On a winter day in Viera, the true meaning of sport
By: Lyn Dowling
This is what sport is supposed to be about.
On a cool Saturday morning, scores of kids crowded Viera Regional Park to participate in clinics with some of the best soccer players the area has ever produced and many of their current teammates. Some were babies so young they toddled onto the pitches. Some were not really kids at all, just people whose lives had been made a little more beautiful for having participated in what Pele calls “the beautiful game.”
Soccer parents came and stayed. Non-soccer parents, or people who were that years ago, did the same. If they had other places to be, they just stopped by because they wanted to be there.
People who know precious little about Brevard County, except, perhaps, what they saw as youth players or vacation visitors, also came. That they represented four of the country’s great collegiate soccer programs – the University of Florida, Florida State University, the University of Central Florida and Florida Institute of Technology – was enough to elicit smiles from even the most casual observers. That they did such amazingly good work with children was less surprising, but all the more inspiring.
The men from Robin Chan’s Florida Tech squad were nothing short of magical with toddlers, doing what amounted to hand-eye coordination games rather than soccer exercises. The women from UF, UCF and FSU clearly had a blast running camp-style drills. They were wonderful at the impromptu skills competitions too, including one that involved striking the woodwork. Ironic, that after years of hoping balls off the feet of players like Ella Stephan (FSU), Katie Fraine (UF) and Katie Jackson (UCF) would find only net, there we were, rooting for them to blast the crossbar.
The competition was amicable, as well it should have been for people who probably have passed more confidences than soccer balls to one another during their young lives. They’re friends, regardless of the colors they wear.
And if you have known those wonderful players for some time, you know who coached them when, and sometimes, why. This is, after all, youth sports, and much as it may trouble you, you know how politics operates, or operated. You know which coaches, clubs and parents are or were at odds with one another, sometimes with uncomfortable results. You know who not to invite to the same party.
On that Saturday morning, none of it mattered. Every area of Brevard County was represented, at every level. People from the beaches were there, sharing news and memories with people from west Brevard. People from North Brevard updated people from the far south about their kids and other endeavors.
How amazing was it to see James Phillips and Scott Armstrong, who at some point might have been considered rivals of the man for whom the event was organized, working their butts off and shouting their throats hoarse while leading activities?
Yet it also was not surprising, because the reason behind it all lent so much perspective.
Last month, Gerald Haig, father of Florida Tech women’s coach Fidgi Haig and a man not unfamiliar to long-time soccer people here, was killed in the earthquake that struck Haiti. Other family members were seriously injured.
The story was one we’ve heard so many times in the past few weeks: a home in a lovely suburb of Port-au-Prince reduced to rubble; the inability of loved ones to get into or out of the country; the dreadful lack of information and difficulty of communication; the need for the most basic things to sustain life. Because it was Fidgi – like Phillips and Armstrong, a star player at Florida Tech; a two-time girls’ state championship winner at Satellite High School; and a multiple State Cup winner – it made news.
But his resume didn’t matter to the people who came to Viera. What they cared about was that something terrible had happened to one of their own and his family needed help. So they helped, and they all had fun.
Courtney Baines Lundy and Kalli Kamholz-Ecker, who organized the event and got nearly 200 campers to turn up in the space of less than a week, you were champions as girls and you are champions as women. You act the way you play: unselfishly, with intelligence, foresight and maturity.
Collegiate players, who spent your own, rare free time and money to drive from Tallahassee, Orlando, Gainesville or wherever, just to help, you were inspirations as kids and you are inspirations now, and just as much fun. The future of the game looks like the present: so good because you are in it.
Players, coaches, club officials, Brevard County Parks and Recreation people, parents, players, friends, you make us proud to be soccer people and proud to be Brevardians.
This is what sport is supposed to be about.
Click Here to see photos from the clinic.