RCSC hosts weekly friendly, low-cost, easy-access scrimmages called “Kickabout” each and every Sunday, 52 weeks a year regardless of weather. These scrimmages are designed for all players (new and existing) with an emphasis on inclusion, practice, and community building.
This program is a sliding-scale program, that means the money raised by those who can afford to donate (recommended donation is $10 a person each week) helps cover the costs of the fields and equipment, and also help pay-it-forward for those who cannot - arguably those in most need of the program. Field costs are steep, we're nearing $180 a week just to rent the fields, and with tariffs increasing, equipment costs also climb.
--Our History:
Lee Hibbets is credited with the development, execution, and inclusivity of RCSC’s Ripple Effect program: the predecessor of RCSC’s modern-day Kickabout program. Launching in 2004, Ripple Effect was light-years ahead of it’s time – and in many ways – decades ahead of the conversation regarding gendered sports spaces and inclusivity around all identities in the world of soccer. Ripple Effect was a program designed to allow any player regardless of gender, skill level, or income to come out and engage in a weekly Sunday friendly scrimmage with fellow queer folks in the Cap Hill area of Seattle. The program quickly took off and ran under the same moniker for 6 years until Lee retired from running the program. In 2011 the program rebranded as Sunday Kickabouts which has run every year without failure since.
Queer people are a spectrum, and no where is that better represented than at Kickabouts: it’s not only our most diverse population program, but one specifically designed to re-introduce people to the love of the sport without default gender expectations or dangerous rhetoric.
Kickabout is a simple program, one focused on inclusion and community above all else. It specializes – and is defined by – people from all different backgrounds. Some of our players have never touched a ball before, some are former D1 athletes. Everyone is expected to play to the level of those around them and encourage others to grow in skills and experience through exposure. It is a scrimmage, and when needed play is stopped to re-do an errant pass, or a bad throw, or simply to help explain the rules of soccer. It’s amazing what bonding over queer inclusive soccer can create, many of our members have developed incredible friendships through our Kickabout community.
In 2022 on Christmas Day Seattle received 3″ of fresh snow and ice overnight; worried we might have to cancel Kickabout, leaders showed up early to assess the field, and found a dozen regular attendees of the program pitching in and using shovels and anything they could find to clear the soccer field so Kickabout could continue. This is such a humble but powerful representation of what “making community” means: even in frigid temperatures, on a holiday weekend, early in the morning, people will pitch in and do whatever it takes not to miss one week of Kickabout – there’s something incredibly simple and special here. While Seattle has always been a booming soccer town, as a board we have yet to find any other programs in Seattle focused on introducing adults to the sport of soccer in a low-stakes, low-cost model. Let alone one that removes gendered expectation and language from the sport. Soccer is fortunate to be one of the few sports that has a low cost barrier to entry, but that doesn’t mean that such barriers don’t exist. Kickabout exists to combat that model and challenge some of the largest presumptions that exist in our sport.
The most common question we get: “Wow, this is queer soccer?” For some people, it is a lightbulb for finding their community and questions on how they too can get involved. For others the question stems from prejudice; some people have an unfortunate preconceived notion of what “queer soccer” would look like. These are the people we enjoy engaging with the most: to help reset their expectations on what being queer means, and how queer soccer is just… soccer. So come out, join us, and see what inclusive soccer looks like – we’ll be here, every Sunday.
