The SportsTutor provides good training

Jul. 2—There was a lot of activity inside the SportsTutor building last week, as that futsal facility was hosting 77 kids for a summer camp that ended Thursday.

"We usually do one or two a summer, and we have 25-30 kids, but because there's other people who are friends of ours having camps, we've kind of backed off," said Ty Stauffer, owner of SportsTutor. "Everybody's camps have been huge this summer."

This futsal camp was for younger kids up to age 12. There were some futsal scrimmages and some teaching, but it was mainly about having fun. There was some time for kids to get up and introduce themselves, maybe tell jokes if they wanted.

Some kids were veterans of SportsTutor, and they were helping with the younger kids.

"Some of these kids are here 10 months a year, off and on for four or five years, so this is kind of their place," Stauffer said.

The SportsTutor has been in the same building on Alsop Lane since 2004. It has been a futsal training center that has had teams win national championships through the years. Futsal is an indoor game like soccer that is played on a smaller court.

Stauffer was on the 1990 Kentucky Wesleyan College men's basketball NCAA Division II national championship team.

"I was the 13th player on a 12-man team," Stauffer said, laughing. "I was a 100% role player on a really good team."

He also played soccer at KWC and was an accomplished starter. His interest in soccer coaching and teaching grew as his four kids were growing up and playing soccer at different levels.

That helped lead him to futsal and owning SportsTutor.

"We started when my kids were playing at DC Youth Soccer, we would go to the old Splash, some of our teams started practicing on the tennis courts up there," Stauffer said, depending on the conditions of DC Youth practice fields. "In 2006 was the first year we really got into technical futsal training, and we went with that until about 2015-16, we were really focused on futsal."

In recent years SportsTutor has been working with Owensboro United soccer and developed a 360 Program that goes 10 months out of the year and incorporates outdoor, futsal and a spring season. "This program will include two outdoor soccer seasons (fall and spring) and one indoor session (November to February). The 360 program includes defined curriculum to develop your athletes skill, footwork, mental toughness and competitive mindset," is a description on the SportsTutor website.

That came about because there wasn't a lot of training chances for kids under 12 years old.

"We kind of made a deal with United, we would work with them, start this 360 program," Stauffer said. "The last four or five years we kind of lost the focus on futsal, which is nationally where we made our name. We hope to get back in the next little bit get more futsal specific stuff."

Stauffer's lifelong love of basketball attracted him to futsal.

"My passion is futsal because it's so tightly related to basketball," Stauffer said. "Basketball is in my blood, but when we play at a national level, we're pressing, we've got zone defenses, man-to-man defenses, set plays, motion offense, all this stuff. It's a little hard sell, there are no college opportunities, but from a developmental standpoint there's no comparison. The misnomer is training with your feet, which you are, but it's helping your brain be able to recognize situations because it happens so much more frequently. Their understanding is so much better."

Some exceptional high school soccer teams at Daviess County in the mid-2010s had core groups of boys and girls who had been on very strong SportsTutor futsal teams that included national championship winners.

DC's boys won a KHSAA state championship in 2016 with a core of futsal trained players.

Stauffer's daughter, Annie, played for Daviess County girls and she is working at SportsTutor now while she pursues a master's degree in sports social work.

The collaborations going on like the 360 program show that the connections within the soccer community seem strong across all the groups involved.

"The high schools have done a good job of holding camps, there's much more awareness," Stauffer said. "I hope I can speak for everybody, the soccer community as a whole everybody works together. We compete against each other, the schools do or whatever. It kind of goes in phases, we're in a really good situation where everybody is getting along, the recreation leagues, the select leagues, us, everybody is really accepting. We've got really good people."