Newly launched soccer academy in Springwater aims to do more than just train young athletes \u2014 it wants to shape future leaders while giving back to the community<\/p>\n
A new soccer club is aiming to make a difference in the community \u2014 both on and off the pitch.<\/p>\n
The Springwater United Soccer Academy, which was founded in May, hosted its first Community Youth Soccer and Culture Day on Saturday afternoon at the Barrie Community Sports Complex, with the goal of bringing awareness not only to the club, but also to an important local organization \u2014 the Women and Children\u2019s Shelter of Barrie.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really want to be a community-based organization and focus on the community and the grassroots\u00a0while developing these kids all the way through to become young leaders and mentors,\u201d said founder and academy director Mark Cristante. \u201cWe really want to connect with the community as much as possible and (do) things that support\u00a0different organizations that are doing great work \u2014\u00a0like the shelter. We want to get that community outreach happening. For me, sport is about purpose and having a mission to help people, make them better people,\u00a0while supporting the organizations out there that help those in their time of need.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition, Saturday\u2019s event was about showing people what the Springwater United Soccer Academy is all about, he said, telling BarrieToday it was created to help fill a gap and to provide a structured player development program in Simcoe County.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea is to have kids come up all the way from U3 to U21,\u201d said Cristante, who brings with him more than four decades of experience as both a player and a professional coach. \u201cWe are based here in Springwater. There was a need here. The Springwater Soccer Club folded five years ago during COVID. Barrie is growing like crazy and there is a demand for programming in Simcoe County, and high performance and high standard, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Often, parents who want structured coaching for their children have to travel south of Simcoe County, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to run it at an affordable cost as well to keep people local.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through the program, Cristante and the team are excited to help grow local youth not just as players, but as people.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to help them become better citizens and make an impact on their community through sport,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to keep these kids focused\u00a0and, as they go into their teenage years especially, when they need that extra support, be there to provide them with that mentorship.\u201d<\/p>\n
All three of Johnny De Silva\u2019s children play soccer. The Barrie resident said he brought them\u00a0to check out the event and see what the new club is all about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what they have going on is really good for the kids. I think the training, from what I have been told, will be upgraded, because a lot of kids look forward to the possibility of having a career in soccer, or going on to something that leads to this sports-wise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Barrie-based singer, songwriter and motivational speaker Errol Lee, who serves as an academy sports ambassador, was also on hand for the event.<\/p>\n
Through his music, Lee teaches kids about character development, something they can also learn through sport, he told BarrieToday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe arts use emotion to get to the brain. Within the character initiative part of it, we talk about moral traits that are virtues and performance traits that are virtues. That performance trait often gets more developed within sports,\u201d he said. \u201cYou take courage, initiative, responsibility, determination and perseverance, and this is where you develop those traits that help to show you care about yourself and your future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those traits, he added, are all transferable off the pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if a person doesn\u2019t become a professional athlete, they can take these qualities and apply them to their future endeavours, goals and careers,\u201d he said. \u201cMichelangelo says, \u2018Without courage, one cannot practise any of the other virtues,\u2019 so we want them not only to have the courage to play and shine on the field, but to have the courage to practise the moral side like mutual respect, empathy and compassion \u2026 and having a positive attitude that applies to both on and off the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Academy manager Cesare Tripodo has more than 50 years of experience both on and off the pitch, having been involved in establishing girls\u2019 soccer within the East Gwillimbury Soccer Club in the late 1980s as well as serving as executive director of the York Region Soccer Association from 1993 until 2007.<\/p>\n
Tripodo is looking forward to bringing those decades of experience to help young local athletes, he told BarrieToday.<\/p>\n
\u201cSoccer is in our blood. We have done this all our lives. There are a lot of kids that would like to play at a competitive level\u00a0but realistically,\u00a0in order to train, would have to go a long way. We are just moving that level up a bit further north to make it easier for kids to play,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newly launched soccer academy in Springwater aims to do more than just train young athletes \u2014 it wants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,9284,82],"class_list":["post-9013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-soccerspringwaterspringwater-townshipmark-cristantebarrie-community-sports-complexspringwater-united-soccer-academycesare-tripodocommunity-youth-soccer-and-culture-day","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}