All-Girl Aztec Hearts Pin Hopes on College Soccer
In the macho world of Latino soccer, the Aztec Hearts are a shining exception. Although there are a number of girls’ recreational soccer teams, the Hearts are thought to be the only privately funded, competitive Latina soccer club in central Los Angeles.
The area is home to hundreds of Latino clubs for males of all ages--the significance of which is not lost on the Aztec Hearts, who do not want to hear that soccer is just for boys. “We’re tired of all that macho stuff,” said Cynthia Cornejo, a 16-year-old junior at Garfield High School. “We women can do anything we want to do.”
When the club formed last summer, about 50 girls showed up for tryouts. The number was far more than the 18 slots on the team, but no one was turned away because the club organized a reserve squad, Coach Bart Brown said. The girls are 15 to 18, and they play primarily against teams from the San Fernando and Simi valleys.
The club, which finished its fall season last month, will gear up for spring competition after the girls’ high school soccer season ends in January. Aztec Hearts members play for Garfield, Bell and Rosemead high schools.
The Aztec Hearts and their counterpart boys’ team, the Aztec Heart Surgeons, were started by Brown and several others to integrate Latinos and Latinas into mainstream U.S. soccer programs.
Although Latinos account for 35% of the youths who play soccer in Southern California, Brown said, they make up only 5% of the players in leagues affiliated with the U.S. Olympic Development Program. The program, a system of regional training camps and teams, prepares young people for national and international competition. Many of the directors are also soccer coaches at major colleges.
“The reason we started the club is that Hispanic players traditionally have insulated themselves in Hispanic leagues,” said Brown, who thinks the United States will never become an international soccer power unless it taps into its rich pool of Latino talent. His 15-year-old son, Dylan, plays on the boys’ team.
The main barrier for the Latino clubs has always been money: It takes as much as $40,000 a year to outfit a team, enter tournaments, and pay for travel and lodging.
To fund the boys’ and girls’ Aztec Clubs, the East LA Futbol Foundation was started in January, 1991. The nonprofit organization pays for such things as equipment, food and tutors for club members, many of whom come from low-income families, said C. David Anderson, a Los Angeles tax attorney who is the foundation’s counsel. Anderson’s son, Charlie, 15, plays on the boys’ team.
Anderson said the foundation has raised about $15,000. Contributions have come from individuals and such organizations as the Amateur Athletic Foundation and the Women’s Foundation of Los Angeles.
Leyda Chavez, 15, who came to the United States from Mexico with her family, said the club has given her an opportunity to play soccer and perhaps win a college scholarship. “That’s my dream, to be a teacher or lawyer,” said Chavez, a Paramount High School sophomore.
The club gives high priority to providing tutors and other help to prepare the players for college. One member, Veronica Garcia, 19, left the club earlier this year to attend Dartmouth College.
Maritza Tamayo, 17, a Garfield High School senior with a 4.0 grade-point average, said she plans to join her older sister at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tamayo wants to play soccer there and study “something involving math and science.”
Her younger sister and fellow club member Aracely, 16, said she wants to attend Stanford.
The inexperienced Aztec Hearts squad finished its season with four wins and eight losses, but that did not stop the young women from having fun.
“We’ve come together,” Cornejo said. “Now we feel we are a team.”
