Can’t play here: the decline of pick-up soccer and social capital in the USA

Abstract

In this article, the authors argue that over-bureaucratization of the sport of soccer could have a deleterious impact on both the development of innovative soccer skills and the proliferation of beneficial social interaction – particularly for youth whose only exposure to sports is through pay-to-play leagues. This article relates these concerns to broader questions about democracy and grassroots interaction that have emerged in ‘social capital’ literature over the last twenty years. Curiously, while social capital advocates like Putnam posit a decline in formal participatory organizations, the number of organized youth sports leagues is in fact growing steadily. And, although Putnam would laud the merits of an increase in structured play, the authors highlight the negative repercussions of this occurrence. Specifically, the authors examine literature on the sociology of sport, as well as literature from public administration and political science, to explore the manner in which ‘pick-up’ games fit into the broader societal landscape. The authors then use this literature to construct a framework for comparing the Ghanaian soccer experience with that of the USA. Ultimately, this comparison reveals the differences in player development across the two cultures and crystallizes the implications that a decline in informal play poses for civic engagement in a democratic society.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge Dr David J. Houston, Dr James Todhunter and Dr Anthony Nownes of the University of Tennessee, Department of Political Science and Dr Steven Hyland, Department of History and Political Science at Wingate University for their valuable insights and detailed feedback on earlier drafts of this article. Additionally, they would like to thank Wingate University for their financial support of this research, drawn from the Faculty Development Fund and the WINGS Grant Fund. Lastly, they would like to thank panelists and audience members from the both the Southwest Social Science Association Conference (Las Vegas, 2011) and the fourth International Conference for Sport, Race and Ethnicity (Belfast, 2012) for helpful questions and comments when earlier versions of this paper were presented.

Notes

1. Galeano, Soccer in Sun, 2.

2. Woitalla, ‘Can Klinsmann’, 2011.

3. Coakley, Sports in Society, 133.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid., 143.

6. Countries with rich pick-up traditions like Venezuela or Cuba, or a host of West African countries, would not be considered mature democracies.

7. See, for example: Denhardt, ‘Toward a Critical Theory’, 1981.

8. The survey included a sample size of 55 players between the ages of 18–40 and was conducted between January and April 2011. As of 2010, Charlotte was a city of approximately 750,000 people and was the seventeenth largest city in the USA; it held a non-Hispanic Caucasian population of approximately 50%, compared with a nation-wide average of approximately 64% (see: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37/3712000.html). The authors submit that Charlotte would neither be described as a ‘hot bed’ of soccer activity, nor as being bereft of such activity.

9. See, for example: Ogden, ‘Overgrown Sandlots’, 2002; Coakley, Sports in Society, 2004.

10. Coakley, Sports in Society, 129–30.

11. Ibid.

12. For a thorough treatment of this idea, see: Begg, Langley, Moffitt, and Marshall, ‘Sport and Delinquency’, 1996.

13. Devereux, ‘Backyard vs. Little League Baseball’, 67.

14. Ibid., 68.

15. Ogden, ‘Overgrown Sandlots’, 124.

16. Ogden, ‘African-Americans’, 199–201; Ogden, ‘Overgrown Sandlots’, 122–24.

17. Ogden, ‘African-Americans’, 199–201.

18. Coakley, Sports in Society, 130, citing the work of Ferguson.

19. Ogden, ‘African-Americans’, 199–201.

20. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 109–10.

21. Hase, ‘Race in Soccer’, 312.

22. Ibid.

23. Young female players were also a key demographic of early American soccer’s growth, unlike in Europe or South America. The authors submit that, since at least the 1970s, the USA has offered one of the more welcoming environments for women’s participation in soccer, perhaps a result of a key piece of federal legislation called Title IX, which requires gender balance in extracurricular opportunities that educational institutes provide. The law can be viewed at: http://www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/titleix.htm. This law is discussed in: Putnam, Bowling Alone, 110.

24. Hase, ‘Race in Soccer’, 312.

25. Oliver, ‘Cultural Implications’, 1986.

26. Ibid., 199.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., referencing the work of Sheldon.

29. Reyna and Woitalla, More than Goals, 3–7.

30. Vernon Hendricks – although a baseball coach – notes that, whatever the sport, ‘You get better by the number of touches.’ See: Ogden, ‘Overgrown Sandlots’, 125.

31. Oliver, ‘Cultural Implications’, 196–97.

32. For example, many television networks that cover soccer games in the US track statistics like the ‘time of possession’, which has its roots in statistical analysis of America’s National Football League.

33. Oliver, ‘Cultural Implications’, 200.

34. Fenoglio, ‘A Neuro-Physiological Basis’, http://www.footy4kids.co.uk/developing_skilful_players.htm

35. See, for example: Simon, ‘Human Nature in Politics’, 1985; Hammond, ‘Toward a General Theory’, 130; Meier and O’Toole, Bureaucracy in a Democratic State, 150; Ostrom, Tiebout and Warren, ‘The Organization of Government’, 838.

36. White, ‘On the Growth of Knowledge in Public Administration’, 17.

37. Denhardt, ‘Images of Death’, 529.

38. Ibid., 530.

39. Ibid., 529–30; see also: Denhardt and White, ‘Beyond Explanation’, 1982.

40. Denhardt, ‘Images of Death’, 531.

41. Ibid., 537.

42. Ibid., 536.

43. Denhardt, In the Shadow, 3.

44. Ibid., 4.

45. Ibid., 24.

46. Schmidt, ‘Grout: Alternative Kinds of Knowledge’, 526.

47. Ibid.

48. Scott, Seeing Like a State, 4.

49. Denhardt, In the Shadow, 7.

50. Denhardt, ‘Toward a Critical Theory’, 1981.

51. Jun, The Social Construction of Public Administration, 51.

52. According to the World Bank, the per capita Gross Domestic Product of the USA is over 30 times higher than Ghana’s per capita Gross Domestic Product. See: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

53. De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1838.

54. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 189.

55. Darkwa, Amponsah and Gyampoh, ‘Civil Society in a Changing Ghana’, 38.

56. Dominic Oduro, Ghanaian-born Major League Soccer player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, March 8, 2011, Houston, Texas.

57. Rob Elliott, College Scout and Youth Academy Coach (New York Red Bulls, Major League Soccer), in interview with author Hemant Sharma, May 1, 2012, Newark, New Jersey.

58. Cindy Parlow, US Women’s National Team player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, November 10, 2010, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

59. Rob Elliott, College Scout and Youth Academy Coach (New York Red Bulls, Major League Soccer), in interview with author Hemant Sharma, May 1, 2012, Newark, New Jersey.

60. Jabatah Brooks, Ghanaian-born professional soccer player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, March 7, 2011, Knoxville, Tennessee.

61. Ibid.

62. Sharma, ‘The Game is the Best Teacher’, 2003.

63. Jabatah Brooks, Ghanaian-born professional soccer player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, March 7, 2011, Knoxville, Tennessee.

64. Ogden, ‘Overgrown Sandlots’, 125.

65. Jabatah Brooks, Ghanaian-born professional soccer player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, March 7, 2011, Knoxville, Tennessee.

66. Dominic Oduro, Ghanaian-born Major League Soccer player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, March 8, 2011, Houston, Texas.

67. Ibid.

68. Jabatah Brooks, Ghanaian-born professional soccer player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, March 7, 2011, Knoxville, Tennessee.

69. Dominic Oduro, Ghanaian-born Major League Soccer player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, March 8, 2011, Houston, Texas. In some cases, said Oduro, these matches might be preceded by a meeting between ‘messengers’, kids who walked to an adjacent geographic area to loosely organize a game.

70. Ibid.

71. See, for example: Oliver, ‘Cultural Implications’, 199.

72. Dominic Oduro, Ghanaian-born Major League Soccer player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, March 8, 2011, Houston, Texas.

73. Edgar Bartolomeu, Angolan-born former Major League Soccer player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, October 31, 2001, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

74. The New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer and Feyenoord of the Dutch League are among the teams to do so.

75. Dominic Oduro, Ghanaian-born Major League Soccer player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, March 8, 2011, Houston, Texas.

76. Sharma, ‘The Game is the Best Teacher’, 43–4.

77. Rob Elliott, College Scout and Youth Academy Coach (New York Red Bulls, Major League Soccer), in interview with author Hemant Sharma, May 1, 2012, Newark, New Jersey. US Youth Soccer has also implemented guidelines for delaying exposure to 11 vs. 11 games and furthering the proliferation of small-sided games at young ages: http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/assets/coaches/National_SSG_Update_5-13-09.pdf.

78. See, for example: Mahoney, ‘How Ghana Ended the Americans March’, 2010.

79. Rob Elliott, College Scout and Youth Academy Coach (New York Red Bulls, Major League Soccer), in interview with author Hemant Sharma, May 1, 2012, Newark, New Jersey. Elliott did even observe that, despite a lack of formal soccer structures, Ghana’s professional league has ‘many players who could be successful [in the United States’ Major League Soccer].’ The authors must note that Ghana’s national team does have players who play in foreign countries and even players who were actually raised in other countries but can claim Ghanaian citizenship (though even those other countries present minimally-structured youth soccer environments).

80. O’Connor, ‘Dempsey a Poster Child’, 2010.

81. Dominic Oduro, Ghanaian-born Major League Soccer Player, in interview with author Hemant Sharma, March 8, 2011, Houston, Texas.

82. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 217, 410.

83. Devereux, ‘Backyard vs. Little League Baseball’, 2001.

84. This is arguably one of the best-selling books written by a political scientist, rated as the eleventh best nonfiction book of the twentieth century, and the sixth best-selling book in the categories of sociology and anthropology (see: http://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Community/dp/0684832836).

85. See: Smith and Kulynych, ‘It may be Social but Why is it Capital?’, 2002; Muncy, ‘Disconnecting: Social and Civic Life’, 2001; Berman, ‘Civil Society and Political Institutionalization’, 1997.

86. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 97.

87. Ibid., 84.

88. Ibid., 167.

89. Seippel, ‘Sport and Social Capital’, 170.

90. Muncy, ‘Disconnecting: Social and Civic Life’, 142.

91. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 47.

92. Ibid., 45. The authors feel that the relationship between civic engagement and social capital is a closely intertwined one. It stands to reason that, as individuals engage in more civic duties, social capital is built for the citizenry at large; alternatively, the presence of social capital seems equally likely to precipitate civic engagement in the first place.

93. Smith, ‘The Effects of Investments’, 554; Flanagan and Levine, ‘Civic Engagement’, 160.

94. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 109–15.

95. Baggetta, ‘Civic Opportunities in Associations’, 184–85.

96. Putnam does not, though, literally mean ‘alone’. What he means is that people bowl with friends or family, or perhaps even on a date, but rarely in formalized leagues.

97. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 112.

98. Ibid., 217.

99. Ibid., 113.

100. Ibid., 22–3.

101. Ibid.

102. Bandura, Self-Efficacy, 168.