These Soccer Moms Have No Fear of Kicking

The Psychos and No Fear are engaged in weekend warfare on a pockmarked, sun-beaten soccer field at a junior high school in Los Alamitos. Twenty pairs of cleats drag tired legs to the end of another 90-minute grind.

Suddenly, the action is interrupted when No Fear’s top goal scorer stops at midfield and calls out for help from the sideline.

“Is Megan OK, or is she just whining?”

Megan, the little girl seated next to the pile of equipment bags that passes for the No Fear bench, appears to be suffering from no greater affliction than boredom.

All is well, if not especially quiet, the No Fear forward is assured.

“Thanks. Just let her whine then.”

Potential crisis averted, the game resumes and No Fear closes out a 3-0 victory in the Over-30 Division of the Orange County Women’s Soccer League--or, if you prefer the lay definition, “AYSO, Turned On Its Ear.”

Here, the children watch and the moms play--Sunday after Sunday, season after season, year after year, until the players are eligible for membership in the Over-40 Division.

Then, some players compete in both divisions.

“A lot of women play back-to-back games,” says Sandy Layman of No Fear. “First they play in the Over-30s, then the Over-40s. That’s three hours of soccer on a Sunday.”

They are soccer moms in the truest sense of the term, and were so long before the term became a Democrat-friendly catch phrase during the 1996 presidential election.

Many of them never kicked a soccer ball before their sons and daughters tried on their first AYSO uniforms. Their interest in the game began as part-time coaches, or team van drivers, or from the vantage point of an ever-present folding chair on the sideline.

Layman started playing four years ago, at the age of 43.

“My kids played,” she says, “and [the OCWSL] put a little ad in the AYSO Region 56 newsletter that they were starting an over-30 division. It sounded like something I wanted to try. All these years, I’ve been watching my kids kick the ball. It looked like a fun thing to do.”

Soccer is a simple game, but not quite that simple, Layman and her new teammates quickly learned. Yes, you do kick a ball. You also run . . . and sprint . . . and jog . . . and pick up the pace and run some more.

For legs and lungs not properly acclimated, soccer is 90 minutes of self-abuse set to the rhythm of following the bouncing ball.

“The first 10 minutes I ever played, I started hyperventilating,” Layman says, laughing. “I had to come out of the game. But after a few minutes, I was fine.”

Then, there was the problem of warm-down and recovery.

“I’d play the hour and a half game,” Layman recalls, “and then sleep the rest of the day. Sunday was a lost cause.”

The work before kickoff seems almost as daunting. Unlike golf courses and outdoor basketball courts, Orange County is not teeming with recreational soccer fields. The women of the OCWSL must drive from one end of the county to the other to find a vacant plot of grass, often a parched, tattered strip of weeds behind a junior high or elementary school.

Players routinely help with field setup--assembling Erector Set-like portable goal posts, stringing up nets, even lining the field with chalk.

Frequently, they arrive with children and husbands in tow, delaying brunches and family outings until the sound of the referee’s final whistle.

Why?

“It’s a blast,” says Sarah Novak, 33, who picked up the sport nearly four years ago. “I never played soccer as a kid. I was in Bobby Sox all through grade school. Softball really was my sport. But I like this way better. I love the strategy of it. It’s a game were you can think. It’s like a chess game with feet.”

Novak’s devotion to the game extends beyond the typical Sunday enthusiast. Novak plays three times a week--either in indoor or outdoor leagues--three years after being diagnosed with thyroid and lymph-node cancer.

She has undergone radiation treatment and three surgeries (the most recent in January) yet continues to play because, “it’s my hobby. It’s something I really enjoy, unless I don’t feel well that day.”

Occasionally, frustration sets in because, Novak says, “so much of my heart rate is controlled by medication to suppress tumor activity, I can’t race anymore. Speed used to be my thing, but I have this hyper-thyroid.”

She laughs.

“You know, I’d be in really great shape without it.”

Women’s recreational soccer differs from men’s in a variety of ways, from the group “Good game, [opponent’s name here]!” postgame cheer to team baby showers to raging debates over such details as team colors and nicknames.

“The first team I played on,” Novak says, “was called Good and Plenty. Our colors were pink and black.

“Then, we formed No Fear, except at first, we were called ‘AWESOME.’ ‘Athletic Women of Sunday Morning.’ That name was so stupid. I hated it. I did not vote on that one at all.

“Then, one of our players showed up wearing a hat that said ‘No Fear’ on it--it’s the name of a clothing company. Finally, that’s what we went with, and we haven’t changed for two years.”

Coaches, often a player’s husband or boyfriend, are more transitory. No Fear once had a coach quit at halftime because he wanted to use a 4-4-2 formation while the women were holding out for four defenders, three midfielders and three forwards.

“He said 4-3-3 was for kids,” Layman says. “He told us, ‘You want to be an AYSO team, go get yourself an AYSO coach.’ He was so angry he told one of our players to leave. We told him to leave--’Bye, coach.’ So he left.”

It can be treacherous, starting to play a sport as strenuous as soccer in your 30s or 40s. But if you can survive the first season, the women say the fourth, fifth and sixth sneak up on you very quickly.

Ana Thompson has been playing for six years, is now 39 and hopes her soccer career is just beginning. She says she draws inspiration from a former teammate, “a woman who was 64 years old, and could run circles around me. She stopped playing only because she blew her knee out.”

Thompson plays, she says, because, “it’s great release for frustration--I just take it out on the ball. I’ve gone through some personal things since I started playing and some of the friendships you build up with some of the ladies have really helped.”

That is why the soccer moms keep pulling on the shinguards, sometimes long after the children have given up the game.

“It doesn’t feel like an effort for me to get out there,” says Novak, who greatly prefers the designation “sweeper” or “striker” to “cancer patient.”

“I don’t think about how I’m feeling on a certain day. I just keep going.”

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How to Sign Up Here is a selection of adult leagues in Orange County.

* ANAHEIM

What: Greater Anaheim Soccer League

When: June 1 through Nov. 9

Details: Registration runs through May 27 at the Washington Center, 250 Cypress Center, or contact Laura Munoz at (714) 533-3517. Games will be played on Sundays.

Cost: $525 per team, $10 for identification card, $30 per referee.

* COSTA MESA

When: Women’s league and coed league start in August.

Details: Registration will start in July. Call the Newport Beach/Costa Mesa YMCA for more information at (714) 642-9990.

Cost: $400 for the women’s league; $600 for the coed league.

* LAGUNA NIGUEL

When: The 16-game season begins Sept. 5.

Details: Call August Roland for to register at (714) 249-8540.

Cost: $55 per person.

* PLACENTIA

When: Women’s league starts mid June and ends in August.

Please see LEAGUES, Page 40

Continued from Page 35

Details: Deadline to register is today at the Yorba Linda/Placentia YMCA, 18333 Lemon Drive, Yorba Linda. 18-and-older and 30-and-older leagues available. Call (714) 777-9622 for more information.

Cost: 18-and-older, $300 per team, $30 individual; 30-and-older, $350 per team, $39 individual.

When: Men’s league starts starts mid June and ends in August.

Details: Deadline to register is today at the Yorba Linda/Placentia YMCA, 18333 Lemon Drive, Yorba Linda. 18-and-older and 25-and-older leagues available. Call (714) 777-9622 for more information.

Cost: $300 per team, $30 individual.

* ORANGE COUNTY WOMEN’S SOCCER LEAGUE

When: Fall leagues start after Labor Day.

Details: League offers five divisions: Over 30, Over 40, Open, B and C and plays on fields throughout the county. Call Colleen Collins, league registrar, (714) 894-0802. League hotline (714) 518-4877

Cost: $65 per person.