On my travels watching and playing the world’s game around the globe (England, South Africa, Costa Rica, the USA, etc.), I have learned one beautiful truth about the sport: soccer brings people together. Nowhere is this more evident than at the venue of one of the largest and most magnificent pick-up soccer games in the country: the turf fields at Ohio State University.
I’d first like to make it clear that I am no stranger to pick-up soccer. I’ve played with a couple friends during lunchtime at Roosevelt, with up to thirty fellow students at the thrice-weekly pickup games at Whitman, with around fifty guys at Green Lake on summer nights, even with 11 Ecuadorians in a hockey rink in Minneapolis. I thought I knew what there was to know about the pickup scene. Which is why my jaw dropped when I arrived at the turf fields, in the shadow of the mighty Ohio Stadium, and saw five full fields set up with over a hundred people playing in several games across the complex.
I spoke to Jeff, one of the more regular attendees, to learn more about the place. One of the first things he told me was that the fields themselves were a testament to Ohio State’s use of soccer to unite the Columbus community. While the fields, built two years ago, are used for many University activities, they also contain ten regulation goals and eight smaller goals, all of which are provided by Ohio State. In addition, the school cleans them, lights them, and, during the school year, rents out equipment like soccer balls to everyone who comes to play (not just OSU students).
The players are also incredibly diverse, and from all over the city. Jeff said that he’s seen as many as 300 people and 13 different ethnicities at the fields in one night, and heard as many as seven tongues in a game. I didn’t see quite that many on the night I went to play, but there were still more players playing pick-up than I’ve ever seen in one place, as well as a wide variety of nationalities, ages, and languages.
As can be guessed from the huge and diverse crowd I witnessed, the pickup soccer scene is big in Columbus, and the turf fields are known city-wide as the premier place for the game. Not only is it the most well-attended (in addition to the large numbers when I arrived, more were still showing up when I left at 9pm), but, according to Jeff, it also was “hands down” the highest quality. While there were some who were not that great and some who were average, many were quite skilled, and a couple were downright amazing. The players here are good enough that teams in local leagues will sometimes bring their teams to the turf fields to practice against the players there, and occasionally even ex-Crew players will come by to play. But don’t think for a minute that this means that the turf fields are uninviting. Unless you are playing in a serious game (and you will know if you are), all the players are quite encouraging; generous with their praise for good play, and quick to pick their teammates up when they make a mistake.
What is also nice to hear about the turf fields is that they don’t just bring people in the game of soccer; they help bring people together after the cleats have been taken off, too. As Jeff mentioned, every pickup player in the city knows about the turf fields, and chances are that most have played there at some point. Thus, the fields become a good place to make friends with people through a common love of soccer. Jeff, who isn’t a Columbus native himself, has met many of his Columbus friends through playing with them here and then meeting up with them afterwards. On any given night, Jeff will see at least 12 people that he knows (and often not the same 12) playing the game they love. To emphasize this, he points out a man playing in one of the games nearer to us, and says that he sees him there every single time that he comes here, a man he would likely not have know without the turf fields pickup games.
This scene of friendly unity in Columbus is a sight to behold, and I would recommend that any soccer player who is spending a night in Columbus check it out. While the uniqueness of the turf fields are a result of input from the community and the University working together, none of it would be possible without a beautiful game to bring them together. Soccer provides this common linking point in Columbus just as it does throughout the world.
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