Keeping kids goal oriented

Make no mistake about it, Rea Elementary of Costa Mesa is a soccer school.

That kind of enthusiasm, or fanaticism, starts with the principal.

“We’re kind of soccer-crazy,” Rea Principal Gloria Hardy said.

So when the ninth annual Daily Pilot Cup starts today at Costa Mesa High and the adjacent Farm Sports Complex, the Sharks will be out in full force. Rea, which has fourth- through sixth-graders, has a tournament-high 14 teams entered in the Pilot Cup. More than 215 of the school’s enrollment of 750 will be participating.

The school has a history of strong showings in the Pilot Cup, winning five consecutive boys’ fifth-and sixth-grade Gold Division crowns from 2001 through 2005. Last year, the Sharks also won that division.

Hardy, in her third year as Rea principal, knows about soccer. She can learn from her daughter, Erin, a defender who played at Newport Harbor High and will be a senior team captain on the UCLA women’s team in the fall.

Hardy has pride in the Bruins, because that’s also her alma mater. But, for Rea, she said it’s about having pride in representing your school on the field.

“We instill in the kids that it’s a privilege to represent their school, and they have to earn the privilege,” Hardy said. “They work hard to make sure that they can be on the team. We’ve got so many teachers that participate as coaches. We even have one teacher [Jesus Silva] who was here last year to coach, and he went to teach in Santa Ana Unified School District, and he’s come back to coach. He’s still a teacher in Santa Ana, but he wanted to coach our kids in the Pilot Cup, which is nice.”

The tournament is also a sort of disciplinary tool. For Rea children to play, they need to have clearance from their teacher, school Pilot Cup coordinator Ryan Baker said. Baker, who teaches physical education at Rea, has been coaching Pilot Cup teams at the school for several years.

“Each kid must have a form signed that they can play, before they come out to practice,” Baker said. “Underneath that, their teacher must sign a contract, a behavior and academic contract that allows them to play. Each kid must have a contract. We have a contract for every kid out here. If they don’t have that contract the first day, we don’t even let them try out. We know their teachers are allowing them to play.

“Once we get them on contract, we try to work with them. Teachers have contacted me to make sure the kids are behaving everyday. We try to work with the kids, with positive reinforcement. There’s one kid who I go up to every day and say, ‘We’re going to behave today.’ There’s one kid who brings me his homework every morning, shows me his homework.”

Many of the children at Rea have played soccer since a very young age, so there’s really no arm-twisting needed to get them to sign up for the annual tournament.

“These kids love playing soccer,” Baker said. “All the games they play, it’s with their feet. They don’t play handball; they play it with their feet. They don’t do it with their hands, it’s with their feet. They grew up playing it, and their families support them.”

Plus, Hardy said, there’s now a tradition element.

“We have so much history of winning the championship that it’s established that tradition,” she said. “They’re excited about continuing that ... It kind of re-energizes the school year. It gives them something to look forward to in the second half of the year.”

The story of the Pilot Cup, however, isn’t just about dominant programs. Tournament coordinator Kirk McIntosh is just as proud of stories like Wilson Elementary, the Costa Mesa school that didn’t have teams for a couple of years but returned to the field two years ago.

“Some schools just need to find some volunteers and get it going, to take the reins and pump some energy,” McIntosh said. “It just takes energy from some adults.”

Wilson Elementary second-grade teacher Kristen Leysen is one of those adults.

Leysen said she wondered two years ago why the school had no Pilot Cup teams. As someone who grew up in Costa Mesa, she said she remembered the Lions Cup, which preceded the Pilot Cup before being discontinued in 1998.

“I didn’t understand why our school wasn’t in it,” Leysen said. “I guess there just wasn’t anybody who would take the ball and go with it.”

Leysen did, helping organize Wilson’s involvement. She was already involved through AYSO Region 120, where she has coached her daughter’s team and formed a weekend referee crew with her sister and husband.

Last year, about 80 kids played on six Wilson teams, consisting of just third- and fourth-graders. This year, fifth-graders at the K-5 school are also in the mix, and Wilson is fielding nine teams.

“My kids have been in soccer,” Leysen said. “Unfortunately, a lot of the kids aren’t exposed to these opportunities. Hopefully it can springboard them into signing up [for soccer teams] and taking the next step. Since September, every time the kids see me, they say, ‘What about Pilot Cup?’ They have this outlet. It’s something to look forward to.”

Out of the school’s enrollment of 617, more than 130 kids are participating in the tournament.

“I was astounded by the number of kids who showed up,” Leysen said. “It was really uplifting for the kids to see their pictures in the paper, just to participate in the event. Only a handful of students had had that opportunity to do stuff like that.

“The coolest thing was seeing the parents out there. You might not see them at Open House or parent-teacher conferences, but they’re out there at the Pilot Cup and they’re so proud. It’s a really neat community feeling.”

MATT ZSABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or at [email protected].