GREENFIELD — During the past several years, an idea started to gain steam in Hancock County.
Seeds were planted when Chris Steeno, the executive director of Geist Area Soccer League and Sporting Indiana FC based out of McCordsville, was talking with Greenfield Area Soccer Club’s Neal Singco, the director of coaching for that club.
The idea started with a simple thought — how great would it be if area soccer clubs could work together to help form more Midwest Regional League travel teams?
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Sometime around Thanksgiving of 2017, Steeno asked Singco if he thought he could pull it off and get the conversation about working together going with other county clubs. He got the opportunity March 3 at the Indiana Soccer Annual General Meeting in Carmel.
Steeno was there, along with GASC president Michael Reeves. NP United president Brion St. Armour was there, too.
All of the pieces were in place.
“It was just a blessed moment at the AGM to just spill the beans with these guys,” Steeno said. “Sure enough they both just bought in and said ‘Yes, we’re doing this.’ It couldn’t have worked out any better.”
Reeves and St. Armour had known one another for years, meeting on the board of travel team USF Real, which both the Greenfield and New Palestine clubs feed into. Steeno and Reeves have known one another a long time, too, and Reeves introduced Steeno and St. Armour at the March meeting.
The three all quickly agreed with the overarching concept. They would be stronger if they and their clubs worked together.
Since that meeting earlier this year, they are working to create the framework to build a cooperative foundation to elevate youth development and create better soccer experiences across their communities. The three want to develop an alternative model that focuses on youth player development, sportsmanship and community building.
There are countless benefits for the three clubs to work together. It gives them a better chance of competing with some of the area mega clubs, which can have thousands of athletes and bigger operating budgets.
Joining forces allows the clubs to each keep their own identities but share on some of the more expensive aspects of the sport.
“We want to push that dollar as hard as we can,” Reeves said. “All three of us are nonprofits and we’re doing this for community youth. We want to keep low prices and have a quality product that develops the kids.”
Reeves, Steeno and St. Armour already have started looking into ways to pool resources and cut costs together.
That can be as simple as buying paint or nets for the fields, or sharing best practices. Sharing referees could be a possibility down the road, and it allows more freedom for moving players from one club to another.
The cooperation allows the clubs to spread a common message to the Hancock County community.
They can better coordinate timing of seasons and camps to avoid overlapping. They can help kids who are lost in the shuffle at mega clubs by giving them a place with more direct coaching and support.
If there isn’t a spot available in New Palestine — NP United doesn’t currently have a U16 team, for example — that player could be directed to Greenfield or Geist.
Everything the three club leaders are doing is aimed at youth development and strengthening the community.
“We’re too intertwined not to work together and provide something great for our community,” Steeno said.
That applies to both his peers and the community in general. Steeno played for the Greenfield Comets years ago, went to Mt. Vernon, and said he shops at Needlers in New Palestine. Reeves lives in McCordsville and his children go to Mt. Vernon.
The county kids who make up the club and travel teams for all three groups end up going to the same events, like the county fair, 4-H events and parades.
With that level of connection already, it just made sense for the clubs to work together.
They started in the spring, at the U13 level, when they decided to intermix teams. Instead of each club playing the same two or three teams over and over for an entire season, the cooperation introduced other teams and opponents into the mix.
The change was a success, and was met with positive feedback. It allowed everybody to play, an important factor for all the clubs.
“One of the big common threads is we tend to lose the kids as they get older,” St. Armour said. “There are still a lot of kids that want to play, so you really want to try to allow everyone to play.”
The trend of losing kids as they age isn’t just a local problem. That’s something U.S. Soccer sees nationwide.
Providing opportunities to play was one factor in the collaboration between clubs. Keeping kids interested and continuing to play was another major one.
“It’s a national statistic that there is a bell curve of youth soccer in America growing quite rapidly at age 5, 6, 7 and then spiking,” Reeves said. “About 13 it levels off, and 14 and 15 it drops off drastically. That drastic drop in those numbers is what is allowing these clubs to come together in the older brackets to say, ‘Let’s do something so we can continue.’”
“Knowing that the older the kid gets the thinner the amount of kids that play soccer are, you host a Rec Plus program,” Steeno added. “They’re training more times a week. And you’re able to go, hey, this week we’re going to Greenfield Area Soccer Club and playing them. Then we’re able to go to NP United and play them.”
Moving forward, Reeves, St. Armour and Steeno are looking to expand their Rec Plus programs, then figure out other key ways to bring their clubs together. That could be at the younger age brackets, focusing on building the competitive pipeline, or looking into how travel clubs can move ahead together with the new cooperative relationship.
They are hoping to plan a retreat soon so the boards of all three clubs can get together and work on a five-year plan for soccer in Hancock County.
Growing the sport and the community while relying on volunteers and sponsors can be a challenge, but the three club leaders said they are hopeful that working together can help alleviate some of the difficulties.
The long-term vision is to develop quality players to compete against regional travel teams and mega clubs, along with competing with each other’s high school teams.
“The neighborhood is so important, the communities are so important, you should be able to concentrate on it so you still get that family, community feel,” Steeno said. “If you’re able to make sure that you have an organization that’s supporting them nonstop, in a positive manner the whole way, you’re able to develop kids a whole lot easier. Then you’re kind of upping the level of play.”