SPRINGFIELD – After spending two weeks training to kick, run to the goal and play together as a team, the Dream Soccer players came together to play in the second annual Dream Team Tournament, featured at the Springfield of Dreams soccer tournament. The Dream Team event is the brainchild of Tony Cooper, 41, a Springfield Thunder U12 boys coach, who decided that he was going to make a difference for special needs kids.
“Many of these players see their brothers and sisters out there playing soccer,” says Cooper. “It gives them confidence to play on their own team, instead of just watching from the sidelines.”
By his own admission, Cooper has no formal training coaching players with special needs. He relies on advice from his wife, Tracey, an occupational therapist with Clark County schools, to give him creative ways of reaching the kids. Among successes he has had is to use music to cue the players to dribble when the music starts and hold the ball when it stops. “You have to be willing to be creative,” says Cooper.
Last year, the tournament hosted twenty-eight players. This year, there were forty-one. If the current trends keep up, Cooper is hoping to have enough kids in his program in 2007 to form a TOPSoccer (The Outreach Program for Soccer) team to compete in the Dayton TOPSoccer league.
Photo: Kalib Strines, 8, reaches for the top cross bar of the goal to celebrate the end of the game.