CAPE CORAL, Fla.(WINK) \u2014 Long before thousands of players took the field each year and soccer complexes filled with families on weekends, youth soccer in Cape Coral looked very different.<\/p>\n
Players practiced on baseball outfields, traveled across the state to find opponents and helped build the fields they would one day play on.<\/p>\n
For Cape Coral Soccer Association Director of Soccer Operations Eddie Carmean, those early days are more than stories. He lived them.<\/p>\n
\u201cCape Coral looks a lot different than when I got here in 1977,\u201d Carmean said.<\/p>\n
Carmean began playing soccer through Cape Coral Soccer Association as a child, back when the organization had only a handful of competitive teams and no dedicated soccer fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started playing on the baseball outfields at Pelican Complex. The soccer field wasn\u2019t there yet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In those days, opportunities to play were limited. Local competition was scarce, forcing teams to travel across Florida for matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the only choice we had,\u201d Carmean said. \u201cThere was not a lot of local teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
One memory still stands out decades later.<\/p>\n
When Pelican Soccer Complex was being built, players arrived for practice expecting to kick a ball. Instead, they were handed pieces of sod.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe practice for that night was to lay the sod down for the field because they were just putting it down,\u201d Carmean said. \u201cThe 10-year-old kids literally laid the sod for Pelican Soccer Field.\u201d<\/p>\n
What started as a small community effort has grown into one of the largest soccer organizations in Florida.<\/p>\n
Today, Cape Coral Soccer Association serves approximately 2,600 recreational players annually and supports more than 40 competitive teams. The organization also operates a free TOPS program for athletes with special needs, bringing dozens of players and volunteers together each season.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s growth mirrors Carmean\u2019s own journey.<\/p>\n
After playing youth soccer in Cape Coral, he went on to play collegiately at the University of South Florida before spending years as a professional player. Following his playing career, he returned to the same organization where it all began.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis game has given me everything in my life,\u201d Carmean said.<\/p>\n
On busy weekends, thousands of people visit the fields. Volunteer coaches donate their time, young referees earn their first paychecks and local businesses support the organization through sponsorships.<\/p>\n
While the game has evolved dramatically over the past five decades, Carmean believes the mission remains unchanged.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife lessons and lifelong friends,\u201d he said. \u201cYou click those two boxes and the rest of it\u2019s irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 50 years after its founding, Cape Coral Soccer Association continues to serve generations of Southwest Florida families, proving that a program built by parents, volunteers and players can leave a lasting impact far beyond the scoreboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla.(WINK) \u2014 Long before thousands of players took the field each year and soccer complexes filled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,325,115],"class_list":["post-318913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-lee","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}