After a nomadic pro career, Matt Fondy tackles youth soccer pay-to-play with Oakland Genesis

Matt Fondy’s soccer career took him around the country: Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Chicago, Louisville, Jacksonville, Raleigh, then finally the Oakland Roots.

His soccer life was up and down. An injury in high school kept NCAA Division I coaches away. But he earned All-America third team honors at UC Santa Cruz. His brief MLS resume includes a U.S. Open Cup semifinal appearance with the Chicago Fire. He had greater success in USL — including a record-setting 21 goals and an MVP award in 2015 — but he spent eight years bouncing from city to city.

Now he’s back in the Bay Area, where he grew up. But rather than take the easy path – going back to the elite youth club that gave him his start – Fondy, 35, has done something dramatically different.

He and fellow Northern California native Cody Pillon founded Oakland Genesis. The club uses soccer as a tool to empower, educate, and inspire young players, both athletically and academically. 

Every component — training and matches, tutoring, transportation, nutrition, college and career counseling, social and emotional learning — is free. Every participant has access to three adults: a soccer coach, academic coach and mentor.

Genesis is the antithesis of the pay-to-play model that gave Fondy and Pillon their starts.

The duo’s goal is to give Oakland’s boys and girls the same advantages their peers in communities with more resources routinely enjoy.

“Pay-to-play” was an important part of Fondy and Pillon’s soccer. Two decades later – with added travel, the popularity of private coaches, and other expenses – the gap between soccer’s young haves and have-nots is greater than ever.

Fondy first recognized those barriers to inclusion while playing for Louisville City. At a public service event he met young refugees from around the world. Soccer was the common denominator. But the players had few opportunities to use the sport to get ahead.

On subsequent teams in Florida and North Carolina, Fondy worked with other immigrant programs. That sparked a desire to learn more. Back in the Bay Area, he earned a master’s degree in international studies from the University of California-Berkeley.

That was the genesis of Oakland Genesis.

Fondy and Pollin founded the club in 2019. They received organizational help from America Scores, the soccer non-profit that runs its own after-school program.

Within a month, Oakland Genesis had enough players to form a team. Today, seven boys and three girls competitive teams serve 225 players. Another 400 youngsters take part in the after-school component only, while an after-school recreational soccer program for elementary, middle and high schoolers involves 800 more.

Players on that first 2019 competitive team are still with Genesis. They’re high school seniors, ready to enter college or the workforce. And the way they take those steps – confidently, after weighing different options – is in many ways Oakland Genesis’ legacy.

One hundred percent of the participants are BIPOC. Many are immigrants and refugees. “They are not connected to places of power,” Fondy notes. “We provide the safety, and safety net, they desperately need.” 

Classroom sessions take place before practices. Transportation and nutritious snacks are provided – like everything else, for free. 

“Our metric for success is that 100 percent of our kids graduate from high school, and 100 percent are prepared for college,” Fondy says. Not every graduate goes on to college, but having that option for all is important, he adds.

The average GPA of Genesis participants is 3.3. The Oakland Unified School District average is 2.6.

“I had no idea it would explode like this,” Fondy says. “We don’t do much marketing. It’s mostly word of mouth – referrals from families and schools.”

Along the way, the founders learned about fundraising, grant writing, and all the other details of running a $1 million non-profit. 

Funding comes in roughly equal amounts from individuals, foundations, corporations, and partnerships with the school district.

Fondy and Pillon are proud of their diverse board of directors, and their staff of 34 soccer and academic coaches, tutors and mentors.  

They have also learned about the power of community. Last month, 15-year-old Derbing Alvarado was on his way with friends to a Genesis practice, when two other teens tried to take their backpacks. 

Derbing did not want to lose his soccer gear. They tussled, and he was shot to death. 

Derbing had been in the Genesis program for four years. “He was beloved,” Fondy says.

The community rallied around his family. A GoFundMe page raised $110,000, while a “Cease Fire” walk drew the mayor, City Council members, district attorney, police chief and the media.

Fondy and several students spoke. “We saw the place Oakland Genesis holds in their lives,” Fondy says. “There are plenty of problems, but so many people are looking for solutions.”

One of those problems involves space. More is needed, both outdoors and in schools. Genesis hopes to redevelop a park in East Oakland, with turf fields, classrooms and a community center. The cost: $10 million.

As he plans for the future, Fondy looks back on Genesis’ many successes. Their first player recently signed with the Oakland Roots’ reserve team, Project 51O. 

Another young man, who had planned to go directly from high school into work at his father’s auto body shop, decided instead to study engineering in college. With that education, he hopes to level up his father’s business.

Though Fondy is proud of Genesis’ Oakland “roots,” he is excited that the program can be replicated in any part of the country where “pay to play” keeps young people from taking full advantage of what soccer can offer.

What does a program like his and Pillon’s need? “Authenticity, relationships with the school district, and responsiveness to the community,” Fondy says.

That’s the genesis for a new kind of soccer model: No pay, just play.

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