Soccer is more
than a game.
It's a community.

The question wasn't whether kids wanted to play soccer. They did. It was why so many of them weren't.

Dr. Christin Golich had spent years watching it happen. A longtime coach, educator, and behavioral specialist, she'd seen children who loved the game get pushed to the sidelines by things that had nothing to do with talent or desire — the cost of cleats, the absence of a nearby field, the quiet weight of feeling unwelcome in spaces that should have been theirs.

"You'd see the spark in a kid's eye when they kicked a ball for the first time," she says. "And then you'd realize that spark was going to fade because their family couldn't afford the $180 to join a rec league. That's not okay. That was never okay."

So in 2024, she started For the Players Foundation with a stubborn conviction: that access to play shouldn't be a privilege, and that fixing it meant more than installing goals. It meant building the whole experience around them — coaches, programming, teammates, time outdoors, a community that shows up. The space matters. But what happens in the space is the point.

The Work

For the Players Foundation runs three interconnected programs, each designed to remove a specific barrier between Hampton Roads kids and the game — and the community — they deserve.

The More Play Network brings soccer to the places that need it most — schools, parks, churches, and community sites across Hampton Roads. Goals go in. Lines get painted. Equipment arrives. Then come the coaches, the programming, and the time outdoors that turn a quiet corner of a property into a place where kids gather, play, and belong.

The Teammate Project covers the costs families can't — registration fees, uniforms, gear — so no child has to sit out a season because of what their parents can or cannot afford. Every kid deserves a teammate. Every kid deserves a team.

Cleats for Kids collects, sorts, and redistributes gently-used cleats to youth players across Hampton Roads. A pair of cleats sitting in a closet becomes the pair a kid needed to finally take the field.

To date, the foundation has activated two sites — Blair Middle School in Norfolk and Alanton Elementary in Virginia Beach — reaching more than 2,500 students with new access to soccer, coaching, and community.

The Approach

What sets For the Players apart isn't just what the foundation does — it's how it does it. The model is partner-based, not transactional. Every activation starts with a conversation. The foundation doesn't show up with a plan and impose it. It shows up and listens.

"We're guests in these communities," Golich says. "Our job is to bring resources, yes — but also to make sure the people who live there, who send their kids to these spaces, who coach these teams — they're the ones shaping what the site becomes."

That philosophy carries through long after the goals are installed. Where partners want it, the foundation continues to bring coaches, programming, and support — running clinics, hosting community play days, helping families with registration, and growing the relationship over time. Every partnership is shaped by what the site and the kids actually need.