Young players run across new, small turf soccer fields on a warm winter day in City Heights.
Walls and netting keep the players and soccer balls inside the small courts. Off to either side of the fields are a clubhouse and an asphalt futsal court that's under construction.
This is the new Adam R. Scripps Street Soccer Park at Horace Mann Middle School.
It’s only been open a few weeks, but it’s already very popular.
“Most of the kids that usually go home after school, I see them come here and play with their friends, or come cheer around and watch or hop in games,” said 8th grader Asiimwe Mugisa.
He’s been using the new park alongside his friends and classmates for hours every weekday.
“It's just like a close place where we can all gather together without having to worry about rides, or whose parents will not let them go because it's a far place,” Mugisa said. “Most of us live close to this area so it's easy for us to get to play here.”
He's getting a chance to hone his skills in a sport that has posed financial barriers. Youth soccer can cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars every year in the U.S.
“Most of the reason why I haven't joined a soccer team yet, a club, is because of money costs and travel and stuff,” Mugisa said.
The new park is run by Street Soccer USA. The organization says its goal is to provide an alternative to the pay-to-play model for youth soccer, especially for those living at or below the poverty line.
Reed Fox is director of Street Soccer USA’s San Diego chapter, and said the Horace Mann site is their first park in San Diego.
“They're free, they're open to the community. And they allow us and our partners to run free programs,” he said
Fox said Street Soccer USA is trying to capture the momentum of the upcoming FIFA World Cup that's kicking off this June across the United States, Mexico and Canada.
“This is part of Street Soccer USA 26 for 26 campaign, which is building 26 of these street soccer parks around the country in time for the 2026 World Cup coming this year,” Fox said.
The park is available to Horace Mann Middle School during the school day.
It's open to the public after school from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on weekends between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.
Fox said 100 to 200 community members use the facilities each day.
“There’s programs for middle school kids, high school kids, elementary school kids, girls specific programming, women pickups, adult co-ed pickups. We started a free program for military members and veterans that train out here,” he said.
Ninth grader Hailey Gutierrez uses the soccer fields regularly. She often plays in co-ed games. She was wearing a soccer jersey and soccer ball necklace with her name when she spoke to KPBS.
“My father has been playing soccer my whole life and when he wasn't able to play soccer he’d just coach. He became my coach when I was six and from there I just had a great passion for soccer,” Gutierrez said.
She plays soccer for Crawford High School, just across the street from the park. But Gutierrez said she was bored during the weekends and offseason because she had no field to go to.
“Once this opened up, every day just got full. I'm so excited for it. When I have a lot of energy I just bring it out here. When I feel any emotion — like anger or stress — I just come here to shake my mind off it,” she said.
At the park Gutierrez plays soccer a little differently than on the high school team, where she plays 11 players a side.
“We play futsal rules. It pretty much means you have four to five players on a team,” said Street Soccer USA coach Kailen Aldridge.
That’s not the only difference in this style of play, she said. At the street soccer park, players can also bounce the ball off the walls.
And she said if one team kicks the ball out of play into the netting above, the opposite team restarts play by setting and kicking it on the ground.
It's a sort of mashup between futsal and indoor soccer, Aldridge said.
She said her job goes beyond teaching players the rules. She said they offer one-on-one training sessions and much more.
“If they are just doing pickup, we referee. We make sure to talk to the kids, see how their day is going. We run practices sometimes,” Aldridge said.
The coach said they post a new schedule for the different organizations using the park every week on their Instagram page.
“If there's not a time slot for certain groups then it's just open play. So anybody can come at any time,” she said.
Fox said a space like this hasn't existed in the region before.
He said the park was founded and is financially made possible by the Adam R. Scripps Foundation. The Alex Morgan Foundation also helps provide financial support to run free girls’ programs on site.
Fox hopes this is the first of many street soccer parks they build around San Diego. Currently they're looking to build a second site in Linda Vista.
“I think there's no better city in the country for street soccer and what we're about because of the passion for soccer here, and the inequity in soccer here and the lack of spaces like this to play and free programming for kids,” he said.
Fox said the clubhouse at the park will offer educational services in the coming months.
Those will help with school work and college applications. They also plan to work with local partners on job finding services.
