Taking it to the streets ...

The idea of kids playing, free of adult supervision, expectations or involvement, seems so simple, and yet it happens so rarely these days. US Youth Soccer hopes to turn that around, with a promising program entitled "Street Soccer." It's a brilliant concept, both elegant and daring in its simplicity. Just let the kids play. For the sake of this sport, and our kids, I hope it takes root, and takes off.

My story on a new "street soccer" program in North Andover, written for the Boston Globe, can be found here. The unabridged version is below.

Giving back the beautiful game
New "street soccer" program puts children in charge

NORTH ANDOVER – Almost two-dozen youngsters, ages 10 to 14, boys and girls, mull about Home Grown Lacrosse indoor field during a recent Thursday evening. Jeremy Dalmer, a licensed youth soccer coach, signs in each child, directs them to the field, drops off a bag of balls and a bag of pinnies, and then steps aside. He tells the kids that they’re on the clock, and on their own.

The children gather in small groups from their own community – primarily Lawrence and North Andover – and start pawing at the artificial turf with their cleats, or tapping a ball. Slowly, they start chatting with each other, form three teams, decide on rules (first team to score twice wins), and begin playing.

“My heart was in throat, when the clock first started,” said Dalmer. “I was just watching the kids, hoping they’d get it started. And they did.”

Dalmer’s trepidation was justified. Any new venture runs the risk of failure. And “street soccer” is certainly different: No adults are allowed to coach, referee, or even enter the playing area, except to deal with an injury. But this first session, judging from the reactions of parents, coaches, and the kids, was an unqualified success.

“I think it's so cool. We can just play, and no one is yelling at us,” said 12-year-old Mariah Sanchez of Lawrence, who came with her brother, Xavier, and several Lawrence teammates. “We get to meet new people. I already made a new friend.”

At its core, the mission of “street soccer” – the term the US Youth Soccer coined for these loosely organized pick-up games – is to return the sport to the kids. Sandlot, or “street,” soccer, after all, is how most of the world learns the sport. In this country, however, parents have taken soccer – generally considered a great outlet for wholesome recreation – and twisted it into a petri dish of adult expectations. For far too many children, the beauty has been squeezed out of the beautiful game.

“I see two fundamental approaches to coaching,” says Dalmer, a 32-year-old father of two. “One being the adult trying as best he can to shape the kids into his vision of the sport. And the other being accepting how the kids see a sport, on their own.”

Dalmer first learned of the street soccer program at a National Youth License Course sponsored by US Youth Soccer National in Kentucky in 2008. The idea struck a chord, he said, because that was all he ever knew during his childhood in Vermont.

“I always loved soccer, but my family was religious, and I was never allowed to play organized sports growing up,” he said. “So the only soccer I could play was just with my friends, in backyards.”

However, street soccer has been part of the US Youth Soccer curriculum for a decade, says Sam Snow, US Youth Soccer's coaching director. “It's not terribly new,” he said. “It's just growing slowing across the country.”

The program, said Snow, is being integrated at all levels of youth soccer, from beginners to Olympic development teams.

“The genesis was, fundamentally, about giving ownership of the game back to the players,” he said. “It was also to provide an environment so kids could experiment in how to play the game – ball skills, tricks, moves that they'd do in a game – without the results being on the line, and the anxiety on the part of the adults, coaches, and parents surrounding the field. They're anxious about the outcome, pressuring the kids to play it safe all the time. That was stifling the kids' development.”

The street soccer movement has a distinct “back to the future” feel, which makes sense, given soccer's meteoric rise in this country over the past 40 years. Essentially, soccer's popularity outstripped chances for youngsters to see the game played at a high level.

“I'm 55, and I grew up in Orlando,” said Snow. “When I was growing up, there were no examples at all. We were progressing in the dark. That was the case for most of the country. “There was a need, for a long time, for the environment to be very coach-centered. For a kid to learn how to make a push pass, the coach had to demonstrate it, because the kid otherwise was never going to see someone execute a push pass.”

Today, young players now have ample opportunity to watch top-flight competition.

“We can do this now because of our stage of growth as a soccer nation,” said Snow. “The kids have examples now of how to play the game. They can watch a lot of very good soccer on TV from all around the world.” Snow said he's surprised that street soccer hasn't taken off, but realizes the obstacles.

“It's growing slowly mostly due to the parents,” he said. “There's a sense of, ‘What am I paying for?’ They want things that are, in their eyes, more structured. They want the referees, the won-lost record, having their kids on a roster.”

Well-intentioned coaches can also be a roadblock. “Coaches say, ‘I have so little time with them. I don't want to give up that time,’” said Snow. “And we say, ‘You're actually going to be more productive this way, because you're going to open the door for the kids taking leadership, taking ownership, increasing their organizational skills, their communication, their group dynamics, their understanding of one another's capabilities.' You grow through all of that.”

“The coaches who are willing to step out on the edge of the cliff are the ones who, once they take that leap, and give it a reasonable amount of time, see that the kids will actually begin to improve faster.”

Snow doesn't have any empirical data to back up these claims, but said the program has a common sense foundation. “As a bunch of soccer guys, we just know it works. It's painfully obvious,” he said. “So we just haven't bothered (to collect data). But we probably should, to bring along skeptics.”

The parents at Dalmer's inaugural session didn't need any convincing.

“I love it,” said Janet Werry of North Andover. “Parents are too hands on today. We have to back off sometimes. It's good to let the kids organize things, and make decisions for themselves.”

North Andover’s Mark Kornachuk, watching his 10-year-old daughter Kaitlin, said: “It reminds me of when I was a kid, growing up (in Danvers), playing with my friends. We always played pick-up games, baseball, football. You just assumed everyone would show up at the field. The kids got together, they made the rules, and they lived by them. They ruled themselves.”

Dalmer’s goals for his street soccer sessions are simple: “Just to have the kids enjoy the play enough to return. And that's not even within my control.”

The two one-hour sessions at Home Grown Lacrosse will be held Thursdays through March, and he’s already added a session Tuesdays for U-10 players that combines 30 minutes of skills training followed by an hour of street soccer. Some spectators predicted the sessions would sell out.

“They're going to back to school, and they're going to tell their friends. This is going to be huge,” said Ray Mahoney, a longtime North Andover youth soccer coach. “Look at them – they’re all smiling, they're all laughing."

During a break in the action, Werry’s daughter, Morgan Fox, ran off the field for a drink. Asked if she was having fun, she flashed a bright smile.

“It's just so random,” said Morgan. “I'm just here to play.”

Then Morgan scooted back inside the netting, to the field. To play. Like a child.

FINIS