Soccer's goals

[Times photo: Fraser Hale] A group of 4- and 5-year-olds go after the ball Thursday morning at the Mutiny soccer camp in Carrollwood Village.

By STEVEN A. SIMON

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 10, 2001

The sport is relatively simple: Run down the field and kick the ball into the goal. But its rewards for kids are infinite.

With competitive tryouts at several local soccer clubs taking place in the upcoming weeks, I found myself reflecting on the extensive benefits of the sport. Both my children are avid players, and have been since they were very young. Not having had that opportunity in my own youth, I am even more impressed by what they get out of it.

The contrast between their sport and mine, baseball, is staggering. I struggled with the complex rules and unforgiving individual nature of my sport, problems Kyle, 12, and Carolyn, 8, have been spared. The rules of soccer can essentially be distilled into one simple sentence: Along with your teammates, kick the ball toward or into the opponent's goal.

The point of this commentary is certainly not to denigrate baseball. It is a great sport and I still enjoy following my favorite teams, the Cincinnati Reds and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (do I know how to pick them?!?). But by viewing soccer through the lens of my own youthful athletic career, I am more able to appreciate what soccer has to offer our children, physically and emotionally.

"Soccer for kids is like milk: the ideal nutrient," says Ron Quinn, director of sport studies and head women's soccer coach at Xavier University in Cincinnati.

Quinn, who is also an associate professor at Xavier, believes it is important for children to play a variety of sports, as each has its strengths and young kids should not specialize. Still, he says, soccer is tough to beat.

He praises its constant movement, which promotes cardiovascular fitness. He also points out that soccer helps develop eye-foot coordination, visual tracking and spatial awareness. Soccer allows total body development, not just the hand-dominated use of an instrument.

Quinn was hesitant to criticize baseball in building up soccer, but he did allow that "soccer is a dynamic game, on-going, a flowing activity, while baseball is characterized as a series of stops and starts with long periods of physical inactivity."

The nonstop action of soccer is much more likely to retain the interest of kids, who universally possess short attention spans. In soccer, everyone can be in the action at the same time. At the youngest ages, in fact, they frequently are, giving the appearance of a rugby scrum or gnats hovering around a piece of overripe fruit.

Goalie is the only position regularly prone to mind wandering. Everyone else has the opportunity to be in the game at all times, not just one pitcher/hitter/fielder at a time with the rest of the team contemplating cloud formations or looking in the grass for bugs or four-leaf clovers.

Soccer's continual play is not only beneficial in physical development, but in emotional growth as well. Because the soccer ball is always moving, misplays are not noticed or are quickly forgotten in the flow of action. This provides a certain amount of anonymity for the less skilled players. As a less skilled baseball player, I certainly would have appreciated a speedy resumption of play after I struck out or dropped an easy fly ball. Instead, after every play, there were a few excruciating moments in which everyone could reflect on my shortcomings. In soccer, even if a mistake results in a goal for the other team, the ball is quickly returned to play.

There are other emotional benefits, as well. Soccer is a sport in which the entire team determines the outcome. Learning to become a productive member of a large organization and subordinating one's individual goals for those of the organization are valuable life skills. Soccer teaches these attributes. Whether a child is highly or marginally skilled, he or she can feel instrumental in the team's success.

"Even if a child has only a few touches, he still feels very involved, part of the team," Quinn says. Additionally, he has observed, the sport provides an opportunity for each child's personality to develop; there is a place on the field for the assertive and the supportive. Soccer promotes critical decisionmaking too. "In soccer, you have to decide where to run," Quinn says. "It isn't already mapped out, as in baseball."

He contends that soccer has become "the sport of choice for today's youth," and statistics certainly back him up. The U.S. Youth Soccer Association reports that participation in youth soccer programs increased by 76 percent between 1991 and 1999, when more than 3-million children played soccer. The National Federation of High School Associations reports a 65 percent jump in participation at the high school level during that time period, and a 112 percent increase for girls. This was the largest increase of any sport charted.

After the reflection and the research, I am now even more convinced that soccer is the right sport for young people to play. On behalf of my children, I can't wait for tryouts.

- Seven A. Simon is a freelance writer in Cheval. His last article for North of Tampa was about a gatehouse chicken.

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