Goalkeepers Put Hands to Charity

By Ian Lyle

North Little Rock - Members of Arkansas Central Soccer Association held an event September 21, 2019 to raise charitable funds for Arkansas Children’s Hospital and bring the community together by playing soccer.

The first annual Keeper Wars event took place at the Burns Park soccer complex and resulted in an overall attendance of nearly 40 people, including spectators and competitors. In addition to the number of attendance at Keeper Wars, the event raised funds exceeding $1000 to benefit the local hospital. The tournament was collaborated with Arkansas Children’s Hospital by ARCSA board members Lisa Parker, Mark McIntosh, Mason Shuffield, league member Kevin Paletskih, and volunteer Zach Hall. The event is said to become a yearly fundraiser.

One collaborator, Mason Shuffield, stated the charitable and communal goals of the event saying “It started as having a fun little competition, but it’s not only about putting on the competition; it’s about supporting Arkansas Children’s and then bringing the community together.”

As for the competition’s focus on charity, Shuffield claimed “At this point, we’re tied to Children’s. We definitely want to take care of them. We’ll continue to stick with Arkansas Children’s to support and raise money for them while we can.”

The competition was a bracket-style tournament, drawing 16 competitors playing in a goalkeeping position. The objective of the game was for goalkeepers to play against one another and compete for first place. Playing one-on-one, goalkeepers can score and save the ball more than they would in a traditional soccer match. “We have tournaments for all of the field players, but there’s nothing really goalkeeper-specific” Kevin Paletskih said. He expressed that there is not many opportunities for goalkeepers to play due to other positions on the field such as forward, midfield, and defense. Paletskih showed excitement in saying that the ARCSA organization has “another charity to support and gives something to the goalkeepers.”

The tournament resulted in a top 3 standing in results of the brackets, with the competitors in first, second, and third place receiving trophies for each place. Not only were trophies gifted to the top 3 contestants, but a commendatory ‘Swag Bag’ was given to each person who competed in the tournament including numerous gifts from local organizations and businesses. Each bag included hats, coffee flasks, t-shirts, stickers, pins, playing cards, tickets to local soccer matches, and coupons for free massages and free ice cream.

The orchestrators of the event showed gratitude to all competitors and donors as well as local organizations, and businesses who helped sponsor Keeper Wars. “We had a lot of sponsors that really helped make this a cool event for all the contestants and who contributed to Arkansas Children’s and that’s really what it’s about. It’s bringing everybody together, full community for the love of soccer” Mason Shuffield said.

Keeper Wars was sponsored by Guillermo’s Gourmet Coffee, Little Rock Rangers, SWEAT Sauna, Shake’s Frozen Custard, Soccer Post, Wolves FC, 360fit, Michelle Moore LMT, Arkansas State Soccer Association, and Arkansas United Soccer Club.