This podcast is being brought to you by WXAV 88.3 FM and WXAV.com. WXAV bringing the best podcast to you. Hi, this is Peter Creighton from WXAV 88.3 FM Chicago. Thank you so much for joining us today.
We have a very special guest joining us today from the Kix Chicago Soccer Organization, a great non-profit charity in the Chicago land area that promotes community involvement after school activities for young people through the great game, the beautiful game known as soccer. And I'm very lucky right now I have the president of this organization, Dr. Scott Hanlon joining me today. Dr.
Hanlon, welcome. Thanks. I think you're having this today. Oh, it's our pleasure to kind of just start.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you first became interested in soccer? Well, yeah. So for myself, you know, born in 1969, if you can you remember that year, but if you were a bit of a good soccer player in the 1970s, you were a superstar in the United States. So I played the little community soccer when I was a kid.
My parents got me involved in youth soccer and old park on a club team and again, a bit of skill went a long way back then. And ultimately I had the opportunity when I was a child to play at age 12 in Sweden and Denmark. And then when I was 16, I played on Illinois State team. We had an opportunity to play in England and Denmark again.
And it was absolutely a life changing experience. It opened my eyes to the world. And there were some very specific examples that made these things happen. Oh, that's wonderful.
So it's soccer has definitely been with you your entire life. Sure. Absolutely. Now you're a part of this fantastic organization called Kicks.
What is Kicks and how did it start? So it was interesting. You know, my wife and I, as we were married, living in the city, most of our friends that moved out of the suburbs, down as well, of your neighborhoods, we decided that we were going to stay in the city. We enjoyed where we lived.
We were in the kind of the south end of the South Loop, which again, 10, 15 years ago was actually a brand new neighborhood in Chicago. It was previously, you know, old factories and things of this nature. And when our children were born, there really was no presence. There was no park to present.
You know, there were some parks in the area. A lot of them were actually overrun, garbage and unfortunately, whole people there and some gang activity and graffiti. And I actually, you know, I would see more dying bags on the ground than I actually saw a leaves on the ground and some of the parks. Wow.
I was surprised by that. And so I thought to myself, you know, this is something that needs to change, you know, something for my kids, but also for the city. The city cannot go on like this. And so I formed an organization called Near South Soccer League back then, which was really just moms and dads helping coach.
And it was kids playing a soccer in their neighborhood. And we started in 2006 with about 50 kids. Again, it was a handful of parents coaching, a handful of parents refereeing. The next year it was 100 kids.
The next year it was 200 kids. The next year it was 400 kids. So this process grew very quickly. And there was a great force behind it.
That's incredible that it just doubled like that. And you're just really fulfilling that need that the community was looking for. Absolutely. So I mean, you mentioned earlier, it really started in the South Loop area and also the South Side of Chicago.
Can you kind of discuss a little bit about some of the needs the community was looking for at that time that kicks was first founded? Well, you know, again, when you look at the Near South Side of Chicago back 10 to 15 years ago, there was a void of activity in families and there was a sudden influx of these families. And again, the city had some of the surrounding neighborhoods with, you know, baseball or football or basketball. There was no soccer program.
So I thought it was an absolute great opportunity for that. But also you look at the socioeconomic opportunities in that area and you've got an affluent neighbor like the South Loop, but then, you know, maybe a neighborhood that was more challenged going south of the South Loop. You know, Bronzeville, Bronzeville got some wonderful areas and it was all also has very tough areas in it right across the Dan Ryan, you had Bridgeport. And I was always amazed at children from Bridgeport.
Never played with children from Bronzeville. It was there was literally a demarcation of activity there. You've got Pilsen, you've got Chinatown. So it was this absolutely diverse area.
And when the soccer process started, it brought together an opportunity for people from different neighborhoods that come and just play together to really experience each other and realize that we're all on the same page. That's beautiful. Now, you mentioned just the sheer growth. I mean, you you doubled almost every year since 2006 and you've expanded into other communities and you kind of mentioned, you know, Chinatown and Pilsen.
What other areas of the city has has grown into? Well, you know, we now get attention, certainly from families out of the West Loop, even the near North side Hyde Park, you know, so we pretty wide range of youth here. Just most recently, we've expanded our program into the Beverly neighborhood. We have quite a few families who were interested in this area.
And so we did some work with the Chicago Park District. I've done work as a commissioner for the Chicago Park District in 2008 to 2013. So there were some natural fits that kind of came together. And so here we are in 2017 and in Beverly.
My guess right now is Dr. Scott Hanlon. He's the president of the Chicago Kicks Organization here. And for more information, go to their official website kickschicagosocker.org.
Dr. Hanlon, again, thank you for joining us. And this is an absolutely fascinating conversation because you're talking about bringing all these different communities together via the beautiful game, via soccer. Now, you mentioned on your website, there's five initiatives that Kicks strives for.
And I'm going to paraphrase them very quickly. You want to engage at risk youth and help them grow as individuals, lower the obesity rate amongst young people, educate students to obtain their state Illinois referees license, raising funds for the park districts, and then also empowering using the empowering global unity that soccer brings to everyone. Those are some incredible goals. How do you see them interconnecting with one another?
Well, obviously the connection there is the beautiful game. Soccer is a game that's played worldwide. It's played around the United States now regularly, boys and girls in large volume. So the game itself is that Avenue, which allows young people, old people to get involved in such when it ties into our different initiatives.
These initiatives are certainly connected to the city of Chicago. You know, obviously on a daily basis, we are hearing stories of gang shootings and shootings and bad things happening to people. And there's an absolute need for engagement of troubled youth, of at risk youth. And this past year, we've kicked off our Kicksfrol program, one of the programs you mentioned there.
We partnered with the U.S. Soccer Foundation based on the fact that we're on the near South Side Chicago, we're partnered with Mercy Hospital on that neck of the woods. And we now are engaged in seven of the schools located in these at risk areas, working in partnership with Alderman, Sophia King, Alderman, Pat Dowell. And these kids are out coming playing ball.
They're training twice a week at their school. They are playing games integrated in our community program on Saturdays. Their parents are coming out, which is to me a great force. It shows the family unit being the main source of the fix on these issues.
So again, it makes for a wonderful program on our obesity program, being a family physician right here at Little Company, Mary Hospital, our country is in trouble. We have probably upwards of 33 to 30 to 33 percent of our population is overweight or obese, and that will lead to bad things with medical disease, diabetes, sleep and diabetes. And joints, we want to fix this at a young age. The Kix program, again, working in partnership with Little Company, I'm sorry, Mercy Hospital, we've been monitoring the BMI, the height and weight of the children.
And we have good numbers. Kids who are active have good numbers. They're healthy. And so that's one of our other initiatives touching on our third one, I guess, I would say the kicks in the parks, parks do rely on government funding to make things happen, to make better fields, make playgrounds.
But at the same point, we've done a lot of work with our grant writers to work to find funds out of private organizations to come in and help. We're hopefully this year finishing a turf field at Dunbar Park, starting in the fall in partnership with the, with the C. Chicago, with the Park District, and then some funds that we've raised on our own. That's awesome.
That's absolutely fantastic. Now, I kind of want to just touch base with you because you said something interesting just how the participants, they practice two times a week, they have games on Saturdays. If a parent was going to sign their child up for this program, can you kind of talk a little bit about, you know, what they can expect the program to do? What would their child be participating in?
Yeah. So Kix kind of offers many levels of soccer opportunity on our community basis opportunity. You know, we've always tried to keep our pricing very affordable. For example, with our at-risk program, it's a $20 program.
So, so this, this limits no child or any family from not being a part of a great eight week session. Um, it's run two sessions a year. We may end up opening a winter session eventually in the indoor soccer process, but in the end, um, this Kix for all program is really made so that anybody can afford it. We thought it was incredibly important to have every family give a little something, put a little skin in the game, you know, pay for the uniform, so to speak, because that just builds the commitment to want to be a part of the program.
Beyond that, we have our Kix community program, the larger program, um, that probably envelopes approximately 1,200 children, families on the, on the near south side. And, um, you know, we, again, we try to keep that pricing under $100, you know, for community based programs. So again, everybody can be involved in that nature. Kix also offers a club soccer club.
Soccer is a high level soccer. You're having professional coaches, you're having games regularly, all the above. So, the, the children who want to advance, you know, the parents who want to maybe have their kids play more aggressive soccer or more organized soccer, eventually playing high school, you know, maybe college, I recommend to have them playing that in that program. So we have, we have kind of a very, very wide range of opportunities for kids.
Excellent. Now, what's kind of the age bracket for kids to participate in? Well, from community soccer, you know, kids can probably start playing soccer when they're about four or five years old. We've all seen the packs of four or five groups of kids running around the field as a pack.
So, so usually around four or five, we're starting that. We do have a couple of toddler programs. Those are popular to have a 24 to 36 month old having some fun out in the field too. But the main, I say the main force of the soccer is about eight up to ages 18.
Eight 18. Okay. And there's a primarily during the summertime then or is it all year round? Soccer really runs year round.
You know, we do a spring session off the club. We do a spring session for the community. We do summertime actually a bit of a downtime, some family time. So there's a couple camps that go on.
We do some beach soccer. I'll mention later, we do our international soccer tournament in the summertime when the European and Asian and African and South American teams are off of school. The fall is a very busy time for soccer also winter. There's indoor opportunities.
Again, more information kicks at Chicago soccer.org. You mentioned it. So I think it's a perfect segue. What is the Chicago kicks international youth soccer cup?
So this was an interesting opportunity and truthfully, I do see as an opportunity for Chicago. First of all, from a youth experience, after we make two trips at age 12 and 16. And it was it was a wonderful opportunity to play children from around the world. You played kids from France, from Sweden.
One of the most impressive experiences I had was working. We played a game against the Russian team when I was when I was 12 years old. Wow. And this would have been 1982.
The Cold War was at its height. You know, I remember in great school learning how to go on my desk when a nuclear bomb was supposed to go off, which would have probably done nothing. But we were all we were trained in that. Our enemy was Russia.
And it was so interesting that we played this game against the Russian team. I recall we lost the game three to one. Good game, but we lost the game three to one. The most important thing that happened in that experience was our coaches after the game, both coaches got us together.
We had lunch together at this international village where the teams would stay at. And it was just amazing to me to just see that they were regular people. They had fun things that they talked about. We had fun things that we talked about.
There was interaction. There was communication. And to me, it was a life changing experience. When I look at these issues that are going on today, whether it's religious, whether it's you know, over resources, whether it's, you know, over oil, wherever the case may be, there's such an opportunity that people just talk to each other to see that we're all the same.
We all want the same thing in the end. Yeah. And now I'm going to bond over the beautiful game of soccer. It's such a great unifying force and everything.
Yeah. One thing I've come across, we know, working with this organization, particularly on this international program is international tournament. Soccer is a common language. Literally almost every country in the world speaks that language.
You know, they always talk with the Super Bowl, having a hundred million viewers. The World Cup has about a billion viewers. It's an amazing amount of people that have passion for this. And in the end, it's something I think that could bring a piece to the world.
What has been some of the reactions from the participants, from the, from the kids that get involved? I mean, do you see them falling in love with the game and everything? And what is that? Like when you see someone falling in love with the game that you've fallen in love with?
Well, it's interesting. I mean, obviously my oldest son is a freshman at St. Ignatius. He had a great experience this first year here.
He was, he was not bragging, but he had the opportunity to play the junior first team because he was a good player. I mean, for him, it's an absolute passion for him. He has such a good direction about it. It leads to healthy life habits and life decisions.
Certainly doesn't lead to any idle time. He's busy, busy playing soccer, studying. And he looks forward to doing more stuff. So that's just one example.
Obviously that example carries over to many, many children, positive role models from the parents who coach or the coaches who coach. You know, I talked, I didn't mention in our earlier discussion regarding the employment opportunity. One of our big pushes is that on the near slash, slash, slash, there's a need for getting kids involved and stuff and a job is a great thing. We've been employing kids from our club, even kids from outside our club to become referees, to become coaches.
And there's, there's a great salary to be made doing a, doing a great sport and being involved in the community. Well, now that just, that's your mentorship program. That's getting started because the kids are seeing the older kids. That could be a role model for them as well too.
That is a major part of the equation is having mentorship from your 14, 15, six year old kids in the community and not having fear or unknowing about them, but knowing that these are good guys and they're helping us out. This is fantastic. My guest right now is Dr. Scott Hanlon from Kick Chicago.
Again, their website, KickChicagoSoccer.org. If anyone's looking to get involved or to sign up, what's the best way they can get involved? Um, so we have two things regarding the international tournament. You know, we're always looking for support from sponsorships.
We're looking to support from volunteers, you know, teams in the Scotland area. Uh, we do have a specific website for the tournament called kickscup.org KICSCUP.org. People who want specific information on registering for our new program, Beverly, or maybe a club soccer or maybe a Tyler program, our specific website is kicksunited.com. Kicksunited.com.
Just one final question I have for you before we come to the conclusion of our interview, you know, you mentioned earlier, you see soccer as such a unifying force. It's a language that the entire world can speak together. Do you have any advice for anyone listening right now that is kind of hesitant about maybe walking down to the, onto the field to play, like any words of encouragement? Well, I would say I use myself as an example, you know, as a child, I was, you know, as a young child, I was not a great athlete.
I was probably an overweight at the time and that's how I grew up and is just part of my genetics. But believe me, there is one of the themes of our kicks brand, a soccer is opportunity. It's opportunity for great health. It's opportunity for meeting great friends.
It's opportunity for lifelong love of the game. It's opportunity for employment. Um, it's opportunity for international peace. It's opportunity, it's opportunity for Chicago, you know, to create a new, uh, we consider it a new industry of the youth soccer or the youth sports programs.
So soccer's opportunity is probably the theme that I would share with people. Dr. Scott Hanlon from kicks Chicago. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Again, the website is kickschicagosockert.org. Go and check it out. Thank you very much for listening to this WXAV 88.3 FM podcast. Be sure to visit our website, WXAV.com for more information on your escape from ordinary radio.