In Sioux City, Soccer Sizzles
By Kathy Vilim Dagroomes
Photographs By Vince Heptig
A March cold snap in Iowa couldn't keep "Soccer and Scouting" from getting a warm reception in Siouxland.
 (From left) Kimanni Pettiford, Anthony Juarez, Juan Macias, Ben Johnson, and Dallas Coop keep their eyes on the ball during a scrimmage game on the court at the Boys and Girls Home. |
The BSA's new Soccer and Scouting program, launched in August 2004, was set to debut in Sioux City, Iowa, on Saturday, March 19, 2005. Everything was clicking—except the weather.
Seventy Soccer Cub Scouts had been registered in the new Pack 635. Indoor soccer courts were set up in two community centers, one of which was the site of the pack's chartered organization, Boys and Girls Home and Family Services Inc. Local sponsors, notably Tyson Fresh Meats Inc., had helped with funding.
Coaches and referees were ready to go. Cub Scouts and Scouters all had their sharp yellow-and-black Soccer and Scouting uniforms, and each boy had a new soccer ball.
But Friday saw snow flurries. By Saturday morning the snow had stopped, but the temperature was 20 degrees, with a wind chill of 8. Even though the event would be indoors, organizers wondered how many boys and families would brave the elements and show up for Day 1 of Soccer and Scouting.
Senior district executive Scott Seibert, the Mid-America Council's Soccer and Scouting coordinator, might have had trouble sleeping Friday night, but he soon had reason to smile.
Not only did 70 Soccer Cub Scouts turn out Saturday morning to have fun, learn about Cub Scouting, and play soccer, but their parents and siblings also came along to support them.
Better still, 23 more boys who wanted to join Pack 635 showed up that morning—in an area of Sioux City where a traditional Cub Scout pack had failed only a year earlier. In all, nearly 200 persons attended the first day's activities.
 Coach Omar Vasquez checks Alberto and Angel Jurado's Cub Scout salute. |
Backing from the community
The successful launch of Pack 635 was the product of a coordinated effort by Hispanic community leaders, Tyson Fresh Meats, churches, schools, additional supporters who provided funding, and staff from the Omaha-based Mid-America Council's Sioux City satellite office.
Norma DeLao, program director for the New Iowan Center, which assists immigrants new to Sioux City, helped publicize the Soccer Cub Scout pack to the Hispanic-American/Latino community. She and Scott Seibert appeared on a local Spanish-language TV show and also got a story and photo in Sioux City's Hispanos Unidos newspaper.
DeLao is an enthusiastic supporter of Cub Scouting. She had two sons go through the traditional Cub Scouting program and has served as a Cubmaster.
"We're very excited that Soccer and Scouting has come to Sioux City," said DeLao. "The largest-growing population in Siouxland is Latino children, and we need a special way to attract them to Cub Scouting."
A 'big step forward for Scouting'
Pack 635 committee chairman Julio Rodriguez is the community outreach worker at Sioux City's Boys and Girls Home, a community services center. He had arranged for his center's gym and adjacent stage to serve as the indoor soccer facility for Pack 635's first- and second-grade Soccer Cub Scouts.
The Boys and Girls Home also served as the sign-up location where Seibert registered Soccer Cub Scouts.
Rodriguez, a Scout while growing up in Tucson, Ariz., and a den leader when his now-adult son was a Cub Scout, said he had heard nothing but favorable comments about Soccer and Scouting from neighborhood parents. "It's something they are happy about for their children."
The new Soccer Cub Scout pack filled a need in the Boys and Girls Home neighborhood, said Rodriguez, giving more boys a chance to learn about and get involved in Scouting, "which is a very positive thing for the boys," with Soccer and Scouting "a very innovative, big step forward for Scouting."
 Coach Angel Macias congratulates Eduardo Aleman on receiving his Bobcat badge as Eduardo's parents, Nora and Jesus, look on. |
'A winning combination'
Head coach for Soccer Cub Scout Pack 635 is Juan Zamudio, a Tyson Fresh Meats supervisor who has played or coached soccer for nearly 20 years. "I like to work with kids; they're great," he said.
Juan's wife, Maria, a soccer player and also a Tyson employee, coaches one of the teams in the pack.
The Zamudios' work with Pack 635 reflects two corporate philosophies of their employer: help promote activities that lend moral support to Tyson team members and their families—especially children—and help support the local community.
"Scouting helps start the foundation for the young children to learn discipline and good ethics in life," said Eugene D. Leman, senior group vice president at Tyson Fresh Meats and a member of the Mid-America Council Board of Trustees. "Then you complement that with the children's desire to play soccer, and it's just a winning combination."
Juan and Maria Zamudio's fourth-grade Webelos Scout son, Yoni, is an enthusiastic Soccer Cub Scout.
"Soccer and Scouting is great," said Yoni late in Pack 635's spring season. "I get to play soccer with my friends and learn neat things in Cub Scouts. It is also neat because my dad is the head coach. I am looking forward to the tournament and graduation ceremony, because I will earn my Bobcat badge and get a soccer medal."
 Sirbastone Dean practices kicking shots at a goal during a team soccer skills clinic. |
A program with a 'natural fit'
Mid-America's council commissioner Larry V. Pearson shares Yoni Zamudio's positive view of Soccer and Scouting.
"Our objective is to present a quality Scouting program to as many youth in our council as we can," said Pearson. "We have a significant Hispanic population, and over the years we have worked with some success to get those boys into the traditional Scouting program. With Soccer and Scouting, however, we can offer the values and character-building of Scouting in a program that has special appeal to Hispanic youth."
Pearson explained that Soccer and Scouting has given his council the opportunity to reach out to a segment of the population that often hasn't understood the benefits of Scouting. "In the Soccer and Scouting program, we have the ability to bring Hispanic youth into a Cub Scouting program that starts out with a heavy emphasis on soccer and with what some may perceive as a lighter emphasis on what we are used to in Cub Scouting.
"But as the program is successful," he continued, "I think we will see both a continuing focus on the soccer portion along with a growth in the Scouting portion, which represents a true family-value type of experience.
"I believe that Hispanic family values and culture will fit in very nicely with Scouting once parents begin to understand what the program is all about," said Pearson. "Soccer and Scouting just seems like a natural fit."
Kathy Vilim DaGroomes is associate editor of Scouting magazine.
Soccer Helps Bring Cub Scouting Back To Donna, Tex.
Photographs By Roger Morgan Four years ago, Aaron Martinez was a Tiger Cub when the traditional Cub Scout pack he belonged to in his hometown of Donna, Tex., went out of existence. But with the introduction of the Soccer and Scouting program in Harlingen's Rio Grande Council in late 2004, Aaron, now 10, is back in Cub Scouting. His parents, Norma and Arturo Martinez, registered their son in Donna's Soccer Cub Scout Pack 288 for the spring season of 2005. "I thought it was a great opportunity for Aaron to participate with his classmates and also to get to learn about Scouting," said Arturo at a recent pack meeting soccer scrimmage. Last year the Rio Grande Council determined that Donna—which had no soccer leagues for children under 10, no Cub Scout packs, and a large number of migrant workers, mostly Hispanic—would be an ideal location in the council to introduce Soccer and Scouting. A 'tremendous opportunity'Rio Grande Council program coordinator Ito Robledo, who has responsibility for Soccer and Scouting, approached new Donna Independent School District Superintendent Joe D. González with a plan to initiate a Soccer and Scouting league locally. Superintendent González saw the plan as a "tremendous opportunity" because "I was looking at revamping the district as a whole. What better way than to connect Scouting with extracurricular activities and the kids? What better than to have organized systems and activities that not only let them have fun but also teach them things?" Scouting and Soccer was launched—and by its second season, for the period of March through June 2005, counted 12 packs in Donna—a total of 200 Soccer Cub Scouts. A typical game-day session on Saturday, April 2, saw 300 people—players, families, teachers, and other spectators—turn out to watch the 16 teams from the 12 packs compete. Appreciation from the cityMartin Escobedo, principal of Truman Price Elementary School, is a soccer coach for Pack 288. He noted that Soccer and Scouting not only benefited boys and schools but was also great for the community. Raul Torres, a curriculum specialist at Garza Elementary School and a coach for Pack 287, agreed. "Soccer and Scouting has given the community a sense of recreation, which we needed, and now families look forward to Saturdays." And the community has shown its appreciation for the program, with two local banks, an insurance agent, a law firm, and other corporate and private citizens supporting Soccer and Scouting—some by sponsoring one of the four outdoor soccer fields the packs play on at J.P. LeNoir Elementary School. Superintendent González's motivation behind supporting the Rio Grande Council in Soccer and Scouting? "What sold me on the program are the goals that the Scouts have," he said, "the leadership and the things that are required for them to be taught—which are right on target with what we require in our schools." —K.V.D. |
What Is 'Soccer And Scouting'?
"Soccer and Scouting" was developed for youth traditionally underserved by Scouting, especially the growing Hispanic-American/Latino population. The program combines the positive activities and values of Cub Scouting and organized soccer. The Boy Scouts of America partnered with Major League Soccer Camps to develop Soccer and Scouting, which was launched nationally in late summer 2004. Boys 6 to 10 years old can now join Soccer Cub Scout packs in 26 participating BSA councils, with parents serving as soccer coaches and parent helpers. (Forty additional BSA councils have received regional approval to proceed with the program.) Families attending the practices and games have fun while learning about Scouting. Bill Steele, associate director of the Cub Scouting Division and the person who is coordinating the Soccer and Scouting program, emphasized that Soccer Cub Scouts have the same advancement requirements and can earn rank badges just like Cub Scouts in traditional packs. "We don't use traditional handbooks, but the boys do the same activities and learn the same things that are required in the traditional program," he said. Steele pointed out that there are two parts of the Cub Scouting program in Soccer and Scouting that provide opportunities for passing requirements to earn badges: the activities in the Soccer and Scouting Program Helps, which are done at the midweek den meeting and weekend pack meeting; and those that are done at home with the family, using "Family Time" posters to keep track of the requirements done together as a family. (There are multiple program helps for four seasons per year. Check with your local council.) Since the Soccer and Scouting program debuted nationally, the official Web site, www.soccerandscouting.org, has continually been updated and improved. "For example," Steele said, "there's a really good guide for inclement weather programming, which is now online." —K.V.D. |
September 2005 Table of Contents
Copyright © 2005 by the Boy Scouts of America. All rights thereunder reserved; anything appearing in Scouting magazine or on its Web site may not be reprinted either wholly or in part without written permission. Because of freedom given authors, opinions may not reflect official concurrence.