My name is Bennett Martin and I’m a junior at Christian Brothers University and I started soccer at a really young age playing Just recreational and then I joined the club team and I stayed with them all throughout high school and I reached out to the coach at Christian Brothers and went to a visit and I really loved the school so I got to play there. I love it there and from that I heard about Play Where You Stay through a teammate who coached for them. So I joined the coaching staff. I’m a head coach and assistant coach for Play Where You Stay. It’s a really cool program. The kids that we have they love the sport, all of them want to be there we never have parents making the kids come. It’s just they all love the game just to play. Regardless of the age level even on weekends like this we have people who are 5 and 10 and they just find a way to play together and have a good time.
The best part about Play Where You Stay in the name. Play Where You Stay meaning that the coaches will come to neighborhoods that best suits where the kids are. Lots of the kids wouldn’t have the opportunity to play soccer if Play Where You Stay didn’t exist. I know one of the reasons i wanted to play college soccer was because I knew it would help pay for tuition and my parents had put a lot of money into playing club soccer because it is a costly sport in the United States. I think Play Where You Stay is a really good program to find the kids who are very passionate about the sport but wouldn’t necessarily have the financial ability to pay for some of our club programs. I think Play Where You Stay will continue to grow in Memphis and hopefully other people who aren’t from Memphis will like the idea and be able to maybe start or expand into this organization. I think it’s definitely something that people should give to. We ask for $10 a week but if you can’t pay that then we don’t ask for anything. It’s not about the money we’re not looking to form an organization where we find the kids who can pay a lot to go to the big arenas. We’re just trying to find kids who love the sport and teach them the basics and see where we can go from there.
