Futsal courts coming to Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE — The Harrison K. Dano Park next to the Boys & Girls Club McGraw Clubhouse in Moses Lake is getting an addition, thanks to the city, the Seattle Sounders and a former Moses Lake resident.

“RAVE Sports, which is the charitable arm of the Seattle Sounders, (is) partnering with us on two futsal courts at Harrison K. Dano Park,” said Moses Lake Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Director Doug Coutts.

Futsal is a variant on soccer, played on a hard court the size of a basketball court with five players to a team, according to U.S. Futsal, the organization that governs the sport in the United States. It originated in South America as a way to facilitate youth competitions at YMCAs. While Brazil is the world hub of futsal, it’s played all over the world under the auspices of FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football.

RAVE has set a goal of creating 26 new futsal courts in the state of Washington by 2026, to celebrate Seattle being chosen as one of 16 host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, according to the Sounders’ website. So far 19 of them have been built and are in use, including two in Yakima, one in progress in Spokane and the rest in the Puget Sound area. That spurred Scotty Tymczyszyn, a Renton real estate investor and contractor, to propose his former home town as a recipient. 

“I used to live (in Moses Lake) and I donate to the Boys and Girls Club there, so I asked the Boys & Girls Club if they were interested in a field next door.”

Tymczyszyn made a deal with the city: he would make a $100,000 donation to RAVE toward two futsal fields in Moses Lake if the city would donate the land. 

“The city of Moses Lake said, ‘Well, Yakima got two, so we want two and we want to help,’” said Tymczyszyn.

The deal was that the city would lay down the concrete and RAVE would paint the court on top. The concrete turned out to be a hitch, Coutts said.

“Initially the request was for asphalt, and we said our crew could do the cement easier,” Coutts said. But unfortunately, they needed a specific type of joint that we can't do … so we're pivoting and figuring out the next steps.”

Tymczyszyn grew up in Bellevue and attended the Boys Club, the precursor to the Boys & Girls Clubs, there, he said. 

“It did a lot for me,” he said. “So when I came to Moses Lake in 2007, I realized that they didn't have much money, but I could only donate $1,000 or $2,000. I’d buy Adidas shoes for all the kids in the summer, Kim Pope and I, and try to match up and buy the right size(s) for them.”

Tymczyszyn was inspired to make the donation by real estate developer Thach Nguyen, who grew up in Seattle’s low-income NewHolly neighborhood. Nguyen had flipped a house in Kirkland for a $250,000 profit and donated the proceeds to RAVE to build two futsal fields in south Seattle, one in NewHolly. Tymczyszyn did the same with a home in the Larson Community, he said, and donated the profit from that.

Neither Coutts nor Tymczyszyn had a definite completion date. Once it’s done, representatives from RAVE will come over for the opening and donate soccer balls to the community, Coutts said.

The courts will be open for all to use, Coutts said, but the city has no plans currently to organize futsal through Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services. 

“What the city might do in the future for Dano Park people is maybe put a basketball hoop on the side of one so that if you don't like futsal and it's not in use, you could play basketball there,” he said. “But we're looking at these as just an addition to the community.”

    Two girls play futsal in Cali, Colombia. The sport is especially popular in South America, but is played around the world.