Local Soccer Documentary Screening at ASU October 7

Story by Corinne Saunders

ASU professors Gregory Reck, Bruce Dick and Andres Fisher (back row, left to right) are pictured with the Watauga County Parks and Recreation soccer team they coached. The three professors wrote, filmed and edited a soccer documentary of their team, which swiftly expanded into a broader look at soccer in small towns in the U.S. The documentary will be shown on Wednesday, October 7, in room 114 of ASU’s library. Photo submitted

Part historical perspective, part social analysis and part documentary of a local Parks and Recreation soccer league, the film Offside(s): Soccer in Small Town America will be shown Wednesday, October 7, at 6:00 p.m. in room 114 of the Belk Library and Information Commons at ASU. A question and answer session will follow the screening. Admission is free.

Three ASU professors, Drs. Bruce Dick, Andres Fisher and Gregory Reck, wrote, filmed and edited the video.

Dick is a professor in the department of English, Fisher is an assistant professor in the department of foreign languages and literatures and Reck is a professor and chair of the department of anthropology. Their friend Kemp Jones of Athens, Ga., wrote the original music score.

The project of creating the documentary began when the professors teamed up to coach their daughters’ Watauga County Parks and Recreation U10 team. Reck’s two daughters and Dick’s daughter were on the team, and Reck and Dick asked Fisher to help coach because neither of them knew much about soccer.

“It was great getting to know the kids,” Reck said. “Even though you’re not really supposed to keep score in Parks and Rec, we were undefeated our first season.”

The film soon turned into more than a humorous look at the coaches’ behavior and a team documentary, broadening to include how soccer fits into the cultural dynamic of a small town.

“It’s an overview of local soccer, [but] a lot of subplots feed off that,” Dick said.

A small grant from ASU funded equipment purchases and travel to Athens, Ga. and Siler City, where segments of the video were filmed.

The documentary was a serendipitous journey, Reck said. “‘Serendipity’ means an unforeseen discovery, [and] there was a lot of that in this film,” he explained. “One thing led to another. We had a very small project in mind at first. The more we got into it, the bigger the picture became.”

This bigger picture includes how soccer is structured and the particularities of its structure in America, Fisher said.

“The university certainly adds a dimension to [soccer here that] you don’t find in most small towns,” Dick said, adding that nonetheless, the other aspects of soccer pointed out in the documentary are typical of other small towns.

The documentary delves into the differences between parks and recreation youth league soccer and club soccer.

“Parks and Rec soccer is affordable and accessible for people from different socioeconomic backgrounds,” Reck said. “The emphasis is on recreation and learning a few skills [and] how to play as a team. It’s not extremely competitive.”

This is compared to club soccer, with its limited accessibility. “With club soccer, you’re talking about something very expensive and very time-consuming,” Reck said.

Club soccer can also be a burden to families because of the extensive travel involved.

The origins of terms associated with the sport, such as “soccer mom,” become apparent as they continued to explore soccer, Fisher said. “It’s one parent, working, [and the required] money for driving [members of the soccer team] across the state for games,” he said.

The film questions why club soccer in the U.S. is anchored in the middle and upper classes, making it a predominantly white sport; in most other countries, soccer is accessible and appeals to people of all socioeconomic levels, Reck said.

“Kids that come from modest family backgrounds [in the U.S.] have more difficulty playing club soccer,” Reck said. “Part of it is the club structure controls it.”

Soccer coaches at the high school say 95 percent of their kids should play club soccer, Fisher said. “You cannot compete for a spot on the high school team if you don’t play club soccer.”

The film also explores the Hispanic soccer league in the area and questions whether Hispanic kids will be able to continue to play soccer as they reach the level where club soccer becomes necessary for them to continue pursuing the sport, Reck said.

Filmed over three seasons of their coaching, the video also takes a retrospective look at how parks and recreation league soccer was introduced into the area, which resulted from ASU, Reck said.

In the late 1970s, soccer was the first ASU sport to really internationalize and the team ranked nationally, Reck said. Thousands of people attended the ASU soccer games at that time, he added.

“They had a couple Nigerian superstars [that] really put the team on the map,” Dick said.

The film questions why it might be that, although many youth in the U.S. play soccer at some point, very few become lifelong fans of the sport.

Reck asked a class of 65 students how many had played organized soccer and more than half raised their hands, he said. And yet, when he asked students how many had gone to ASU soccer games, none of them had. “[Soccer] hasn’t become part of the athletic culture of students,” he said.

“A cultural practice is so developed with football here,” Fisher said. “The culture is just not developed around soccer. There is no fancy stuff, no band…in the field there’s nothing but the game really. It’s not an elaborate ritual, which is what football has become.”

The film includes coverage of the global soccer tournament, which is another way in which the “local to global” theme plays out.

“Depending on the feedback we get from this screening, we will submit it to film festivals,” Dick said, adding that it will be shown at the Popular Culture Association meeting in St. Louis, Mo. in March 2010.

ASU’s Center for Documentary Studies sponsors the ASU screening. For more information, call 828-262-2295 or 828-262-6397.

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