Indoor soccer could give smaller schools a way to field teams

Every day I am learning something new about high school sports in the area.

When I planned for this week’s sports page to feature soccer previews, I planned on how to cover eight teams, the boys and girls’ teams from Corbin, Lynn Camp, Whitley County and Williamsburg.

Then I learned that neither Lynn Camp nor Williamsburg have either soccer team.

As two of the smaller schools in the area, it is understandable why not.

Adding full-sized soccer teams, which require a minimum of 11 players, would impact the football programs on the boys’ side and the volleyball program on the girls’ side, not to mention the cross country teams.

Of the 15 teams associated with high school basketball in the 13th region, nine field boys’ soccer teams.

They include: Corbin, Whitley County, South Laurel, North Laurel, Knox Central, Barbourville, Middlesboro and Harlan County, and Oneida Baptist Institute.

The girls’ lineup is essentially the same with the exception of Bell County as opposed to Barbourville.

Football in Texas may offer the basis for a solution to permit more teams to offer soccer, even if it is in a different form.

A number of school in the sparsely populated areas of west Texas saw a severe decrease in the number of boys coming out for high school football. In a number of cases, a school would be unable to field the minimum 11 players and be forced to forfeit the season.

As a result, the affected schools began playing seven-on-seven football.

Think arena football outdoors with a few exceptions.

The field is 45 yards with a 10-yard deep endzone.

Games involve two 15-minute halves, with a 10-minute halftime.

All plays must be passing plays.

Why can’t soccer go this way for some of the smaller schools?

Between 1978 and 1992, the Major Indoor Soccer League existed. Played essentially in an arena the size of a hockey rink, teams of six players are on the field at a time. The goals are built into the wall at each end of the rink.

There is currently a new incarnation of the old MISL, the Major Arena Soccer League.

According to its website, it is comprised of 16 teams across the United States from Utica, New York in the east, to San Diego, California and Tacoma, Washington in the west.

The league’s first season was in 2015. Like minor league hockey and baseball, it has suffered some growing pains as teams have moved, folded or joined the league each season since.

How does this help our high school kids at the smaller school that want to play soccer?

Take the indoor soccer concept and adapt it to work in the high school gymnasium.

Fall and winter are not going to work because it would be competing with volleyball and/or basketball for time in the gymnasium. But it could easily become a spring sport.

The Kentucky High School Athletic Association could make it a one-or-the-other sport. Either the school does traditional soccer or indoor soccer. It may not offer both.

The idea is to give more students the opportunity to participate. Not to provide spring training for the schools that already offer soccer.

Maybe in the case of schools, such as Bell County, offering the boys the option to play indoor soccer could lead to a traditional soccer program in the future.

Would Knox Central’s soccer coaches be willing to help Lynn Camp get the programs up and running since the schools would not compete? Could Williamsburg work out an arrangement with Whitley County for its soccer coaches to do the same at Williamsburg?

At least until the schools see if the program is going to fly.

Like with the old MISL and the current MASL, you may see a number of teams come and go. You may even see some programs lapse for a year as the number of students wanting to participate changes from year to year. 

But it gets more students the opportunity to participate which should be the ultimate goooal!