Kids are key to growth of soccer in Austin as excitement builds
Kids are key to keeping the momentum going, soccer fans say, and to building a soccer pyramid from young players all the way up to the pro level with Austin FC and Austin Bold FC.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Soccer fans are making themselves heard around Austin as the city builds toward the debut of its new Major League Soccer team in 2021.
More television viewers watched the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Austin this year than in any other U.S. city, a big jump from the 2015 contest during which the city placed 12th for total viewership.
“We are a soccer city, 100%,” said Eddie Russ, owner of Soccer Shots Austin, a soccer program for kids from ages 2-8.
Kids are key to keeping the momentum going, soccer fans say, and to building a soccer pyramid from young players all the way up to the pro level with Austin FC and Austin Bold FC.
The base of that pyramid is growing, Russ said. “Especially the last three years, I think, as Austin has boomed economically and in population, our enrollment has blossomed with it.”
Thursday, Russ and a coach helped a group of 2-year-olds learn the basics of the sport at Mueller Lake Park in east Austin. The toddlers practiced their small and big kicks while their parents cheered.
In the same field, another youth league, i9 Sports, held an open clinic for young members to stop by. One of that league’s programs in south Austin more than doubled in membership from last season to this season.
Other programs are growing, too. The Capital Area Youth Soccer Association registered about 19,500 players across the 40 leagues it encompasses around central Texas for the current season that ends this month, up about 1,500 players from the season before.
Most of those kids, CAYSA executive director Richard Fowler said, are under 10 years old.
“They’re going to bring their family out, their parents out, their siblings out,” said Jeremiah Bentley, vice president of communications for Austin Anthem, the Austin FC supporters groups that is now 2,000 members strong.
The group hosted watch parties during the World Cup that brought hundreds of families, some of which had to be turned away, to Easy Tiger.
Just this week, Austin FC held its first of 10 youth camps in conjunction with St. David’s Healthcare, a capacity training session of about 100 kids. Immediately following the Monday event, the team opened registration for the next one on Monday, July 22.
The group was full in a matter of hours.
“That will just create sustained, ongoing interest over generations as we really build a culture now among the youth that are really kind of soccer first in a lot of ways,” Bentley said.
At the Soccer Shots camp Thursday, parents took the first step in building that culture.
“He just naturally gravitated toward the sport,” Amber Pena said of her 2-year-old son, Zeke. Her family is full of soccer fans, she said, and they watched the World Cup together with Zeke.
“If he hears or sees a goal, he’ll just scream,” she said. “He’ll be like, ‘Goooaaal!'”
She’s lived in Austin long enough to call it home and says she’s seen the excitement around the sport growing year by year.
“We actually went to the Bold game when it opened up, and just seeing how full the stadium was and how excited everyone was,” she said, “there’s like this huge soccer culture.”
In order to keep growing it and building the soccer pyramid, teams will need to keep attracting more young fans to support soccer in Austin.
“If he continues to love it,” Pena said, “we’ll just continue to encourage it.”