The players sloshed and splashed, slid and slipped in the rain as they sprinted to and kicked a soccer-like ball, to score a goal in nets placed on newly restored and repurposed former tennis courts in Roanoke’s Preston Park.
Christmas music played on a speaker as players yelled “send it’” and “make a decision boys,” and “you get that ball, you get it.”
On a recent Saturday morning in northwest Roanoke, immigrants from South America, Africa, Afghanistan and people born and raised in the U.S., all between the ages of 12 and 50, played to celebrate the opening of Roanoke’s first public outdoor futsal court.
“Futsal is like a street version of soccer that can be played on a smaller court, with fewer players and less need for expensive equipment,” said Elvir Berbic, an immigrant advocate who spearheaded the creation of the new futsal court.
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“Futsal is more conducive to free play pickup games. You don’t need to buy cleats. You don’t have to mow the grass,” Berbic said.
A crowd of more than 30 people, which included Mayor Sherman Lea, city council members Joe Cobb and Vivian Sanchez-Jones, Star City Soccer Foundation founder Landon Moore and community members, gathered under umbrellas at Preston Park, where an old tennis court was repurposed for futsal.
The game being played is “a representation of our city, the diversity that we have in our beautiful city,” Moore told the crowd.
Sylvestr Niyinteletse, 21, says he was really looking forward to the new court. He came to Roanoke as an immigrant from Tanzania when he was 6.
He brought his younger brother to play there recently, “I loved it because it helps you get your touches better on the ball when you play on concrete, it helps you improve your touch and that helps a lot when you start playing soccer against other people.”
He is now a second-year student at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville, but thinks he’ll go to the new futsal court about three times a week when he is home.
Moore started the soccer foundation in 2009 to help provide leadership and educational opportunities for immigrants and refugees in Roanoke.
Berbic was working with immigrants in the Roanoke Eagles Club youth soccer program and the two teamed-up.
The idea began at Breckenridge Middle School, where Berbic met with neighborhood kids to play soccer.
“[Y]young men …were all immigrants, kind of like me, they played soccer every Sunday afternoon and are the inspiration behind this project,” said Berbic, now 40, who works as the student affairs manager at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.
In 1995, Berbic came to Roanoke at age 14 with his parents and younger brother as refugees from Bosnia fleeing a civil war.
Berbic had learned some English from talking with volunteers at his refugee camp in Croatia, and began taking English classes when his family was relocated to Roanoke.
“You go through your teenager things that you go through and at the same time you are in a strange place,” said Berbic.
“You had to grow up a little quicker than everybody around you. You try to focus on schoolwork, being a kid but at the same time you have to assist your parents with how to write a check, for example, how to pay bills, translate getting car insurance. You kind of live between two places.”
Berbic had a hard time with school but he loved sports. He played on the William Fleming High School soccer team and was a placekicker for the football team.
After completing a master’s degree in communications from Radford University in 2010, Berbic wanted to make a difference in his community and he started working with the Roanoke Eagles Club soccer club consisting of immigrants from the community he had grown up in.
“You build relationships, you bond through conversation and resources,” Berbic said. He talked to the players about the importance of education and community involvement.
“I saw myself in their shoes a little bit. I saw someone stuck between two worlds. The way of life can take you in, and you can go in a direction good or bad.”
The soccer goals at Breckenridge Middle School where the Eagles club played were only left out during the soccer season, but the players wanted to play all year.
Berbic and his partner Danny Farrar, a retired physical education teacher, joined forces with Moore, who gave them access to the Star City Soccer Center, an indoor soccer complex located on Aerial Way Drive.
Driving vans donated by Acts 2 Ministries and the Christian-focused teen center Straight Street, Berbic and Farrar shuttled 15 to 20 kids across town to the soccer center so they could play on Sundays.
The indoor facility allowed the children to play soccer year round, but having a recreation facility within walking distance of the community was ideal.
Berbic eyed the dilapidated tennis courts at nearby Preston Park. “Immigrants don’t play tennis, they play soccer,” he said.
He thought the tennis courts could be repurposed for futsal. The sport is a street game, which doesn’t require a lot of players and can be played in as little as 3-on-3 style, making it easy for pickup games.
Berbic and Moore reached out to Michael Clark, Roanoke’s Department of Parks and Recreation director, and pitched the idea to repurpose the old tennis courts in the neighborhood highly populated with immigrants.
“It was on the radar, targeted for redevelopment,” Clark said about the court. “The condition was so bad it was hard to play tennis with the intended purpose of the court.”
The project took three years, a period that included research, writing proposals and community engagement. More than 400 residents signed a petition to convert the courts into a futsal court. A proposal co-wrote by Berbic and Moore was given to the city that included research from Elizabeth Ackley, associate professor of health and human performance at Roanoke College, showing that youth at Preston Park had higher rates of being overweight and obese compared to other Roanoke neighborhoods.
“Not only did we see an opportunity to repurpose an unused tennis court, but we also wanted to enhance it and replace it with an equitable recreational resource,” Moore said. “A resource that brings something new to Roanoke and to address the health disparities of this part of the community. And make it an accessible and safe place to play the most popular game in the world.”
Clark said that the parks and recreation department spent $115,000 to create the futsal court at Preston Park, money that came from unspent city funds left over in 2020.
The city also asked for a level of buy-in from the community. Berbic and Moore were able to help raise $10,000 through the Star City Soccer Foundation, a fundraising community futsal tournament and local businesses, including Dick’s Sporting Goods, the Williamson Road Area Business Association and Clarkston Technology Solutions. The Roanoke City Council is expected to accept the donation in January, which will reduce the city’s expense to $105,000.
“The main thing is to have a usable space that provides free and close proximity recreation access,” Clark said.
The city has been working to reimagine what the hard-surface areas in need of some attention could be converted into. Preston Park was identified for potential redevelopment in the recreation department’s 2018-19 master plan.
“We have an increased focus on equity and the services we provide and it is important for us to provide culturally relevant amenities across the city,” Clark said, explaining the difference between “equal” services and “equitable” services.
“Throughout the history of our park system, the approach was more of an equality not equity. There was one of everything placed across the city, versus something a specific neighborhood would take advantage of now.”
Other popular non-traditional hard-service activities the city is looking into include courts for roller hockey, gaga ball, a version of dodgeball, and pickleball, a tennis-like game played with smaller rackets and a plastic ball
The Preston courts updates included fencing, the redevelopment of the new futsal court as well as new tennis courts for the Breckinridge Middle School tennis team.
“It went beyond these kids being my motivation, to this neighborhood being my motivation,” Berbic said.
Most of the boys he coached have started to grow up and some attend college. Berbic hopes they can see the importance of community building. “I hope they understand they are incredible human beings that had struggles, had issues just like I did. They are the motivation and inspiration behind this project.”