Every time I descend into my basement, I walk past a pile of shoes. The pile gets bigger each year. They’re mostly soccer cleats, mixed in with baseball shoes.
Some soles are caked with hardened mud, a remnant of my son’s games on sloppy fields. With so many soccer shoes in stock, my basement could double as a used sporting goods store.
Frances Mooney knows what I’m talking about. Now president of the Everett Youth Soccer Club, she has two daughters who play the sport.
“My 9-year-old is playing spring soccer with Marysville Parks and Rec. She plays with Everett Youth Soccer in the fall,” the Everett woman said Monday. “She got a new pair of soccer shoes last fall, then a pair from her sister — but she outgrew those. She’s on her third pair in a year,” said Mooney, who quipped, “OK, kid, stop growing now.”
Kids don’t stop growing, not for years. They shouldn’t have to stop playing sports because they’ve outgrown expensive gear.
Mooney recalled driving to a season-ending game with her older daughter, now 17. They stopped to buy new shoes. Lots of families can’t afford that.
Tony Simonelli, a longtime coach with Everett Youth Soccer, sees a need beyond the friendly passing down of used equipment within teams. “For a few years, I was just collecting from teams I was coaching,” he said. “Kids grow out of their shoes, and some kids show up with shoes just falling apart.”
This year, Simonelli is collecting gently used soccer shoes and shin guards from anyone willing to donate them. Used equipment can be left in a drop box at the Everett Soccer Arena. Needy players from all over the region have a chance to get free shoes and guards from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. June 18 at the indoor arena.
“I know people have cleats sitting in the back of their closets. Give them to me,” Simonelli said.
For 10 years, he coached his son Dominic’s Everett Youth Soccer Club team, starting with a micro-soccer program for 5-year-olds. “I took the team up through U-16,” the Everett man said.
At 15, Dominic has switched to wrestling and football. Several other players from his son’s former team played soccer this season on the Everett High School boys junior varsity team, Simonelli said.
Now, his soccer efforts go toward making sure other kids get the opportunities his son enjoyed.
“He is trying to outfit as many kids as possible with gently used cleats and shin guards,” Mooney said. The Everett Youth Soccer Club draws from north and central Everett, bringing players from Whittier, Garfield, Hawthorne, Lowell, Madison and Jackson elementary schools, North and Evergreen middle school, and Everett and Cascade high schools.
Because of this year’s tough economy, Mooney said the Everett club has cut registration fees for fall from $75 to $50, $55 or $60, depending on age of players. A scholarship established in memory of Grayson Parot, an Everett child who died in the 1990s, helps pay registration fees for families who can’t afford them, she said.
With about 50 pairs of shoes in hand, Simonelli will keep collecting — and giving.
“Shoes may only last one season. Kids practice twice a week for two hours and play a game on the weekend. That’s not a lot of use,” Simonelli said. “A lot of those shoes are in great shape. They’re just too small for the people who own them right now.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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