COMMUNITY JOURNALISM: Soccer Mom's tale

By Sue Stannard, community contributor

CEDAR RAPIDS - Like many soccer players in Eastern Iowa, my son, Kylie Stannard, started playing soccer at a young age.

Little did we know that he and others in that age group were the beginning of a growing new sport to this region.

Like many other parents, I knew nothing about soccer. I volunteered to be an assistant coach because I needed a head coach to tell me what to do. I did know about being a single mother of two, and I knew that sports could be a positive factor in my children's lives. Kylie loved soccer from the very beginning, and I wanted him to pursue his passion for the sport.

When we moved from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids in 1985, I needed to find a soccer team for him to join to help him make the transition to a new school, new kids and new home. Thanks to Mac and Sheila Young there was a soccer league available through the YMCA.

The male soccer coaches we met while Kylie was in grade school and middle school were his mentors and provided good male influence and leadership. They supplied the discipline that came from the sport, the sportsmanship, and the male bonding/ribbing.

Around 1989 or 1990, the first select/traveling soccer club in Cedar Rapids was created by Mick Steffans and coached by Tom Pugh and Steve Kleckner. Mick moved here from Michigan and opened several Little Caesar's pizza restaurants in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area. He, Tom, and Steve all had sons that were Kylie's age and also good soccer players.

A core group of “all-star” players were formed from the top YMCA teams to create the new Little Caesar's Soccer Club. After a couple of successful years, Mick helped bring in Homer Screws, a former professional soccer player. Screws remains a vital presence in this community today and has helped soccer grow immensely in the state.

There were no official soccer fields outside of the schools, so soccer was played in the local parks. My son's soccer team uniform consisted of a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Their team gained skills, confidence and teamwork, which lead to a State Cup Championship at the U-14 age group. This blossomed into more invitations to statewide and regional tournaments

Individual players like my son were invited to join Olympic Development teams, which took them to a higher level of play, understanding of the game and introduced them to other players in this region, enhancing their player and coaching network.

Through Coach Screws' connections and Kylie's efforts and determination to play Division I soccer, he was offered a “recruited walk-on” position at Creighton University. He was part of four MVC conference championships and four trips to the NCAA tournament. After graduation, with a double major in accounting and finance, he took a shot at the “real world,” but his love of soccer overruled the business world and he chose to pursue coaching full time.

Kylie started as a volunteer assistant coach at Northern Illinois University, then was hired as a full-time assistant coach. He enrolled in graduate school, coached boys' club teams and recruited. He completed his master's degree in Sports Management and met and married his wife, who was also attending graduate school and a volunteer coach for the women's' track and cross country team.

Michigan State hired Kylie in 2009 as their top assistant men's soccer coach. He is involved in every aspect of running a Division I program that has reached the NCAA tournament twice since he was hired.