Participants at the Farmersville Youth Soccer Camp learned dribbling, passing and kicking drills and also played competitive games and enjoyed a Slip N Slide. Photo by David Wolman / C&S Media
By David Wolman
Barrett Clark has seen interest in soccer grow significantly during his first three seasons as the head coach of the Farmersville boys’ soccer team, both at the youth level and at the high school level.
When he first came to Farmersville four years ago after coaching at Rockwall, there were 35 to 40 boys and girls that participated in a youth summer soccer camp.
Fast-forward to last week and turnout is now at 135 kids. Clark credited the Farmersville Youth Soccer Association for helping to grow the game in Farmersville. He also credited the success of the high school programs has helped increase interest. Farmersville has made the playoffs in each of the last two seasons while the Lady Farmers had their best season in team history in 2024 when they came within one win of earning their first-ever postseason appearance.
“It’s a growing soccer program,” Clark said. “We’re excited to see it grow, which is a blessing. Farmersville is a place that people want to come to play soccer.”
The turnout was so big that two regulation-size fields were needed to host last week’s camp. The younger kids in grades kindergarten through third grade played on the auxiliary field while those boys and girls entering grades four through nine competed on the field inside Farmers Stadium.
“With the growth of soccer in Farmersville, I think that we kind of expected to have a big group this year,” said Farmersville head girls soccer coach Rebecca Christ. “We’ve had a lot of success recently and we expect it to grow. We planned to have enough coaches to help us out. That’s been the key, which is to have good coaches come in and help the kids.”
Each day, Clark and Christ, with the help of current and former players and other coaches, began the camp with a warm-up, followed by ball-control, passing and striking drills, while the older kids also worked on a possession drill.
“If we start them now and teach them the correct way to do things, they’ll be ready for high school, and then we can be able to get them into some more advanced concepts,” Christ said.
One of the highlights for the campers was a Slip N Slide that they got to slide on last Thursday following the conclusion of soccer drills.
“The kids were fired up for the Slip N Slide,” Clark said. “They were ready to go.”
Of course, soccer was the primary focus of the camp and Christ is hopeful that the campers will continue to build off what they learned and one day play for Farmersville High School.
At one point during the camp, Christ stopped what she was doing and looked around. She was just in awe of how many kids were playing soccer.
“I looked around at one point and said, ‘how exciting is this for Farmersville soccer,’” she said. “It is something that made me happy, something that made us happy as soccer coaches. We’re excited about the future of Farmersville soccer.”
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