Stebbins steps away from soccer

By COLIN GAISER

The Daily Inter Lake

Hidden away in the Flathead Valley and surrounded by farmland on all sides, Mike Stebbins held Flathead Soccer Camp on his lush property for two decades.

But in a recent open letter to attendees and supporters, Stebbins shared the news that he would no longer be holding the camp.

Stebbins — a recently retired orthodontist — said he feels like it is time to hang up the whistle. The camp has attracted fewer kids in recent years while the Flathead offers more summer options for local soccer players.

“I think there’s plenty of good people to take over,” Stebbins said, citing the Flathead Rapids camp in Whitefish and high-school coaches putting on mini-camps throughout the summer.

Still, when Stebbins made his announcement, a parent told him that he’s “kept soccer alive for 20 years” in the Flathead. Stebbins is not so sure about that, but his efforts certainly helped drive the game’s popularity here.

Stebbins started the camp with friend Billy McNicol, who played professional soccer in his native Scotland before starting a coaching career in the United States. McNicol coached for the L.A. Galaxy, various U.S. national teams and is currently an assistant coach for the Cal Poly men’s team.

When they started Flathead Soccer Camp 22 years ago, it was the only real soccer camp in the Flathead.

“To fly to California or Washington or other places, it would cost these kids $1,500 back then to go to camps. And now it’s a lot more than that,” Stebbins said.

Stebbins and McNicol held the camp south of town near Kalispell’s waste treatment facility for the first two years. But it was difficult to secure field time from the city.

According to McNicol, the idea for the current fields came to fruition 20 years ago when he and Stebbins were sitting on Stebbins’s back porch enjoying a cool summer evening.

“I said, ‘You know what, Mike? If I look hard enough I swear I can see two beautiful soccer fields out there.’ It was a light bulb moment.”

They immediately went to plot the space and found there was ample room for two soccer fields between Stebbins’ house and Holt Stage Road.

Sod was too expensive, so Stebbins planted the seed for the land. Irrigating the land came naturally to him, as Stebbins grew up on a farm four miles south of his current property.

Before Stebbins smoothed out the large pile of dirt brought in by LHC Construction, Stebbins’ neighbors were very curious. And Stebbins naturally had some fun with them.

“‘What are you doing over there,’ they would ask me. ‘Oh I’m building a trailer park, I’m gonna have 50 trailers over there,’ I said.”

But soon two beautiful soccer fields emerged, and the name for the new complex was a no-brainer: McNicol Meadows.

“They’re as nice of a training facility as any in the state of Montana,” McNicol said.

Stebbins said the camp brought in over 3,000 kids throughout its time as well as coaches from around the world from countries such as India, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia.

Stebbins “never took a dime” running the camp, which is a non-profit corporation. Instead the proceeds went toward paying coaches for the camp and reinvesting in the Flathead soccer community, like when Stebbins purchased goals for Kalispell’s KidSports Complex.

“You want to put everything back into the community,” Stebbins said.

Most coaches were not necessarily coming for the pay, but for the chance to spend two weeks enjoying the Flathead Valley and Glacier National Park. Stebbins also took the coaches rafting every year.

When David Kemp, a retired coach from the English Premier League, became available, Stebbins did not think he could afford Kemp’s services. But Kemp accepted a lower fee for the chance to spend two weeks golfing in the Flathead.

Stebbins and McNicol also put together the first boys travel team in the state of Montana when Stebbins’ son was a teenager. Stebbins helped coach the squad from 1998-2001 and the team won five tournaments outside the state of Montana.

“We proved that kids from Montana, if they applied themselves, if they worked hard and trained, they could compete with teams from California” and other places, McNicol said.

McNicol also took the team on a tour of Scotland and England.

“Some of these kids had never been out of Montana, never had a passport, never been on a plane,” Stebbins said.

Since that time, Flathead Soccer Camp has helped develop numerous kids who would become successful high school and college soccer players and coaches, some of whom returned to coach at the camp in later years.

“Mr. Stebbins couldn’t have been kinder, couldn’t have been more generous,” McNicol said. “He stayed in it well after his son was gone.”

McNicol said he wants people to know that the Flathead soccer scene “is going to be just fine.”

Stebbins is not going to replace the fields with alfalfa or more open space for his old horses. He will keep the fields open for squads to practice on in the spring and for teams from Montana Academy, Summit Academy and Stillwater Christian School to play on throughout the year.

And Stebbins himself? He will get two more well-earned weeks of relaxation.