Youth soccer: Just for kicks

Soccer is the only sport where you can tune in to the middle of a match, watch for 30 seconds and not have any idea which direction each team is going. — Vijay Ramanujan

Twenty-five years ago, organized youth soccer in Utah was . . . er, well, there wasn't any. Oh, there was the odd pickup game among homesick immigrants. Most people knew what a soccer ball was, but you would have had a hard time finding a place to buy one.

In the days of disco, the big three — football, basketball, baseball — were king. Church basketball leagues, Pee-Wee Football, watching the division races in the majors — those were the sports for Americans, not some namby-pamby foreign game where you can't even touch the ball with your hands.

If your child couldn't shoot or tackle or field or throw, he was destined to be a pocket-protector-wearing geek who would join the high school chess club, major in math and create a multibillion-dollar software company in which his erstwhile bullies would be employed as janitors.

And if said child was female — well, forget it. Except for the occasional powder-puff football game (and eventually high school basketball and softball), girls had very little outlet with regard to team sports.

Tennis? Sure. Swimming? Absolutely. Soccer? Say what?

But in 1978 a tiny thing happened that would eventually turn the whole Utah youth sports situation on its head: The Utah Youth Soccer Association was born, to absolutely no fanfare whatsoever.

Things were nip and tuck for a while. In the words of a popular song of the day, organized soccer in Utah was doing well simply to be stayin' alive. Eventually, however, the sport went from simply existing to dominating.

The stone that was cut from the Wasatch Mountains without hands has filled the entire state. An estimated 53,000 Utah kids are currently registered with a youth soccer organization. A 21-field soccer complex has been built in West Jordan, with other (albeit smaller) such complexes throughout the state. A 30-field (count 'em!) complex in Salt Lake City is on November's ballot (see accompanying story).

Indeed, while soccer has grown throughout the United States, it has grown here most of all. Utah now leads the nation in per-capita youth soccer participation; every Saturday during the fall and spring seasons, a whopping 19 percent of Utah youngsters lace up their cleats.

Soccer is a game in which a handful of fit men run around for one and a half hours watched by millions of people who could really use the exercise. — Unknown