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Jan. 4, 2018. Bullard Knights take a 2-1 win at home against the Sanger Apaches in the league opener in Fresno.
As told by the Central Valley Ghostriderz
Nikki Cornell leads the Central Valley Ghostriderz Power Soccer program.
Nikki Cornell, founder–
His name was Jordan Rutledge. I met him when I started working for a local school district. He was very competitive and he enjoyed playing sports. I started asking around to see if there were some sports that maybe that he could participate in because he was using a power wheelchair.
When I found out that he liked power soccer, the first question I asked was ‘what is power soccer?’ I had no idea what that is, so I sort of went on this quest to figure out what that sport was.
Eventually I was put in contact with some people up in the Bay Area who have a very large following and very involved in the sport, involved in the United States Power Soccer Association– which is our overseeing organization nationally. He helped me to start some clinics here in Fresno, so that we could bring out players and see if there was interest for a team
Frank Cornell, head coach–
My wife Nikki started the league. Nikki’s a wonderful person, but she’s a dancer, not a coach. They’re competitive kids. They want to win period, so they wanted a coach to coach them to win.
Alex, powersoccer athlete–
I’ve been playing this for– I believe this is my fourth season. We came out here one time and it was– our jaws dropped because it looked really fun.
Nikki Cornell––
It just took time. We knew that there were three or four players who were very interested in coming out to play and there was just a big learning curve for myself, being not very involved in soccer and not really understanding the sport very much.
Also being new to nonprofit and adaptive sports, it was just really sort of trying to surround ourselves with people who could help us, who had already done things like this that came alongside us and then kind of showed us what they were doing.
It also took donations of power wheelchairs and materials, because at that time we were making plastic adjustable soccer guards for the chairs. So we needed to get our hands on materials, have somebody who is able to cut the material for us and help us make the guards.
And so, it was just sort of word-of-mouth, really asking people ‘hey do you know somebody who can do this, hey can you help us do this?’
There were a lot of people that came alongside me to really help me and encourage me and give me kind of a broader understanding of what we were trying to accomplish with the team.
*edited for clarity
As told by Alex Gutierrez
After 10 years of coaching in various places around the Valley, Sanger’s Alex Gutierrez came back to his hometown as head coach of the Sanger boys soccer team. Gutierrez talked about his goals for the program.
Growing up in Sanger, you see how much everybody gets excited for soccer. When you’re a kid, you hear the parents yelling and cheering and rooting and you see the kids loving the game.
What we’ve been trying to do is, kind of bring that whole soccer experience from the ground up. We really want to see more kids getting involved in the game, so that they see themselves as future Apaches and wanting to play for the varsity team at some point and just having that mindset and kind of building Sanger soccer from the ground up as a community for sure.
We’re seeing that they are growing as soccer players, seeing that they’re understanding the game every day a little bit more.
We have about five sophomores and three or four freshmen who play a lot of minutes in our games. We’re looking at, not this one year particularly, but we’re looking at a three, four-year program where we’re competing at the highest levels against every team to succeed beyond the field, set high goals for themselves– ‘I want to go to college, I want a good a good job, I want to have a successful relationship, I want to be a good person in life.’
What we’re doing is a representation of what we hope they do in life for themselves.
That value of learning is a value that I hope that every one of our players has. That’s how we’re doing this.
I want to recognize the coaching staff for all the work that they do. I’m one person. Every one of them is taking it serious and pushing their teams. It pushes me to wanna work harder because they’re working as hard as they are. I’ve been very happy with the work they are putting in.
Soccer in the Valley has never been respected as well as it should be. We have the Fuego who have been doing some exciting stuff, we have the colleges– Fresno City the state champions–, UC Merced has a great program, Clovis Community.
I’m very much enjoying myself right now, even competing against great teams. It has been a great ride.
*edited for clarity