WEST LOGAN — Could soccer be the next big sport in Logan County?

Two Logan County residents think it might be.

Eugene Mazzochi and Roger Toney attended a recently Logan County Board of Education meeting to propose starting soccer programs in county schools.

"We think it's about time soccer hits our high schools," Mazzochi said.

According to Mazzochi, more than 60 kids played soccer in a Lincoln County league last fall and more than 80 played in the league during the spring season. The league plays at Ranger.

"The Lincoln County Guyan River Soccer League expects 100 players from Logan County to play in the fall," Mazzochi said. "We want it brought into the schools in Logan County."

Mazzochi said money and field space are the biggest concerns right now for starting a Logan County soccer league. But, he said it would give athletes who don't play other sports another option.

"Soccer is new to most people," he said. "A lot of our students do not fit into baseball, basketball or football. We could use the football fields and have 50 players per school."

Mazzochi said each team could have 25 players on the varsity squads and 25 on the junior varsity teams.

"I know that soccer will grow," Mazzochi said.

Logan County Schools Superintendent Wilma Zigmond suggested approaching the Logan County Commission to get help with finding a field. She said there may be room at the new Chief Logan State Park Recreation Center and there's the old K City lot that is currently unoccupied and in the hands of the commission due to the flood work being done in that area.

"We would have to play by the rules of the (West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission and I believe the high school season is in the fall," Zigmond said.

Bea Orr, who started up the county's highly-successful softball program said she is in favor of a soccer league, but the one she started several years ago failed due to lack of interest from the participants.

"Several years ago, I tried to initiate soccer in this county," Orr said. "We had 'Soccer Saturdays' and I had two doctors who were former soccer players who were working with the children."

Board Member Moss Burgess gave his support for a Logan County league.

"I'm 100 percent for it," Burgess said.

Board Member Bob Wolfe said the biggest problem the league faces is getting playing time on the fields, which already have full schedules.

Toney said he didn't see much competition with other sports such as football, since most soccer teams in the coalfields are made up of "70 percent girls."

Toney said soccer is another avenue to kids who don't like football, baseball and basketball and the health benefits are many.

"The biggest thing is the aerobic activity," he said. "There's a whole lot of running going on. Kids really get conditioned when they're out there."

Toney coaches the 8-10-year-old team from Chapmanville that plays in Ranger.

"We're tapping into kids who normally wouldn't be athletes," Toney said. "Soccer is very inexpensive compared to other sports. I also checked into scholarships and there are 400 available. Those are not being tapped into by kids in Logan County. We're trying to give kids who normally don't play sports something to do."

Zigmond suggested polling high school students to see how much interest there would be in the schools.

"We have had no interest on the high school level," Zigmond said. "We need to go to the high school principals and the athletic directors and ask them to survey the kids."