Fielding Soccer Dreams
The SoccerPlex in Germantown, which opens Friday, has 19 outdoor fields, including a 3,200-seat stadium, with five more planned by '04. (James M. Thresher - The Washington Post)
For the roughly 25,000 youth soccer players in Montgomery County, the Maryland SoccerPlex in Germantown should be a dream of fields--19 new, irrigated fields opening today at the multimillion-dollar facility, with five more fields planned by 2004.
"It gives us a wonderful place to play," said Linda Norton, president of the Bethesda Soccer Club.
Said Trisha Heffelfinger, executive director of the foundation that will run the facility, "The idea of a soccer complex has been a dream of the soccer community."
The facility has a 3,200-seat stadium surrounded by fields that will host national tournaments, local youth games and at least one high school championship. The complex also has a building for indoor soccer and other sports. But for players not affiliated with one of the nine organizations that in 1997 banded together to form the Maryland Soccer Foundation and build the SoccerPlex, the complex will have much less impact.
The foundation, which assesses a $10 player fee per season, will control access to all but two of the fields, which are designated for public use.
"It is very much not all open to the public," said Montgomery County Council member Nancy Dacek (R-Upcounty), one of the SoccerPlex's supporters.
Heffelfinger said the foundation has spent $14 million on the facility, while the county has spent $8 million on infrastructure, including roads, water and sewer lines, as well as parking lots. Soccer teams or leagues will have to apply in advance for a permit. For instance, teams and leagues seeking to reserve a field during the SoccerPlex's spring season, which begins in April, must apply by January, Heffelfinger said. The fee is $281 per hour.
"You can't just walk on to these fields," Heffelfinger said. "It's really a local league facility first. That will always be our priority."
Still, Heffelfinger said, the foundation has broader plans for the complex. They would like to open it to some high school use, starting with the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference's championships, which will be held Nov. 11 in the stadium. Heffelfinger declined to reveal the fee the foundation charged the WCAC.
Other high schools envision using the SoccerPlex, too, but probably only at tournament time.
Although the complex is too far for regular use, Bethesda-Chevy Chase Athletic Director Brady Blade said, "I could see using it as a standardized place for playoffs."
And three or four years down the road, Heffelfinger said the foundation envisions opening the fields to other sports.
Some sports can be played in the glass-and-brick building that sits next to the championship field, the Discovery Sports Center. The center will hold indoor soccer, basketball, volleyball, field hockey and lacrosse events.
The complex opens this weekend by hosting part of the Washington Area Girls Soccer (WAGS) tournament. The under-16, under-17 and under-19 divisions will play at the SoccerPlex. The younger divisions will play at fields in Prince William and Fairfax counties.
One of the area's biggest tournaments, the Potomac Memorial Day Tournament, will be held at the same time as the Columbia Invitational, another prominent national tournament held in the Washington area.
The two tournaments have been held on the same weekend for the past 25 years, said Louise Waxler, assistant director of the Columbia Invitational and director of the WAGS tournament.
The WAGS tournament, like the Columbia Invitational and Memorial Day Tournament, is a kind of de facto recruiting combine for college coaches, sometimes drawing them in the hundreds. A large, multi-field complex makes it easier for coaches to see more games, and as more players get exposure, the tournaments become more attractive to them.
Before last spring's Columbia tournament, Soccer Association of Columbia President Jim Carlan and University of Maryland men's soccer coach Sasho Cirovski raised questions about the quality of fields at that tournament.
"There's more to a tournament than field surface," Waxler said, citing facilities, referees and volunteers. "There's also something called reputation. . . . I'm not going to give a statement saying it's going to hurt Columbia. If people want to play there, they can play there. If people want to play here, they can play here.
"I don't know that in a two-year period [the SoccerPlex] would have a significant effect."
In two years, the Columbia tournament will move to a new multi-field, privately financed complex, Waxler said.
Similarly, Montgomery County was spurred to help finance the SoccerPlex because of "all the testimony we heard about our sons and daughters playing on bare ground," said County Council member Nancy Dacek.
"Of course, it's going to be much better than any place else."