SOCCER PLAYERS INVADE CAPE

Watch a soccer game for a few minutes, and you'll know it's a fast-paced game, with lots of running back and forth.

Watch a soccer mom -- or even a soccer dad -- and you'll see just as much running back and forth.

Hundreds of soccer moms and dads converged on the Show Me Center this weekend to cheer, and chauffeur, their sons and daughters during the St. Francis Indoor Soccer Invitational, which continues today.

Luanne Woolf and her sons, Max, 9, and Ben, 11, were waiting for their game to start Saturday afternoon as they watched a match.

The two boys both started playing for fun when they were in kindergarten, Luanne Woolf said, and now play for the Carbondale Sting.

She plays an important role in her sons' soccer stardom.

"I am the taxi," she said. "We do a lot of tournaments in Cape and then different games throughout Southern Illinois. This is a pretty typical trip. It's about an hour, an hour and 15 minutes."

Since her sons play indoor and outdoor soccer, Luanne Woolf plays chauffeur year-round, driving the boys to a practice session and a game every week -- unless there's a tournament, in which case the schedule picks up.

She also plays soccer herself in an indoor adult league in Carbondale.

"Indoor soccer is really cool," she said, adding it combines the best of hockey, soccer and other sports.

Gay Pilsner of Cape Girardeau was watching two of her children play Saturday.

"I have five kids," Pilsner said. "Four of them are in this tournament."

The youngest child, now 5, just isn't old enough for league play yet, Pilsner added.

Not surprisingly, Pilsner spends a lot of time driving back and forth to soccer practice.

"During tournaments, between the four that are playing, somebody's practicing every day," she said. Usually, though, it's a game and a practice once a week.

Pilsner said her family wouldn't have it any other way.

"We just love it," she said.

She also said soccer moms are fully deserving of their status as the superstars of the American voting public.

"By this time in our life, we know soccer backwards and forwards," she said.

Karen Winkler of Perryville said she spends "hours and hours and hours" driving her kids -- a son, 12, and a daughter, 14, back and forth to soccer tournaments and practice.

"Sometimes they're four hours away," Winkler said.

For the most part, though, Winkler's children only play outdoor soccer. "It starts in March and ends in January, so we get one month off," she said. "That's not counting basketball and volleyball and everything else."

Winkler drives her children to competitions in Columbia, Poplar Bluff, Carbodale and Marion, as well as Cape Girardeau and the Perryville area.

Dianna Harris of Kennett was waiting for her 12-year-old twin boys, Dustin and Justin, to start their game for the Kennett Attack.

She shook her head when asked how much time she spends driving them back and forth.

"Goodness gracious! I have no idea," she said.

Harris said she never played soccer when she was growing up. The game has increased tremendously in popularity in recent years.

Mention "soccer mom" and visions of minivans with those soccer-ball stickers spring to mind.

There were some minivans on the Show Me Center lot, but there were more full-sized vans, trucks and four-wheel-drive vehicles.

"I have a Suburban with a sticker on the back," Harris said.

Woolf has a truck, she said, "and I've got a decal; I just haven't put it on yet."

The Pilsners tool around in a full-sized van "with the decal on it," Pilsner said. "Several decals on it."

Winkler also drives a full-sized van, complete with stickers.

One soccer dad, Mike Buerck of Perryville, piped in, "What do you mean mini van?" He said he's had a dozen players in his mid-size sedan, which is roomy, but sans sticker.

"You don't have a sticker?" Winkler asked him. "I've got an extra one!"

According to tournament director David Ross, who also runs the Show Me Center, 99 teams were participating in the three-day tournament, and total attendance was estimated at 10,000.

"They come from Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Illinois," said Ross, whose 12-year-old son was playing this weekend for Cape Girardeau's Classic United team.

The tournament consists of 165 games in all, with two courts each set up in the Show Me Center and Student Recreation Center and one court at Houck Stadium.

Games were scheduled every hour on the hour from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday.

Finals will be held today, Ross said.