The Global Game

aul Yepez appears shorter than me, and I am only 5-feet-3-inches tall. He cannot weigh more than 120 pounds, and that is while wearing shin guards, cleats and the rest of the full soccer regalia from his team in the Oxnard Youth Soccer Association (OYSA), the Oxnard Wave. He is soft-spoken, shy, looks down when I speak to him. There is a trace of an accent in his voice, testament to his immigration from the Mexican state of Michoacan eight years ago. His hero is flamboyant Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho.

Clad in a hooded sweatshirt, warm-up pants and Adidas shoes, Yepez waits, quietly expectant, by the hostess stand at Oxnard’s Cabo Seafood Grill and Cantina, where Agustin Magaña, president of OYSA, and Jesse Grewal and Roberto Trada, its two vice presidents, cluster, the three men greeting parents of Yepez’s fellow team members.

Despite Yepez’s size and seemingly reticent nature, he is the star forward of the OYSA team as well as the varsity soccer team at Pacifica High School, where he is a junior. Although he is only 16, the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team is already scouting him, and he has tried out for the Mexican Professional Football team Santos Laguna.

“Not only is he the star because of his playing ability, he is the star because of his humility,” Grewal says. “He is a good kid with his feet firmly on the ground, one who always takes the time to help our other players.”

The group is gathered at Cabo on Nov. 29 for the third OYSA fundraising dinner of this season. They hope to raise money to send one team from the organization to play this summer in Torino and Venice, Italy, as well as Germany. The team, which Grewal will coach, will then travel all over Europe on a sightseeing tour.

There are 15 teams in the club, a separate boys and girls team for kids aged 11, one for 12-year-olds and so on until age 18. But only one team, about 18 players, will go to Europe. This year will be their third trip.

“We have a lot of low-income kids on this team and for them this is an amazing, life-changing opportunity,”says Trada, who also acts as the team’s fundraising coordinator. “For some of them, this will be their only chance to travel to another country. It could be the first time many of them will fly.”

To take all 18 players, OYSA needs to raise $60,000. About $5,000 has already been raised through other dinners and a booth at the Oxnard Strawberry Festival. All the fundraisers, including a Dec. 22 Holiday Dinner Dance at Casa Lopez Banquet Hall in Oxnard, are open to the public. A $25 donation promises Italian and Mexican cuisine, as well as live music and dancing. About $10,000 is expected from that event.

Trada is gregarious and jovial. Although he looks well into his mid-60s, there is something of the mischievous imp in his smiling demeanor. His suit’s lapel carries a pin emblazoned with the Italian flag, a tribute to his heritage. He immigrated to America from Italy in 1976 after a childhood spent playing on the youth teams of Italy’s world champion Torino Juventus. His children followed in his footsteps, playing in various Ventura County soccer clubs.

“When my son began playing soccer in Ventura, I was shocked at how expensive the club teams were,” he says, “so I had the idea to found a soccer club that was reasonable.”

And so, in 1997, OYSA was born, a club that costs the astonishingly low fee of $150 per season for those who can afford it, or nothing, through scholarships, for those who cannot. Like other soccer clubs, players must try out for OYSA. It is ability, not income, that decides the makeup of the team, the way Magaña, Grewal and Trada dreamed it would be.

Magaña’s wife, Angelina, is a pretty, petite brunette who seems resigned to her status as a soccer widow. Agustin laughs when he recalls an ultimatum of sorts she gave him when their kids were little: “It’s either soccer or us.” By choice, or perhaps because it is the only way to see her husband, now she is just as involved as he is with the organization, acting as team mom, providing snacks and adding a nurturing female presence on the field. Agustin says for his part, the players have become part of his family.

“On Monday and Wednesday, I practice with the boys, Tuesday and Thursday with the girls. On Friday, we all clean the field, and Saturday and Sunday are slated for games. I spend about 20 to 30 hours a week with these kids. A lot of them are from single parent homes, and so I become like a surrogate father. I listen to them; step in when they need to straighten up, not only on the field, but in their school life as well.” A thick black mustache rests above a gentle smile. “But every hour I spend with them is worth it to me. On my birthday, they make me very sweet birthday cards. I get to see them succeed, be part of something very special on the soccer field, and that carries over into all aspects of their lives.”

Every person involved with OYSA has a full-time job: Trada is executive vice president for a company that manufactures artificial teeth; Grewal owns a metal polishing company; and Agustin runs his own business from home. And yet, with these demanding careers, they each spend 20-30 hours per week working with the teams on the league.

“Because of the heavy Hispanic influence, Oxnard is definitely a soccer town. There are about 400 clubs in town and we are the biggest club of them all,” Grewal says. He emigrated here from India, and, like the other board members, spent his youth on soccer fields. Unlike the mild Agustin Magaña and playful Trada, Grewal’s enthusiasm takes on an intense and powerful quality. His dark eyes hold me fixedly. “We are very proud of the work we do here, and to see a kid like Raul shine on the field — to see all the kids — is an incredible experience to be a part of.”

Yet, with all the teams in town, fields to play on are scarce. Agustin says OYSA utilizes fields on the River Ridge property. The Fridays spent cleaning and maintaining the field are the only payment the owner, Kasen Properties, requires in return for their full use. “But we can only use the fields because they haven’t been sold due to the bad economy,” Agustin says. “When they sell, we are going to be left with no place to play.” OYSA is looking to host a large tournament next year, with 160 to 200 teams participating, but the dearth of places to play looks as if it will present a problem. “Right now, we’re talking to local high schools, but who knows?”

I get the sense that this sort of apprehensive and tenuous hold on the organization’s future has been a palpable force in its decade of existence. And yet, through the sheer enthusiasm of board members and team parents, and the twine- and duct tape-tenacity seen in these sorts of grass-roots organizations, OYSA has made it happen.