There’s a new blind soccer field in KC. It’s ‘empowering,’ ‘liberating’ & so much more
The Kansas State School for the Blind’s soccer field sits between two tall hills.
One of them is steep enough to make you stumble if you, like me, decide not to take the stairs or ramp down to the field. The other hill overlooks the KCK neighborhoods nearby, with the Missouri side’s skyline peeking over trees in the distance.
“We’re one of four known blind soccer fields in the nation,” Leah Enright, the KSSB’s blind sports coordinator said. “There’s a couple on the coasts, but we are the only Midwest blind soccer field.”
It’s a small field, too. A blind soccer pitch is typically about 22 yards wide and 44 yards long, enough to accommodate just five players per side, not including the goalkeeper. KSSB’s blind soccer field is a bit smaller at 40 by 18.
Meanwhile, long sides of the field are lined with plastic white sidewalls, with goals the size of what you’d find in hockey. All of it is enclosed by a rust-red track.
“Because our campus is on a hill, this was really the only place that we could figure out where to put a blind soccer field,” Enright said.
The field opened just a few months ago, at the beginning of April. And it’s already opened countless doors since.
Getting a move on
To fund the field’s installation, Enright approached Sporting Kansas City’s philanthropy arm, the Victory Project, with a vision to make Kansas City not just a soccer city, but a “soccer capital for all.”
They gifted KSSB over $32,000 and the field was finished in a little over a year, starting in summer 2023.
Since then, the field has seen a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring Sporting players and a member of the U.S.A. Blind Soccer Men’s National Team; blind soccer clinics for both sighted and visually impaired players; and most recently a national coaching summit run by the U.S. Association of Blind Athletes.
But even on a day-to-day basis, the field is a welcome addition to the well-being of KSSB students, along with other blind and visually impaired people with an interest in the sport.
According to the American Foundation for the Blind, there are about 52,000 blind and visually impaired school-aged children in the U.S. — nearly 70% don’t have access to a physical education program, often due to limited time and resources at schools for the blind in particular.
“It’s not as easy for someone who’s blind and visually impaired to go out for a walk in their neighborhood,” Enright said, particularly for younger people learning how to use a cane or be cautious of their surroundings.
Katie Smith, head coach of the U.S.A. Blind Soccer Men’s National Team, shared a similar sentiment: “A lot of these athletes or youth are told they need to be safe. So they need to be cautious. They learn how to be safe as they move through their environment.
“And so, we’re telling them in this game: Don’t worry.”
What is blind soccer, anyway?
When national team player Noah Beckman first played blind soccer, he said he was surprised by how “dynamic” it was.
“It’s not very modified from traditional soccer,” Beckman said. “You are running around free in space, you are communicating with your teammates, the objectives are the same. It’s a very liberating experience — you’re all over the place.”
What’s largely different about blind soccer is the importance — and obstacle — of noise.
A blind soccer ball is a lot like a futsal ball, which is to say smaller and heavier with a low bounce. It’s also filled with small bells that make a rattling sound so players can locate it.
Meanwhile, everyone on the field wears a blindfold that completely eliminates their vision, which evens out the playing field no matter an athlete’s level of visual impairment. The only player who doesn’t wear a blindfold is the goalkeeper, who is also the only sighted player on the field.
When players want to make a tackle or challenge, they have to yell what Enright, Smith and Beckman all referred to as “the universal word” ... voy (Spanish for: “I’m going”). Players must yell the word or face a penalty. This keeps physical contact from getting overly reckless.
Then, there’s even more yelling.
“Your goalie guides you in the defensive third, you have a coach in the middle third, you have a coach behind your attacking goal. You have other teams’ guides yelling, and you have your teammates,” Beckman said. “Meanwhile, you’re trying to dribble and get around people.”
The learning curve
On the field, Enright told me that “blind soccer is a sport of its own.”
As a former soccer player who’d mostly learned about the game from talking to Beckman and Smith, this made a lot of sense to me — especially after I gave the real thing a try with Enright.
First, Enright showed me how to dribble.
In terms of the basics, it’s good to keep the ball on the insides of your feet, usually going from one foot to the other so that it’s easier to keep track. The ball needed a heavier touch than I thought. Enright told me to be careful of the pouches that held the rattles — those surfaces were harder than the rest of the ball.
“We employ protective technique. I put my forearm in front of my chest and then I have my other arm kind of down around my waist area,” Beckman had told me. “So as I’m running, if there’s someone in my way or someone I don’t hear, at the very least, I only dislocate my shoulder and not hit my face.”
The other trick, according to Beckman, is to keep the ball close with every touch: “It’s like moving along your dog. You don’t want to wake them up, but you want them to be out of the way. Very steadily.”
Then, I learned how to use the walls.
They stood about four feet tall, and according to Smith, are usually the most expensive part of a blind soccer field. Enright said they are also the hardest to recreate in the absence of a field.
“It’s not very safe to just go to an open field and play,” Beckman had told me. “You have the goals, you have trees, you have stuff you can run into. I need to be able to have walls so that if the ball goes to a random place, I’ll be able to get it.”
I put my hand on the surface. Under what felt like an evil Kansas sun on that 90 degree day, I was surprised that the wall didn’t burn. This was another good thing: Not only do players need the wall to keep the ball safely on the field, they also need it to orient where they are on the field by touch.
Enright told me that using the wall was also a practiced skill, one that seemed to take kids longer to get used to — especially in a game that also largely involves running in open space.
Enright and I passed the ball next. In blind soccer, you still try to pass with the inside of your foot. But instead of rearing your foot back for momentum, Enright told me, it’s better to move the ball by pushing it more than really kicking it. It’s a safety measure that tangles everyone’s feet less.
I found Enright’s passes by calling that I was open, Enright confirming she’d pass to me and me then listening for the rattle of the ball. Then I had to make a “V” with both feet as a wall to catch it.
Another learned skill: “You have to think about how to instruct kids to make this shape with their feet,” Enright said. “Obviously, they can trace a ‘V’ with their hands, but how would you translate that to the body?”
When Enright passed, I missed the reception quite often, and I swore I could hear Enright jogging on the grass for overshot passes of my own.
After I received the ball, Enright told me the first thing I should do (as a beginner, at least) was to find the wall. Every time I forgot, of course, I would stumble.
And as many players would agree for the sighted game, the penalty kicks are the fun part.
Before I put the blindfold back on, Enright aligned the ball with the center of the goal and outside the keeper’s box.
“You’d be surprised how quick these go,” she said. “Even if the keepers are sighted, players can shoot faster than they can keep up.”
I was worried about my aim.
Enright grabbed a carabiner from her bag and approached the goal. She tapped one post: “Left.” She tapped the other: “Right.” She went behind the net, directly in the middle: “Center.”
Then, I put one hand atop the ball. This would keep it from getting lost as I made the kick — no stutter step nonsense here.
I lifted my hand and, like a pass, pushed the ball as quickly as I could toward the goal (I couldn’t tell you if this was the right shooting technique or not).
Somehow, I got what I wanted and hit the lower left corner.
A soccer capital for all
If I didn’t have any of the muscle memory I’d picked up from my time in sighted soccer, I think I would have done very poorly on that field. But even then, it was as Enright and Smith had mentioned.
Blind soccer is a sport of its own. It’s not something lesser than sighted soccer, and it’s not a source of what Smith alluded to as “inspiration porn,” narratives that are often written over athletes with disabilities.
These athletes don’t play in spite of, they play because they love the game. They play because they love this game. They play because they want be aggressive and creative on the ball, and to trust their teammates and enjoy their company.
“The athletics can be so empowering, not just from the nuts and bolts of kicking around a soccer ball, but the conversations you have with your teammates and your coach, the burgers after practice,” Beckman said, “The sense of well-being from having done physical activity. I can’t stress enough how important and game changing that has been for me.”
Meanwhile, in Kansas City, Enright dreams of the field’s future.
For one, she would love to see the Current stop by and try the game.
“I feel that they’re very inclusive and this would be a really good partnership, for them to learn more about blind soccer,” Enright said.
But more generally, Enright aims to extend the “liberation” that Beckman had experienced to as many potential young athletes as possible.
“I think by having the field on our campus, we’ll be able to teach them that they’re capable of being independent and traveling and moving safely, making their own decisions.” Enright said, “Gaining confidence on the field is huge for them to be able to apply that to other areas in their lives.”
The Kansas State School for the Blind’s fall semester is set to start this month. And waiting for students is its new blind soccer field, sitting between two tall hills.
