Game plan meets its goal

Local youths get 1st taste of soccer

Desmond Cameron, 10, kicks a ball at Maleek Williams, 9, as instructor Christine Curry watches. (Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff)

By the third day, Frank Feliciano figured he had discovered the next David Beckham.

"A lot of the kids, they're picking it up so quickly," Feliciano said from the sidelines at the South End's Rotch Park last week as he watched more than 50 youngsters kick green-and-white soccer balls along the field.

At the opposite end of the turf, 14-year-old Jermaine Maddrey made a shot on net.

"I was just telling him that he should keep playing, because he's already gotten so good at it," said Feliciano, the athletic director for the Blackstone Community Center on West Brookline Street. "He knows how to dribble, he knows how to hit it off his head, and he knows how to make some moves."

Maddrey, like many of the kids drawn to a new youth soccer program in the South End, quickly learned the rules to a sport that he hadn't played much before. Summer months in the neighborhood are no different than anywhere else in the city, and baseball diamonds and basketball courts generally see the most action on warm days.

It's something that Carolyn MacNeil, one of the program's founders, is hoping to change.

"This is important for the area, because the game has such broad appeal, and this is a very diverse community," said MacNeil, who was community service coordinator for the Boston police in the Back Bay and South End until she was recently named interim director of the department's Neighborhood Crime Watch Unit.

Planning for the program began last spring, MacNeil said, rising from "casual conversations at a couple neighborhood meetings," and funding came from local donations and a city program that provides $300,000 in seed money for community programs around Boston this summer.

The players' ages range from 5 to 14, about equally divided between boys and girls, and there is no cost to participate. Much of the equipment is provided through donations.

"There were a few people in the South End who always thought it would be great to have soccer in the neighborhood, and they kept running into each other and talking about getting it together," said Caroline Foscato, one of the organizers. "Finally we said, 'Let's figure out how to do it.' "

Foscato, who is a board member at the community center, got some first-hand experience with that last week when she filled in for one of the program's three coaches.

Once the children arrived at the park - which is owned through a partnership of Emerson College and the Boston Parks and Recreation Department - they sat down in the shade and began kicking off their shoes and strapping on their shin guards.

They pulled up their knee-high socks and rushed out to meet Foscato, who was waiting for them on the field, before launching into their first activity of the day, an adaptation of the age-old child's game Red Light, Green Light, which involves either dribbling quickly through cones or stopping short, depending on the colored command.

The five-week program features three, 1 1/2-hour clinics each week at the field, tucked between Harrison Avenue and Albany Street amid a landscape of old brick buildings and the sights and sounds of cars and trucks on the Southeast Expressway.

On Thursday nights, Foscato said they play pick-up style games at the Joseph J. Hurley School on Worcester Street, which gives the youngsters a chance to play in teams and put their practice to use.

"Most of these kids have never touched a soccer ball before in their life, so it's a pretty cool experience to get them exposed," said Jonas Imbert, a 20-year-old Berklee College of Music student who helps coach.

Wearing yellow cleats and a red Costa Rican soccer jersey, Imbert said he could already see improvement among many of the kids. "They love the game because it's very competitive," he said, "and it's very fun running around, kicking the ball."

Carnell Suttles, the community center director for the South End branch of the Salvation Army, had a different reason for bringing more than 40 children who participate in his organization's summer program to the soccer clinic.

"I think kids need to play soccer, to be honest with you, because it'll keep them in shape," Suttles said. "And if they're not in shape, it'll put them in shape if they stick with it."