Northpinellas: Soccer stampede leaves players no place to run

"We do have too many players -- which is a blessing -- and not enough green space to occupy them," said Mike May, a soccer coach and spokesman for the Sporting Goods Manufacturer's Association in North Palm Beach. "After school and on weekends, the demand exceeds supply."

Soccer is the fifth most popular sport for children aged 6 to 17 and the fifth most popular team sport, according to American Sports Data Inc. It is the only team sport to see the number of children playing it grow between 1990 and 2000.

And it shows.

Across Pinellas County, fields are so crowded that the 25 soccer clubs in the area are scheduling fewer practices, holding them later at night and pushing some games from Saturday morning to Saturday evening.

In cities such as Largo and Clearwater, there is so little field space soccer clubs are forced to turn children away. Largo has had to hold its membership steady at 500 for the past couple of years despite increasing interest from youths who want to join.

"We really have reached a critical mass as far as how many kids we can have out there at any one given time," said Jeff Venturelli, fields manager for the Largo United Soccer Club. "We could probably add an average of 20 to 30 kids a year, because soccer is becoming more popular, if we had the space to put the kids. We just don't have the space."

And it's not just soccer. There's simply not enough space anywhere to accommodate the growing number of youth recreational programs.

Lack of playing fields is one of the most important issues in youth sports, according to the National Council on Youth Sports, a group of 90 youth sports organizations representing 52-million participants.

"Youth sports programs are getting better and better for the most part," said May. "There are also growing adult leagues. Then you throw in the growing leagues for various niche markets and you have a lot of people who want to play a lot of games and very few fields."

The Oldsmar Soccer Club found that out recently at Canal Park, when players were kicked off the field during a weeknight practice by an adult flag football team.

During football season, the soccer club was forced to have practices on an unlighted field in shadows cast by lights from the next field over.

While the club has grown from 80 to 480 kids in the past five years, the number of fields doesn't reflect that, said Jim Harte, director of coaching for the club.

"If football didn't end when daylight savings ended, we'd have all our teams practicing in the dark," Harte said.

Oldsmar officials have agreed to light Field 3 before next year's soccer season. But other clubs are experiencing the same scenario: dimly lighted fields, splotchy grass kicked up by the year-round pounding of cleats and soccer goals set up between field goal posts.

The 330 members of the Clearwater Chargers, a nationally known competitive soccer club, practice and hold games on two full-sized fields.

"We can't handle any more," said Rob O'Nan, president of the Chargers. "The only thing we're going to try to do this year is add a developmental group of 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old kids. If you know you only have two fields, you can't add a thousand people to your club."

Even the Dunedin Stirling Soccer Club, which doesn't share its fields with other sports, is hurting for more space. The club has 650 kids and four full-sized soccer fields.

Still, none of the club's teams gets a full-sized field for practice unless they come in on a Friday or Sunday night.

"We practice and play and do everything on the four fields," said Karen Mariscal, president of the Dunedin Stirling club. "For us, it would be nice to have some more fields so the ones we're on aren't worn and torn because we use them so much."

Many cities, caught off guard by the growth in soccer's popularity, have been slow to respond to the need for more fields, citing insufficient funding and space as reasons why they are unable to build more fields.

Canal Park in Oldsmar, which was built in 1993, already has three football/soccer fields, nine baseball fields and a BMX bicycle racing facility. There simply is no more room.

"When we built Canal Park, soccer wasn't a big issue with anybody," said Oldsmar Mayor Jerry Beverland. "Nobody played soccer. It has become big."

Another reason is that children come from all over the county to play for a certain club. The Clearwater Chargers have players who come from as far away as Manatee and Sarasota. So cities hesitate to build more fields to accommodate outside residents, said O'Nan.

That's particularly an issue in Clearwater, where 65 percent of the soccer players are from other cities.

According to state standards, the city is deficient in only one soccer field to meet the needs of Clearwater residents, said Kevin Dunbar, director of parks and recreation for Clearwater.

"The city of Clearwater is not going to fund the construction of any new soccer fields," said Dunbar. "What we need is partners."

Pinellas County expects to have an extra $2.1-million to spend on recreation programs, thanks to a recently approved property tax rate increase for residents outside cities.

Dunbar hopes to secure some of that grant money for a proposed $3.2-million soccer complex at St. Petersburg College in Clearwater. The East Lake Youth Sports Association is also asking for a share.

This year, county officials approved giving 25 acres of the Brooker Creek Preserve to the East Lake group for additional soccer, football and baseball fields and parking spaces. Now it needs to come up with the money to build the fields.

The County Commission is scheduled to vote Tuesday to decide which projects will receive a share of the money. The money is earmarked for unincorporated areas.

"We saw a need for all sorts of recreation, but the playing needs was the loudest voice we heard," said County Commissioner Susan Latvala. "Our goal this year was to impact the largest number of citizens that we could."

County commissioners are also considering using some space in county parks to develop more fields.

Cities that don't get a share of the grant money, may take it upon themselves to alleviate overcrowding at their soccer fields.

In Oldsmar, after numerous e-mails from soccer club members, officials are not only planning to light Field 3, they are also exploring where else they can build more fields.

Safety Harbor and Clearwater are discussing building new soccer fields on McMullen Booth Road, just north of State Road 580.

Safety Harbor does not have its own soccer program, and many kids there play for Countryside. The two cities have asked Oldsmar to join the talks.

"The city of Safety Harbor has been trying to build soccer fields for several years in regards to meeting the needs of all the youths who want to play soccer," said Tom Ronald, director of leisure services for Safety Harbor. "It's tough here in Pinellas. We're a built-out county."

While youth soccer is booming in Florida, professional soccer has fallen by the wayside, said Barbara Newton, president of the Florida Youth Soccer Association.

The nearest Women's United Soccer Association pro team is in Atlanta, and the nearest Major League Soccer team is in Washington, D.C. The Tampa Bay Mutiny and the Miami Fusion folded earlier this year.

But even without a Mia Hamm or Landon Donovan in Florida, Newton says she hopes the increasing popularity of the sport will help cities realize the need to preserve green space for soccer fields.

"I just keep encouraging people to work with their local and state government," she said. "It's all we can do. Football, baseball are America's teams. We just have to show the right people the value of soccer."

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