Inspiring Hope In The Eastside
INSPIRING HOPE IN THE EASTSIDE
BY Mario Gonzalez
A good coach can make good players, but a great coach can transform their community and create hope for a better tomorrow. That is exactly what Coach Mario Gonzalez is doing with the Legends Futsal program.
“To me, sports are the best prevention for any negativity in the youth,” said Coach Mario.
Initially conceived as MACSA Futsal in 1996, Legends Futsal has gone on to see many players achieve success in futsal and in their personal and professional lives.
As a modified version of futból, futsal is played on a court smaller than a standard soccer pitch and comprises two 20-minute rounds. Each team consists of 5 players, including the goalkeeper. Even the playing ball itself is smaller than a typical soccer ball.
Having sent the most players of any futsal club in the country to the national team, Legends has thrived under Coach Mario’s dedicated leadership, including 115 titles— the most of any Futsal club in the United States. Internationally renowned within the futsal community, their home stadium, located at Capitol Park, is situated in the heart of the Eastside.
However, despite their successes, the team has faced its share of challenges. Coach Mario advocated for the installation of futsal courts in Capitol Park, and the community successfully secured funding for this project. Still, when he tried to pitch the installation of lights in the park, engineers said it was “too expensive to be done.”
Capitol Park is often a dangerous place to be in. “There’s so much negativity going on [in the park],” said Coach Mario. “Some of them are lethal.”
Coach expressed how difficult it is to secure funding for amenities like an indoor gym, which can cost up to $20,000 per year to rent for sports teams.
Despite challenges like these, Legends Futsal continues to promote healthy players with strong minds.
“We treat the player as a player first,” Coach Mario said. Not every Legends futsal player is an Eastsider, but “a very high percentage” of them are. Coach Mario recalled taking the team to their very first tournament in Anaheim, where they were exposed to “brass rails and bling and shiny chandeliers” at their hotel. The goal of being there was to participate in the futsal tournament, but for Coach Mario, the team’s exposure to a luxurious hotel was a win for him, as it expanded the players' perspective on what was possible for themselves.
“They have that hope,” said Coach Mario. “They know they’re playing for a globally-known club.” Since then, Coach Mario has also taken the team to Spain, Scotland, and Puerto Rico.
All of the team’s coaches do it out of passion for the sport and the community. “We don’t have any type of coaches that coach as a main source of income,” he added. Coach Mario also noted that other coaches run their teams more like a business. Legends will lose good players to well-funded teams because they can afford to pay for them to play. But Coach Mario feels that they lose access to the resources he provides.
“They’re not being taught the same way,” he said. “We’re not just kicking the ball.”
Futsal was introduced to MACSA soon after its opening in 1995, and little by little, due to its high popularity, Coach Mario began hosting more futsal and soccer days in the gym. He would catch kids causing trouble and try to provide constructive resources, acting as a mentor for many of them. He still uses many of the same resources to this day.
“He would catch kids causing trouble and try to provide constructive resources, acting as a mentor for many of them. He still uses many of the same resources to this day. ”
When MACSA started losing funding and trust within the community, one thing was sure– futsal in the Eastside was not going anywhere. Parents and kids alike told Coach Mario, “We don’t want to play for anyone else.”
And with that, the futsal program broke away from MACSA in 2011 and rebranded into Legends Futsal.
The Legends Futsal program has a legacy that is difficult to ignore. Parents who were once in the program also enrolled their children in it.
Coach Mario also regularly receives texts and calls from previous Legends players. Before the interview, he got a text from a young woman playing for a team in Portland, Oregon: “‘Thanks Coach, you know, I really appreciate you… One of the reasons I’m here… was because of the lessons I learned [from you].”