Soccer is more
than a game.
It's a community.
For the Players Foundation brings soccer to kids across Hampton Roads, with fields, coaches, programming, and gear at the schools, parks, and community sites that need it most. Because every kid deserves a team, a coach, and a place to play.
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.
" A field is just grass and goals until you fill it with coaches, kids, and community. That's where the real work happens.
Where It All Started
For the Players Foundation activated its first site at Blair Middle School in Norfolk — installing goals, painting fields, bringing in equipment, and partnering with the school. This is the day it came together.
Watch the day below.
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.
And every Friday, there's free pickup soccer. Kids ages 3 and up always play free, sorted onto fields with kids their own age, with loaner cleats for anyone who needs a pair. More than 250 players have registered.
To date, the foundation has opened three places to play — Blair Middle School in Norfolk, Alanton Elementary in Virginia Beach, and the Great Neck Pitch, built in partnership with Great Neck Baptist Church — giving more than 2,500 students new access to soccer and community.
Straight From the Kids
When we activated Alanton Elementary's soccer space, the kids said it better than we ever could.
Watch below.
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.
Leadership
Christin grew up playing soccer across Hampton Roads — from local club soccer, to Great Bridge High School, and on to competing at Chowan University. With more than 15 years of coaching experience, she has dedicated her life to helping young players grow on and off the field.
Beyond coaching, Christin has built a career in education, serving as an elementary teacher, behavioral specialist, counselor, and reading interventionist across schools in Currituck, Norfolk, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach.
Her academic background includes a Doctorate in Organizational Leadership, a Post Master's in Applied Behavior Analysis, a Master's in K-12 School Counseling, and a Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education — expertise that shapes the Foundation's work at the intersection of sport, mentorship, and student wellbeing.
Together with her husband Scott and their son Mason, a dedicated soccer player in Virginia Beach schools, Christin has seen firsthand how access to equipment and safe play spaces can transform a child's experience. Her journey inspired her to create a nonprofit committed to ensuring every kid — especially in Title I communities — has a place to play, a coach to learn from, and a community to belong to.
Coaching Staff
The people who make the game happen. Every For the Players coach is someone we know and trust — experienced, vetted, and background-checked, so families can feel confident about who's coaching their kids.
High School Volunteer Staff
High school volunteers who help run our free pickup sessions — setting up the fields, running the games, and keeping play fun and welcoming for every kid who shows up.
The work isn't finished. There are more sites to activate, more coaches to bring in, more kids who deserve a team, a teammate, and time outside doing what they love. If you'd like to help build what's next, we'd love to talk.