Two Important Organizations- One Big Idea

The soccer world, with such global participation and such socioeconomic differences in its people, is the perfect place to make a serious social impact. Two existing organizations are favorites of ours in terms of their mission and reach.

The first is Passback. This long-established joint effort between US Soccer, MLS and Eurosport has a simple and admirable goal: collect used (but still usable) soccer gear and redistribute it to kids who need it- be they in NYC or Zimbabwe, according to the site. If you're an American soccer person you may have a duffle bag full of old gear...Give!

Right To Play is a Toronto-based organization that uses Playing Soccer to teach children on basic yet critical issues - from educational development to hygiene and health to community building. It capitalizes on the unifying power of the sport and a simple idea: bring kids together with soccer, and take advantage of that time together to make them informed advocates on these issues.

adidas recently jumped into the fray with a "Buy the Ball, Join the Movement" promotion. Their participation is very similar to the first movement that we are planning here at FCEarth, but that's okay- there's plenty of need, and plenty of room to harvest the social power of the sport.

Commitment to Community: Brad Friedel

One of our favorite US soccer players- and one of the US players with the most distinguished international careers- is veteran goalkeeper Brad Friedel.

Friedel, from Bay Village, Ohio (a western suburb of Cleveland), is the longtime Blackburn Rovers goalie who also has Liverpool and Columbus Crew on his resume. In a cool symmetry he now tends the net for Aston Villa, which is owned by Randy Lerner- who also owns the Cleveland Browns.

Admirably committed to his home area, and to youth soccer in the US, this year Friedel opened the Premier Soccer Academies (PSA) in a brand new complex in Lorain, Ohio. In the model of famed facilities in Bradenton (FL) and all over Europe, PSA is a residential soccer academy that this year ushered in its first class of American students and 10 international students from Chile, Africa, Venezuela and other nations.

In August, PSA also completed its first international youth tournament, which featured teams from the US and four other nations. A Blackburn Rovers youth squad played in the finals in a fitting finish to the first event at Friedel's facility- an incredible symbol of dedication to the game and to one's hometown.

Coach!

My favorite job ever- and it was truly only a job in that I received a paycheck for it- was that of junior varsity soccer coach at Avon Lake High School in Avon Lake, Ohio, in 2001. The families of our student-athletes were, as many soccer families are, incredible. I remember one pre-game dinner hosted by a family with Hungarian ancestry, where the parents made an authentic meal and the players ate it up before going out to the backyard to play some barefoot ball.

Here's a story by Katie Brauns of the Bend (Oregon) about diverse parents stepping up to fill in as coaches in the local youth league, the Bend Metro Park and Recreation District. It's a common occurrence in youth leagues around the country, and America's thousands of leagues would not survive with parental involvement. My dad, knowing almost nothing about soccer, stepped in to coach my team in first grade, and we had a blast with him coaching my teams for the next five years until he yielded to more experienced Soccer People when I got to a traveling team.

I'd venture to say that US youth soccer has about the best organized structure of parental involvement of all sports. Coaching will be a recurring theme here due to our belief that coaches can have a HUGE impact, on and off the field, for young athletes.

Coach!