NORFOLK, Va. - Every year ODU women’s soccer engages in various community projects to give something back to those in the area. This spring sees the launch of a new initiative that will allow our current ODU women’s soccer players to interact with young budding soccer stars who would like to get to know their local hero’s a little better. The program is based around soccer and the ODU players will offer a weekly coaching session that will provide a fun learning environment for participants between the ages of 7 and 11 to develop their soccer skills.
The program however is a little more than just coaching as head coach Angie Hind wants to be able to use the very powerful tool of sport to help teach key life skills and values such as teamwork, respect, diversity – all within fun activities tagged on to the end of each coaching session. Any monies raised will go straight to ODU women’s soccer and therefore any participating families are also helping their local program develop.
Each young girl participating will have their own player as their ‘big sister’ and role model and therefore through this we hope to build relationships with some of the youths and families in the locality and use the shared love for soccer as a vehicle to help contribute to a positive and respectful community. ODU women’s soccer will cap the numbers at 40, enabling to really get to know all of the girls participating. As well as the 90-minute coaching sessions, participants will also receive a T-shirt, signed posters and opportunity to be mascots at two of the spring games.
“This type of initiative reflects the positive impact we as a program really want to try and have in the community and I am thankful to 7-Eleven and specifically Hassan Rabbani for his support of this initiative,” said ODU head coach Angie Hind. “Our athletes do many different types of volunteering and try to make a difference and so this one is exciting for our program as we can use our passion for the game of soccer to hopefully make a positive impact on young girls in our area and subsequently build even stronger relationships between ODU women’s soccer and local families in the Hampton Roads area.”