Greg Reck, along with colleagues Bruce Dick (English) and Andres Fisher (Sociology), screened their documentary video on the cultural landscape of youth soccer in the United States, Offside(s): Soccer in Small Town America, on Wednesday, October 7 at 6:00pm, in 114 Belk Library. Shot on a shoestring budget funded by a small grant from Appalachian, the story begins with three fathers (Greg, Bruce, and Andres) who volunteer to coach their daughters' local soccer team and progresses through an ever-expanding examination of the nature of organized youth soccer. Using the local community as a case study, the video is partly an historical retrospective, partly cultural analysis, and partly a human story of parents turned soccer coaches and the children they get to know.

The focus of the cultural analysis centers on an examination of the nature and powerful role of club soccer teams in shaping the cultural landscape of player participation and development. Club soccer is a vast national network, highly organized, bureaucratized, and expensive to operate. This bureaucracy controls U.S. youth soccer from individual access through individual success. Players and their families must bear the burden of time and money to participate in the club structure, effectively limiting participation to those with adequate financial resources. As a result, soccer in this country is culturally anchored in the middle and upper classes, a stark and significant contrast with the working class milieu of football in most of the rest of the world. A related issue is that of the influx of Hispanic immigrants into the country, many of whom bring their futbol passions, skills, and soccer balls into the small town landscape. Yet, these often talented players are prevented from participating in the club structure due to inadequate family resources and/or due to the discomfort of participating in a cultural context comprised of mainly white, middle and upper class families. These themes are depicted in the documentary by examining relevant local stories.

They plan to submit their 70 minute video to North Carolina Public Television, first-time independent documentary film festivals, and professional academic meetings.