The following recommendation comes from the Aspen Institute’s State of Play Colorado: Aspen to Parachute report. The report assesses the opportunities and barriers for more children to access play, sports and outdoor recreation in rural Colorado communities.
The Problem
The Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys provide many opportunities for children to recreate. Yet only 15% of surveyed Latino/a youth in the region get 60 minutes of physical activity daily, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s nearly half the percentage of White children (27%) who meet the recommendation.
Research shows that physical activity not only helps with physical, mental, social and emotional health, but it also provides academic benefits. Physically active children score up to 40% higher on test scores, and they are 15% more likely to attend college. In addition, the sense of purpose and belonging from participation in sports, particularly on a team, can make young people feel safe and prepares them for learning under the right conditions.
Local school districts made major progress in increasing high school graduation rates among Latino/a students between 2010 and 2020. Then COVID-19 hit, causing Latino/a students to lose significant ground academically compared to their peers. Only 17% of Latino/a students in the Roaring Fork School District met or exceeded expectations in 2022 on English language achievement tests, below the Latino/a state average of 26%. White students in Roaring Fork schools (55%) stayed on pace with their state average.
The Opportunity
Very few activities, if any, provide the level of enthusiasm and ability to bring the Latino/a community together in this region like soccer. Local Latino/a youth (42%) said they regularly play soccer far more than any other sport — and much more frequently than White children (19%). We saw a similar trend nationally, with our Reimagining School Sports initiative identifying that 58% of rural Latino/a high school students have played soccer (a much higher rate than Latino/a students in urban and suburban communities).
What if local community leaders used soccer as a tool for social change? What if soccer could more intentionally be applied to create belonging for youth and educational advancement? The Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys could create a national model for a more coherent soccer system that drives positive educational, mental health and other benefits for young people and the region.
Here are opportunities to make this happen.
Offer more affordable soccer at younger ages — and target Latinas.
More work is needed to identify and enter Latino/a youth into the region’s formal soccer pipeline. It’s not known precisely how many Latino/a youth in the region who want to play soccer through traditional pipelines are formally able to do so. But the supply doesn’t appear to be meeting the demand. Even though 42% of surveyed Latino/a youth told us that they regularly play soccer, 16% also said they would like to try soccer (the No. 3 sport they most want to try).
Latino leagues for youth and adults are very popular. But many local parks and rec departments don’t offer soccer into later elementary-school-age years. Carbondale Parks and Rec ended soccer entirely because many kids joined club teams. Glenwood Springs saw the same trend and doesn’t offer rec soccer after age 6. Aspen and Rifle rec soccer go through fourth grade. New Castle and Battlement Mesa stop soccer after age 7.
Roaring Fork United, the most prominent local club, offers different levels of competition and commitment to the sport with many paid coaches. Still, the costs add up. Introductory-level fees for 5U/6U kids are $175 (one season) and $310 (two seasons) and keep increasing: 7U/8U ($190 and $340), 9U/10U ($325 and $550), and 12U ($395 and $690), plus a one-time $100 fee for uniforms. Advanced league fees begin at $1,195 for 11U if families elect the more competitive path. The club offers volunteer work and scholarship applications to reduce the fees. Colorado Mountain United (serving New Castle and Silt) and Rifle United (Rifle, Meeker, Battlement Mesa and Parachute) are smaller clubs that are more affordable due to volunteer coaches and cheaper fields.
“Another key reason that rec programs don’t have soccer is we do not have enough fields to grow the program in the Aspen to Glenwood region,” said Kevin Jardine, executive director of Roaring Fork United.“ Land costs are incredibly high, and none of the three clubs own land or have their own fields. We’re maxed out on field use with what we rent from Aspen, Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood town parks. Growth is impossible without more facilities and places for them to play.”
The City of Glenwood Springs is transitioning its $75 soccer offering to MLS GO, a recreation program from Major League Soccer and RCX Sports designed to increase participation and access for youth ages 4-14 who exist outside the soccer ecosystem. Players wear MLS-branded uniforms while playing in their local community. The MOJO app provides curated educational programs to help coaches execute fun practices that develop skills.
Other communities could explore the thoughtful effort by Glenwood Springs. Nick Adams, the city’s athletics supervisor, says more affordable soccer after age 7 could be added if there’s demand and more available field space while not hurting Roaring Fork United’s efforts. Roaring Fork United uses Glenwood Springs’ spaces, and Adams stressed that a joint-use agreement with the school district would be imperative if rec soccer programming grows.
Adams wonders about the quality of an expanded Glenwood Springs rec soccer program. Could he find quality coaches? Would the game experience be good? Would there be enough referees? “Conversely, the ability to not travel and play could strengthen the family unit, provide a less stressful experience and overall enhance the quality,” he said.
Local middle schools don’t offer soccer. The PEG League, comprising Pitkin, Eagle and Garfield counties, offers middle school games for football, volleyball, basketball, wresting and track and field (not every school sponsors all sports).
Yet the most popular sport among the growing population of Latino/a children gets formally played at that age only through clubs, which typically create more financial and transportation challenges than school-based teams. Even intramural soccer could offer a more affordable option to grow participation.
Intentionally targeting Latinas and their parents through productive methods is also critical to grow opportunities. Given that parents and recreational providers say many Latinas view sports and vigorous activity as exclusively for males, gender roles may be a barrier to any kind of physical activity participation by Latinas, including soccer. It’s important to educate first-generation Latino/a parents on the value of sports for their daughters and help them sign up for programs. Community clinics can be created with trusted Spanish language speakers and materials in Spanish.
We recognize that recreation departments and public schools have financial and staffing limitations, and budgets already struggle to pay for staff salaries and subsidized housing. Still, clubs can’t be the only option for elementary- to middle-school-age children. Those are pivotal ages that can make or break whether a child continues playing sports.
Use soccer to chart pathways toward college.
There are models from which to draw inspiration. The Urban Soccer Leadership Academy (USLA) provides mentorship and financial assistance to lowincome players across San Antonio, Texas, nearly all of them Hispanic immigrants whose parents did not attend college. At one high school USLA works with, the percentage of players on the boys soccer team who advanced to college went from zero to nearly 100% in just three years.
Ed Garza, the founder of USLA and a former San Antonio mayor, believes the concept is scalable in other communities with large Hispanic populations. USLA began in 2010 with two big and interconnected ideas: create accessible, affordable soccer teams for underserved kids to compete with suburban clubs, and use soccer to chart academic pathways toward college.
USLA’s volunteer mentors provide tutoring and college-prep services, help players create vision and purpose statements, and inspire them to align their daily actions with what they want for themselves and their families. Because immigration status is a concern for many USLA families to register, USLA provides legal counsel to some players whose green-card cases go before a judge.
The academy is financed with government grants and financial assistance from local businesses and nonprofits. Garza understood it would be hard to find sponsorships just for soccer. By focusing also on breaking the poverty cycle through educational attainment, he discovered a wider audience.
Through subsidies, Roaring Fork United, Colorado Mountain United and/or Rifle United could pilot a similar program by establishing measurable educational objectives, tracking data to demonstrate the value of the program, and working with community partners to fill students’ social and academic gaps with in-kind support or financial assistance.
This approach could also be a way to engage Aspen-based philanthropists looking to support upward economic mobility for the region’s most marginalized communities.
Bring organized soccer back to Colorado Mountain College.
Colorado Mountain College (CMC), the regional higher-education system with 11 campuses, used to offer soccer at its Spring Valley campus (near Glenwood Springs), first in the early 1990s as a club sport and then as a sanctioned intercollegiate team from 2004-09. CMC administration cited costs as the reason it discontinued soccer. The university president at the time said CMC would save up to $80,000 annually and pledged to create a sustainable plan to bring soccer back. No plan materialized.
“The community was really disappointed when the program was dropped,” said Steve White, CMC’s head soccer coach in the 1990s and early 2000s.
It's worth exploring how to bring back soccer. Intramural soccer, with minimal academic eligibility requirements, could be a more affordable option for CMC students to play each other if restarting a varsity team is not viable. Given the popularity of the game among Latino/a high school students, offering a local college soccer option could incentivize them to maintain academic eligibility, a problem some athletic directors cited, in order to play at CMC.
Throughout all of Colorado, Latino/a students are less likely than White students to go to college and nearly twice as likely as White students to require remedial classes in college. Nationally, a Gallup poll found that 52% of Latino/a college students considered leaving college in 2022, a 10- percentage-point increase from 2020 and higher than the number of Black (43%), White (36%) and Asian (30%) students.
Researchers found that the primary reasons Latino/a students struggle to remain enrolled are similar to those of all students: costs of attendance, stress, mental health challenges and difficulty of educational materials.
CMC is a Hispanic-Serving Institution — the first in Colorado’s rural, high-cost mountain resort region — with Hispanics making up 29% of its student body. That’s up from 13% in 2013. The HSI designation from the federal government means CMC is eligible for additional grant funding that benefits all students. About onethird of Colorado’s public colleges have HSI status while just 10% of the roughly 5,000 colleges and universities nationwide carry the designation.
CMC’s Spring Valley campus has five soccer fields, but they are rarely used by its 486 students (32% of whom are Hispanic). Instead, fields get rented to youth and men’s leagues. Employees and community members sometimes ask CMC when soccer will return. Club soccer could help CMC create a reputable fundraising program among donors seeking to support affordable access to post-secondary education for rural minorities.
The key is finding champions locally and nationally, so the program doesn’t rely solely on CMC’s student services budget as it previously did. Resource support could potentially come from one of U.S. Soccer’s Innovate to Grow grants. To reduce coaching costs and promote soccer throughout the region, CMC’s club coaches could come from the Roaring Fork United and/or Colorado Mountain United soccer clubs. Importantly, the CMC coaches could provide more than coaching soccer; they would mentor their players.
Soccer, while not the only answer to help improve educational outcomes, is too important in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys to view as only a sport. The “beautiful game” can help lift up young people, carrying them on pathways they might have never imagined were possible.
Jon Solomon is Community Impact Director of the Aspen Institute’s Project Play initiative. Jon can be reached at jon.solomon@aspeninstitute.org.