BYU Players To Start U.S. Soccer Revolution

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    By Sebastian Dunlap

    While walking the streets of Malaga, Spain, on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BYU men?s soccer player Travis Winn noticed something. That something was ?calle.?

    ?Calle? (pronounce kai-yay) means street in Spanish. What Winn noticed was not the streets, but what was happening on them. Kids of all ages were playing soccer, but not a soccer he had known.

    ?Kids were playing three versus three, and four versus four,? Winn said. ?When you play that way you get a lot more touches on the ball, it builds confidence.?

    Winn, an avid student of soccer, saw the potential of ?calle? for American kids and decided to do something about it.

    He gathered together friends, namely Steve Magleby and Morgan Gilliam (also members of the men?s soccer team) and Klane Harding and made them partners. These guys understood what ?calle? could do for the world of soccer in America and recognized that Winn was on to something good.

    ?I thought this was an amazing idea,? Gilliam said.

    Together they started a company, appropriately named Calle, with a goal to build street soccer and the playing of it everywhere through marketing, innovation and wearable soccer gear.

    The first sales for the company came in August of 2006, and so began their quest for a soccer revolution,

    The guys at Calle began with an idea to foster confidence in the soccer playing youth through practice.

    ?American soccer will never get to where countries like Brazil, Spain and Argentina are without kids playing more often,? Winn said. ? Calle is supposed to be fun soccer.?

    Winn hopes that the ?fun? of the more relaxed ?pick-up? style of play will mean more play amongst the youth of the country.

    Winn said he believes street soccer is a niche in the American soccer market, or even in the world market, that has not yet been carved out. He and his partners plan to position themselves as the premiere provider of everything calle or street that you could imagine.

    One of their most unique innovations is a more calle ready soccer ball. The Calle management team has worked for months with a manufac-turer overseas to perfect what they deem the absolute must-have street ball.

    The ball is smaller than a regula-tion-size soccer ball, does not have the bounce of a regular ball, and the outer shell is made of rubber to ab-sorb harsh surfaces. The guys at Calle think it is going to be huge.

    ?The ball will be just as big in the United States as the regular ball is,? Gilliam said. ?Kids will have one ball to play out in the streets and one ball to take to practice.?

    The balls will be sold for $40 each.

    The Calle company founders have used contacts at soccer clubs throughout Utah to start the ?calle? revolution. They also have contacts in Washington D.C. and California.

    ?We are trying to promote ?calle? nights, where people get together and just play.? Winn said.

    Both Winn and Gilliam encouraged anyone to do the same.

    ?Go play calle,? Gilliam said.

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