- By Dan Veaner
- Sports
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Mike Cheatham has been involved in youth soccer in Lansing for around 14 years. His son Dan was on the winning Varsity soccer team last year, and now plays at Syracuse University. His other two children Kelly and Sean are presently on club teams. "This is hard work," he says. "These kids really have to want to do this kind of stuff, the sit-ups and the push-ups and the running and the constant training. It is not for every child, but this group of kids want to be here."
The club offers levels of play so that kids can fit comfortably on a team where they can use their abilities. "There are many opportunities for these kids to advance without an upper limit," Cheatham says. "I think that's very important, that you don't put up a wall and say this is as far as you can go. You let them find their comfort level."
Lamarr Peters (right) coaching the Waza FLO teams.
Cheatham's kids play on Waza FLO teams, coached by Lamarr Peters, a paid professional coach. Families pay about $1000 a year for their kids to work with him. "Waza" is the Japanese term for "technique" and FLO stands for Fulfillment, Liberation, Oneness. "Basically he is combining soccer with some zen techniques," explains Cheatham. "It's an experience that goes beyond just soccer. It incorporates attitudes toward playing, attitudes toward each other. He's trying to teach them a lot about respect. Respecting each other, respecting opponents. It's a little bit different twist on soccer and how to teach it."
The Waza teams includes players from Lansing, Horseheads, Watkins Glen, Groton, Trumansberg, Ithaca play on the girls team. Cheatham says they represent the best of these communities. "You could consider it an all-star team," he says. He ads that Peters attracts the best players.
Teams average 16-18 kids. That insures a team can play if some of the players can't make it to a game. There are more than 80 players on travel teams playing this Spring. That is comparable to the 83 players who participated last Spring. Last year 508 players participated during the year. "We also have an awful lot of teams playing at the Field in the winter time," Cheatham says. "We dwarf the other clubs in that regard." He says there were between 14 and 17 teams from the Lansing Soccer Club at the Field last winter, while other clubs had 9 or 10."
Mike Cheatham
Cheatham has been involved in Lansing soccer for about 14 years. He headed the Recreation Department soccer program for a while, and was the President of the Tompkins County Soccer Association. He started the Tompkins County Fall Soccer league eight or nine years ago, and headed the winter league at the Field for several years.. He has been the director of various seasonal leagues and has coached and managed teams. He is also a Grade 8 USSF Referee, and still acts as the scheduler for the winter league at the Field as the scheduler. He says last year the Field had 70 teams (about 850 kids) in the first session and 95 teams in the second session servicing 1400 kids.
You can find travel soccer all year 'round, but the main seasons Lansing participates in are Fall, Winter and Spring. You can play in the Summer, but Cheatham says, "You'd have to work hard to find it." The main thing, he says, is that kids get a chance to do their best. He says the club encourages kids to compete at level of play they are ready for and comfortable in. "Let me put it this way," he says. "I don't believe in speed limits. I think a kid should be able to accomplish whatever he or she can physically do skill-wise, you don't place limits on them in that regard."
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