project Retread is not only to collect shoes for kids in depressed countries, but also to introduce soccer as a sport and opportunity for inner-city youth in Northeast Ohio,” Orf said.

Orf said he is building a network so that he can eventually take local children down to help deliver the supplies to the various countries benefiting from Project Retread.

Orf recently started another project to get area youth more involved in soccer. The city of Akron gave him permission to renovate an old rollerblading arena into a Futsal court at Lane Fields in Akron. The Futsal court is currently Orf’s biggest project. Summa Health System, Akron Children’s Hospital and Key Bank have contributed funds to the construction of the court. His goal is to create a sustainable training program after the court is completed by providing weekly clinics on site.

“This creates an opportunity for kids to develop their skills and it gives them an escape. Through the sport, we can provide opportunity,” Orf said.

Aside from his own initiatives, Orf has contributed to a couple of collaborative efforts. Coach Sam’s Inner Circle Foundation is a program that was developed to raise the literacy rates of second and third graders in inner-city Cleveland. Orf’s assistance was implemented to provide an athletic aspect to the already successful reading program.

He has also made contributions to West Side Ecumenical Ministries and El Barrio. This organization is dedicated to helping refugees in Iraq, Nepal, China, Puerto Rico, Guatemala and El Salvador. It’s main goal is to teach English as a second language.

HandsOnSports Foundation rapidly expanded since it began in 2009. However, funding has been a looming problem preventing further growth. He hosts events for his foundation like the Sand Soccer Showdown, a beach soccer tournament, to help raise money and he has also developed an informal partnership with Kent State University.

Orf has been accepting interns from the Sport’s Administration program at Kent State for the last three years. Originally the interns would help organize and plan for events for HandsOnSoccer. Now Orf is taking interns for both his nonprofit organization, HandsOnSports, as well as HandsOnSoccer.

Aside from the interns he gets, Orf also receives assistance searching for and applying for grants for his foundation. Students in a graduate class at Kent State will search for and identify grants and then write up applications and apply for the various grants, Mark Lyberger an associate professor at Kent State said. The expected outcome would be that Orf would acquire grants from these applications.

Orf’s sports background and worldwide connections provide the opportunity for this partnership to develop initiatives outside of Northeast Ohio.

“I’m envisioning this could lead to broader, more international, as well as national opportunities,” Lyberger said.

Although he is short on money and time, Orf looks for his empire to continue to grow in years to come.




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