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Champs turned coaches World Cup players teaching at youth soccer camp
Posted: Monday August 09, 1999 05:35 PM
HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. (AP) -- Nearly 300 girls aged 9 to 18 are dribbling, shooting and passing with the best of them this week at a five-day soccer camp featuring members of the world champion U.S. women's soccer team. The girls are attending the third annual Championship Soccer Camp co-sponsored by women's team co-captain Julie Foudy. The $195 camp gives the girls the opportunity to learn more about soccer from the women who helped inspire them to lace up cleats in the first place. Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly and Tisha Venturini have joined Foudy on the fields this year, and they are doing more than just standing around and signing autographs. "We thought this would just be a promo deal where they will have all the Douglas County coaches teach, and the gold-medal girls would just show up and then be gone," said Kyle Dufford, whose daughter Lindsay, 13, has attended all three camps. "We were surprised when we found that they were the coaches, working the drills with the girls, out there the whole time. They treat the girls really well -- they obviously are the best-known soccer players in the world and they treat these kids just like a coach would treat kids." Foudy, 28, said her and her teammates' work with the aspiring stars is part of being solid role models, a responsibility the world champions take seriously. "We take pride that there is this team of role models for these girls. It makes their dreams more tangible and their goals realistic," she said. "That's what this camp is also about, most important giving the girls a role model to meet. We want them to badger us with questions about everything."
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