  I played youth soccer for 11 years starting age at 5. As I progressed through
the age groups and got better at the game, I moved up in club levels under the
US Club Soccer system. It was during my time as an ECNL player that I began to
realize the magnitude of the travel burden associated with local, regional and
out of state games. Most of the travel was by road and team members often
travelled with minimal car-pooling. Just about that time I was also becoming
aware of (and interested in) Climate Change and the various factors impacting
climate change including Greenhouse Gases. It was during these travels that I
began to track fuel consumption and the idea of estimating the CO2 impact of
these soccer road trips was born. In this paper I report my findings through
simple calculations and provide extrapolations through simulated scenario
experiments. Based on my findings I discuss a few potential solutions that may
be considered to reduce the CO2 footprint associated with US youth travel
soccer. The idea behind this paper is to raise awareness amongst soccer
families and to engage my fellow soccer peers into making the sport we all love
as green as possible.
