Strikers Fox Valley travel soccer hits 25-year milestone

Strikers Fox Valley is celebrating its 25th year of club soccer in the area, withstanding economic downturns, facility challenges and an increasingly crowded market for travel soccer.

The Strikers’ president, Pat Feulner, has been there for all but one of the Strikers’ 25 years, and considers the program’s longevity one of its greatest assets.

“In soccer, it’s very similar to business – you build your résumé as you go,” Feulner said. “It’s kind of funny to think of it that way, but realistically as you play in these showcase tournaments year after year and as the tournaments get to know you and know your club and the level of competition you play at, your résumé builds. We’ve built our résumé now to where we’re regionally and nationally known.”

Nonetheless, the Tri-Cities remains the Strikers’ home base and most fertile ground for attracting players. Feulner said Strikers founders Ed Felber, Kip Deist and the late John Markuson set up the club to give Batavia and Geneva youth soccer players an alternative to what was then called St. Charles Soccer Club (now Campton United).

The Strikers quickly branched out, though, and now many of the club’s estimated 600 players on 36 teams come from throughout the Tri-Cities and surrounding area, with a substantial chunk of players funneling in from DuPage County. The Strikers have age group teams ranging from 8 to 23.

In the Strikers’ early years, the organization used a hodgepodge of local fields – including Primrose Farm Park in St. Charles, Good Templar and Burgess Norton parks in Geneva and Engstrom Park in Batavia – for training sessions.

The Strikers, though, have settled in for the past 10 years at their indoor training facility on Kirk Road in Geneva and outdoor set-up at East Side Sports Complex in St. Charles, while still using smaller fields as needed, especially at the younger age groups.

A core group of longtime Strikers stalwarts – including Feulner, director of coaching Kevin Ward, technical director Greg Fink, facilities director Dave King, goalkeepers coach Bill Andrews and others prominent instructors, such as Matt Polovin and the husband-wife duo of Jim and Amy Winslow, have allowed the Strikers to function with a stable base.

The Strikers have more than 80 alumni competing collegiately at more than 50 colleges, ranging from Division I to lower levels, according to Mary Strauss, the program’s marketing director.

“I think our training philosophy and curriculum we have really stands out in that our players end up being successful, however you want to define successful,” Ward said. “I think you’ll find most of the top soccer players in the area have links back to us on both the boys side and girls side.”

Ward said he takes pride in the Strikers’ willingness to nurture players over the long haul rather than expecting too much in the early stages of a player’s development. He said the Strikers’ well-rounded approach yields favorable results.

“It’s pretty easy to see that we take kind of a comprehensive or holistic view of a soccer player, probably as close to an academy situation as you can get,” Ward said. “We have classroom settings, we have the field, we also have what we call our strength and core areas that really help benefit our kids from age 13 years and up and help build the total player.”

Feulner, former high school girls soccer coach at St. Charles East and Metea Valley, said the Strikers had between 800 and 900 players in the program about five years ago but considers the current, program-wide head count a healthier scenario.

“We were outgrowing our means,” Feulner said. “We just didn’t have enough [resources] to train that many teams, to find qualified, good coaches for that many teams. It was a real struggle, so we actually cut back a little bit on what we were doing. The economy helped us out a little bit because people were obviously spending their money on other things than traveling soccer, but we’re right around the level where we really need to be. We operate best around 600 to 700 kids and 36 to 40 teams or so.”

That does not take into account one of the Strikers’ newer initiatives, the Lewis Academy, which reaches out to players as young as age 5.

Gina Crampton is the mother of Strikers defender Kyle Crampton, a freshman at Geneva High School. The family moved from Utah in 2009 and after surveying the local soccer landscape for a couple years, decided the Strikers would be an ideal fit for Kyle.

“For me, it was just an impression I had of them as a team and organization,” Gina Crampton said. “When we showed up to play a Striker team, they always seemed to really play well together. They were an impressive bunch. … As a parent, I always was just impressed with the level of play when we played a Strikers team. It was always kind of intimidating to me as a parent like ‘Oh, we’re playing a Strikers team today.’ “