In the not too distant past, participation in soccer in Flint was flourishing. All four city high schools as well as Powers Catholic had varsity soccer programs, and there were affordable youth soccer options that helped expose kids to the game before getting to high school.
Three of those four public high schools closed, however, and the remaining public school – Flint Southwestern – no longer offers soccer as a varsity sport. There are several factors that have contributed to the participation decline, but the biggest hurdle is simple: soccer is no longer affordable or accessible to many families.
Flint Style Soccer was founded in 2016 as a free youth program in the city of Flint to address that issue. The organization started with around two dozen kids playing soccer behind Berston Fieldhouse. Less than a decade later, their fall session began with about 150 kids occupying multiple fields in Mott Park on Tuesday nights.
“I’ve watched kids move from second grade all the way up to fifth grade now, so they move through the divisions and the skill levels and it is really cool to watch how they develop as individual players,” said Erin Franzen, president of Flint Style Soccer. “Even with new kids coming in every season, the level of play is getting better and better because so many of our kids have been around for a while, so they’re infusing all of their knowledge and learning into their teammates.”
The organization was founded by Steve Wolbert and Enrique Vargas, who both grew up playing soccer in Flint and wanted to see the game grow. Franzen joined in 2023 and estimates participation has tripled just in the time since she joined.
Even as participation has grown each year, the focus on providing a free, fun, high-quality, and learning-focused environment has remained consistent. That ability to offer a robust program even as it grows is due in large part to a strong contingent of volunteers who simply believe in providing this opportunity to kids in the city.
Flint Style does three 8-week sessions per year, outdoor sessions in the spring and fall and an indoor session in the winter, with games and practices on Tuesdays. This fall, the program expanded to include a fourth division for seventh and eighth graders who have advanced through the younger divisions and wanted to stay engaged.
“All of our coaches are volunteers, all of our staff are volunteers, we have a great partnership with the Mott Park Recreation Area and Genesee County Parks to be able to use the grounds here during the spring and fall,” Franzen said.
Tapping Into Local Expertise
The beauty of Flint Style’s model isn’t simply that it provides a chance for kids to learn the game of soccer for free. They’re also learning it from volunteers who, combined, have hundreds of years of experience coaching the game at the college and high school levels and also playing it collegiately and professionally.
Tom Saxton, who retired from coaching the Michigan State University women’s soccer team in 2021 after 30 years in that role, serves as Flint Style’s sporting director and works with players and volunteer coaches in the program. Prior to coaching at MSU, Saxton also coached at Delta College and Flint Central and previously oversaw a youth soccer program in Flint in the 1980s, among other experiences in the game.
“It really is a dream for me personally to be involved,” Saxton said. “I grew up in an environment in the Flint city schools where there were really no barriers to playing sports. As I worked through my career as a college coach and saw what was going on all over the country, I realized the ‘pay to play’ model was leaving a lot of kids out. And so with the help of Steve Wolbert and Erin (Franzen) and our whole crew, we’ve grown from like 12 kids to having 150 now. And it’s absolutely awesome. I think what we really look for is to get kids that maybe don’t have the means, or even if they just need some exercise, to get out here and fall in love with the sport that we all love.”
Saxton isn’t the only famous name in Flint soccer history who lends his expertise to the program. Rick Bridgett, who coached at Flint Central and Clio for 35 years combined, volunteers with the organization and shares his insight with coaches and players. During a fall session practice in August, Bridgett was watching the new middle school division, pointing out strengths and areas of improvement he’s seen from kids who have now been in the program for several years – including a player whose only prior soccer experience was kicking a ball around in his attic, but has thrived on the field with instruction from coaches.
“We wanna see them have some fun first and foremost, but also learn the game,” Bridgett said. “They want to learn how to kick the ball around and just participate with their friends (at first), and then from there we want to progress to actually learning the game a little bit. If they’re having fun, they’re going to keep learning, so we want to start with that.”
Flint Style also taps into a relatively new resource in the city for coaching and guidance. The Flint City Bucks, one of the most successful amateur teams in the country, relocated to Flint in 2019 and play their home games right down the road from Mott Park at Atwood Stadium in the spring and summer. Players also live in the city and the organization has partnered with Flint Style Soccer to provide players who serve as coaches during spring sessions.
In addition to learning the game from current collegiate players, many of whom will go on to professional careers, the diversity of the Bucks is also beneficial for kids in the Flint Style program.
“It’s been incredible having them,” Saxton said. “Particularly for a diverse community like ours. For the kids to see a really diverse group of basically players who are on their way to becoming professionals, who come from 13, 14, 15 different countries and are all different nationalities and races, that’s one of the coolest things about this. It’s nice to see somebody who looks like you when you’re a young kid playing the game.”
Bridgett also noted that having younger coaches, including the Bucks players but also other volunteer coaches with recent high school or college playing experience, involved in the program is helpful for communicating with the kids.
“They love it,” Bridgett said. “They love the Bucks, but they also love their coaches once they get to know them. They are able to relate to them and it builds trust.”
Flint City AFC, a women’s team that also plays home games at Atwood, has a different model than the Bucks so their players don’t live in housing during the summer, but their players have also participated and supported Flint Style Soccer. An Empowering Women Clinic in June was done in partnership with Flint City AFC and the University of Michigan-Flint women’s soccer club team.
The rich mix of experiences of the many people who have supported kids in the program has proven to be a great benefit to the kids and something that keeps them coming back, especially the chance to see players of many different backgrounds who have found success through soccer.
“It’s just such a unique opportunity to see and interact with players at that level,” Franzen said.
Continuing to Grow
Brittany Mitchell’s son, DaZion Anthony, is a seventh grader and is one of several players who aged out of the younger leagues but has been able to keep playing with the addition of the middle school division this fall. He has a grandfather who used to live in Mexico and introduced DaZion to the game when he was younger, but Flint Style has given him a chance to learn the finer points of soccer.
“This program just kind of slowly but surely introduces the game, introduces the fundamentals,” Mitchell said. “They will pause the game to have a teachable moment with the players. And the players aren’t like shut down. They’re not scolded. They’re just encouraged and enlightened and I think that’s what’s really allowed my son to love coming back every session.”
Mitchell said DaZion’s confidence has grown, and the feedback and compliments he has received from coaches have helped him become more comfortable as an athlete.
“Last indoor session, he got to score like two goals per game,” she said. “He started to get to that point where he really was an attacker on the team. But he also plays defense and is able to stop someone and be excited and communicate with teammates. It’s nice to see him find a voice and a fired up spirit, that’s what makes me joyful.”
Ultimately, the goal of the program is to just provide a safe, fun experience for kids to gain confidence. But the rapid growth has created other milestones, including a player who had participated in Flint Style Soccer that is now in a high school program at Powers. The hope is that more of that pipeline can be built in future years.
“It was a big step for our program this year (adding the middle school division),” Saxton said. “We felt like a bunch of the players that had aged out in our program were gonna go into a space where there were no opportunities unless they had a few thousand dollars to join a club team and some of them do not. So if we get involved in seventh and eighth grade, and if we can make some progress this fall and in the spring, we hope to be a bridge to the high school game. So if they go to a high school that sponsors soccer, which a lot of them do, they’ll have a credible opportunity to go on that team and contribute. So it really is exciting for us to be able to build that bridge.”
The richness of the program combined with the fact that it is offered for free has made it rapidly popular. This fall, the younger divisions filled up quickly and necessitated a waitlist. Space is also at a premium – the program now occupies multiple fields, one in Mott Park near the corner of Nolen and Dougherty streets, and several more lined in a field behind the clubhouse in the Mott Park Recreation Area.
Along with cost, Flint Style has also worked to make sure there aren’t other barriers to participation. They have a “cleat bank” program so people can donate gently used cleats of all sizes (players in Flint Style are typically between the ages of 6 and 14). They can be donated at the Mott Park clubhouse on Tuesdays between 5:30 and 7 p.m., or arrange a dropoff time by emailing soccerflintstyle@gmail.com. Cash donations to the cleat program can also be made.
Parents and families involved in the program appreciate the efforts of volunteers on the field and behind the scenes, but also the outcomes they’re seeing in their kids. Mitchell doesn’t know if her son will exclusively play soccer because he has other sports interests, but she does feel the program has been a positive for him.
“This is very wholesome and family friendly and a very good community organized event,” Mitchell said. “This program is phenomenal. It’s mind blowing that it’s free first off, because they work so hard to get enough coaches to accommodate all of these kids. The program has been constantly growing since we started, and it’s gotten so large. But they do everything they can to have enough coaches and enough support. That shows that they have a heart for just letting everybody, any age, any player level, just come on in and have a good time.”
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