Kids’ Soccer league to make a comeback

The Dodge City Multicultural Soccer League will make a comeback this fall, but with considerably fewer teams than in previous seasons. Last year, the league was composed by 26 teams with more than 350 children playing, according to its former director Carlos De la Peña.
    But under a rent agreement, the Dodge City Parks and Recreation Department took charge of the league pursuing two purposes. Paul Lewis, director of DCPR, said the first purpose was to provide ongoing, consistent leadership for the league, and to maintain the basic sport rules that the law order to comply.
    “The law allows us to create programs that primarily attract tournaments; then we started from the basic youth program to eventually expand it to a competitive program and bring more tournaments to Dodge City," Lewis said. "The other purpose was to open the youth soccer league to the whole community, try to make it more diverse and therefore more representative of the community.”
    De La Peña said the city now has called him to take the league direction again, but there are only ten teams left. Regarding that, Lewis said the decline in the number of teams was due to various reasons.
    “One of them was because we tried to apply some rules that were not popular among parents," Lewis said. "That has to do with the national standard rules for youth soccer teams and created some problems because we found a little of resistance to apply the rules.”
    According to Lewis, other reason why the number of teams declined was that in previous seasons there were several duplicated teams, and that was corrected.
    “If the youth soccer league has fewer teams, that doesn't mean we did something wrong; what we did were corrections according to the sport rules,” he said.
    He said Carlos De la Peña has been invited direct the league, and that it is still to be determined what kind of support the city will continue providing to the youth soccer league.
    “We need polish details about that, but we will continue to support the league, Lewis said. "In the past we had supported the league by taking care of the registration and granting free use of the soccer fields.”
    De La Peña said he's not clear about the reasons that provoked the league's decline, but he believes that since the league traditionally has been composed by a majority of Hispanic children, the language barrier could be a factor that discouraged the parents. He said he goes to meet with a group of Hispanic coaches who are volunteering to reinitiate the league.
    “The coaches will play a decisive role in the league continuity, since they are the main player recruiters, De La Pena said. "Also, the league needs to regain team sponsors.”
    De La Peña said the league, created in 1995, has produced good players for adult leagues and at least one professional prospect. An example, he said, is Ezequiel Alvarez Jr. who started playing at in the youth soccer leagueat age six, and now, at 15, he has already played for the Kansas Wizards 15-and-under team, and now he plays for the league prospects of the Mexican professional team Tigres, in San Antonio, Tx., and also he has been contacted by the Mexican team Atlas de Guadalujara.
    Lewis said the youth soccer league plays a valuable role in the community and, because of that, it deserves to be supported.
    “It's a good recreation outlet for the community's kids; it provides them physical benefits and also promotes unity among the community,” Lewis said.
    For his part, De La Peña said he is optimistic that for the middle of August the “goal yell” and the youth players' excitement will be again heard throughout Dodge City's soccer fields.