“It’s really interesting to me to see the demographic changes in Northern Kentucky,” said Northern Kentucky Street Soccer President Casey Grady. “I went to Dixie Heights High School…, and it’s very different now.”
Specifically, Grady is talking about the burgeoning immigrant and international community in the region. Rather than shrink away from this change, however, Grady decided to get involved and see what he could do to make the lives of the newcomers easier.
How?
“I see soccer as a bridge for our international community,” Grady said.
It’s a little more particular than simply playing the game, however. It’s the way people come together to play the game and the spaces that facilitate it. In the United States, Grady said, the culture around soccer is very different from the rest of the world. Many of the soccer programs in the states are a function of the pay-to-play model, which can have the effect of blocking access to people who lack the means.
In fact, in spite of Northern Kentucky Street Soccer’s name, the game they focus on isn’t conventional soccer on a grass field, but, rather, futsal. Futsal rules are similar to soccer’s, but the game is distinct in that it’s played on a hard surface with smaller teams–five players each. Basketball and tennis courts are easily converted into futsal courts, and in many other countries, Grady said, futsal is the go-to sport for fun. Grady compares it to pickup basketball games in the states, which often come about organically through groups of friends rather than institutionalized sports programs.
“We’re trying to promote the pickup culture in the same way you would do pickup basketball,” Grady said. “That culture exists almost everywhere else in the world… People play in their neighborhood on futsal courts. Every school has futsal courts. It’s the main thing they have at their gym and in recess.”
As such, Grady’s ambitions for the program are less about funneling players, whether adults or children, into professional or college-level athletic programs and more about promoting cultures of friendly competition and developing life skills.
“I don’t care about any kid becoming a professional,” Grady said. “I just want a kid to be able to play and be a kid.”
He points to a program out of Minneapolis called Sol of the Cities, which not only organizes futsal games for groups of kids but also provides mentoring and community services initiatives, as a model for what he would like to accomplish with Northern Kentucky Street Soccer.
Sergio Gutierrez, who owns Olla Tacqueria in Covington, and Alyssa Adkins, who works with Gutierrez, attended a public hearing on Covington’s federal grant dollars earlier this month to pitch Northern Kentucky Street Soccer as a program worth funding. Olla Tacqueria has sponsored events for Northern Kentucky Street Soccer in the past.
The value of the program comes from its ability to cultivate “a sense of community and social cohesion by providing a space for residents of all ages and backgrounds to come together,” Adkins said. “Last year we had a tournament and there were different teams in this tournament. Full full teams from USA, Jamaica, Brazil, Venezuela, Guatemala, Japan and Mexico, all residents of Covington that not a lot of people just get to see everyday.”
The group has two primary locations: Kenney Shields Park in Covington, which is their primary location in the summer months, and an indoor basketball court at Grace Church in Fort Wright.
“A lot of times, if you want your kids to play, you have to join really expensive clubs, or they have to go to private schools,” Gutierrez said. “It’s an expensive sport, when in reality back home as we have a ball and some ground, it’s all we need.”
With the Brent Spence Bridge corridor construction on the horizon, the group’s access to Kenney Shields Park is uncertain. Grady said that even though they don’t necessarily need their own dedicated facility or building, he would like a space where he can reliably set up pickup games, such as a park or a school. The current futsal court conversion at Kenney Sheilds cost less than $1,000 to set up, he said.
“We want more places for people to play, and right now, there are zero futsal courts in Northern Kentucky,” Grady said.
Although he’s aware of the FC Cincinnati mini-pitch at Austinburg Park and across the river, he would like to see more grassroots-level organizing around the game, preserving its impromptu pickup nature.
He describes showing up at Kenney Shields Park one morning and having the kitchen staff from Walt’s Hitching Post, a Fort Wright-based restaurant, come out after the morning rush and play on their breaks as an example of the easy-going, accessible environment he wants to preserve.
“That’s awesome,” he said. “When I saw that happen, I was just like, I made those dudes lives better for that day.”
Learn more about Northern Kentucky Street Soccer by visiting their website, Facebook page or Instagram page.
“Come play with us,” Grady said.
