Before the Chillicothe Lady Hornets soccer club racked up 151 wins, two district titles and two sectional appearances. Before the Hornets soccer club compiled 155 wins, four district titles, four sectional appearances and a quarterfinal showing. Before children in Chillicothe and surrounding towns had immediate access to soccer. The sport was an after-thought in this area of Missouri.
Now, after 15 years of Chillicothe High School soccer, and over two decades of the Green Hills Soccer Club the man who developed soccer in the town will be recognized for his dedication following the Lady Hornets varsity soccer game against Bishop LeBlond on Monday night at 5.
At the time when soccer was sparse, Dr. Roger Brick was the father of Meredith, Madeline and Betsy; three young girls who loved to play the sport.
As he watched his girls affinity for the sport grow, he said that he realized a problem evolving. There wasn’t a level above the “follow the cloud of dust” style for them to advance to without driving 75 miles. And even then, the family was already driving to Brookfield for every practice or game.
As a chiropractor of over 40 years, Dr. Brick is a natural problem solver. He set out to create a recreational league for children, but he would need some help.
Dr. Brick mentioned that the process to get the recreational league started was not an easy path.
But, in the late 1990s, a board of seven other motivated parents and Dr. Brick went to work concocting a plan that would later transform in to the creation of the Green Hills Soccer Club (GHSC), and multiple soccer fields across from Danner Park.
The process included raising funds for capital, working with local government to carve out space, communicating with other area soccer clubs to gain better knowledge of formatting, and of course piquing interest among children and their families.
The first summer, Dr. Brick estimated that over 300 children were involved in Green Hills; a smash hit. According to the Green Hills Soccer Club website, only four percent of the players that season had previous soccer experience.
Having created opportunities for so many area youths, Brick now realized a new conundrum on the horizon; all of these childhood soccer dreams would screech to a halt if Chillicothe High School did not adopt soccer programs.
That became his newest focus.
Just like his work with GHSC, he was aided by the guidance of a committee of individuals from the soccer club. Dr. Brick would spend his days mending the bodies of Missourians, and his nights calculating a formulated proposal for the high school.
The Chillicothian would go as far as to drive to other high schools around northwest Missouri to ask soccer coaches and athletic directors for guidance on how to format such teams at the high school level.
As you might imagine, the journey was a difficult one. Not only was finding funds to power the project a challenge, but there was initially some push back from the community, too.
Girls soccer is a spring sport and the Lady Hornets don’t share Jerry Litton Memorial Stadium with another team. But the boys team was proposed, and currently is, a fall sport that coincides with the football season. Skeptics thought that soccer would pull players away from the football roster.
Brick and his committee forged ahead with their plan and in 2007, Hornets soccer took the field for the first time.
This year, the Green Hills Soccer Club is fielding 23 teams across various age categories and the Lady Hornets soccer team is currently in 2nd place in class 2A District 8 and is a win away from their 9th 10+ win season in 15 years. The last campaign for the Hornets soccer team saw them go 20-4, a record for wins, and reach the state quarterfinals for the first time.
With the success of both GHSC and Chillicothe soccer, Dr. Brick says it is, “certainly satisfying,”.
The hard work that Dr. Roger Brick put in intentionally helped build programs for soccer-loving youth in Chillicothe forever, but unintentionally, Dr. Brick built a legacy for himself and his family in Chillicothe that will be commemorated on Monday night.
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