As the World Cup kicks off today, there will be remnants of a local coach dotting the fields in Brazil.

Billy McNicol, who along with Kalispell’s Mike Stebbins has led the Flathead Soccer Camp each summer for the last 15 years, has been involved at every level of US Soccer in his 30 years as a coach. Now based out of southern California, McNicol has been head coach of the United States under-16 and under-18 national teams, where he coached three Americans on this year’s World Cup team: defender DaMarcus Beasley, midfielder Kyle Beckerman and goalkeeper Nick Rimando. Another one of his former charges, forward Landon Donovan, is the all-time leader in scoring and assists for the U.S. men’s team. Donovan will be in Brazil as a television analyst during the World Cup.

All that experience has helped McNicol and Stebbins turn the Flathead Soccer Camp from a group of 40 boys in a field outside of Stebbins’ house to an international affair hosting players and coaches from around the globe and at all levels of competition.

“Dr. Stebbins has been absolutely fantastic,” McNicol said. “I’ve been in this game a lot of years. You don’t get many that give back to the local kids in the way he has chosen to do.”

It’s in camps like these that McNicol said he has seen the most growth in American soccer as it makes a run at the best in the world the next few weeks.

“I came over to the States in the mid-70s to play professionally,” McNicol said. “It was a great country, great people. But, the soccer to me seemed new; it was different. It was a place you could stick around and influence a lot.

“It was so new back then, we got involved helping the local communities from everything to how many kids were on the field at one time to, literally, teaching the kids to run in the right direction and kick the ball in the direction it’s supposed to go.”

Even as the most popular sport in the world, soccer has never been higher than fourth or fifth in the consciousness of the American public. The sport is still young in the U.S., with youth enrollment numbers rising from around 100,000 players 40 years ago to more than 3 million today.

“It wasn’t very long ago U.S. Soccer was a very small operation,” McNicol said. “As we professionalize the sport throughout the country, you’ll see an even greater improvement. Because of the vested interest in the game being taught correctly, played correctly, those type of things. It’s no longer that sport that’s only played in other countries. It’s our sport and we do very well at it.”

The sport rose to new heights at the women’s level after the Americans won the World Cup in 1999. With new found role models, many of the best young soccer stars in the country had a new goal to reach. As an assistant on the U.S. women’s team that placed third at the World Cup in 2007, McNicol has seen the fruits of that first hand.

“People love heroes,” McNicol said. “The women epitomize that. The women at the time (of the Cup win) were great role models to aspire to. We’ve got role models on the current men’s team too. We’ve got guys playing overseas or playing on the teams in America, who do well for themselves and are at the peak of their game. For me, I always want to see the kids that want to be the next (star). That’s consistent in all sports.”

It’s that drive that many of the current stars of the U.S. have shown and what McNicol likes to encourage.

“You just kind of know that a kid has something that doesn’t have,” McNicol said. “We’ve all seen players (like that). There’s kids in Kalispell (like that).”

One of the kids McNicol worked with the last few years, Bozeman’s Sam Werner, committed to play for Stanford in the fall and has spent the last two years playing in the development system of the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer.

“If you want it, I can say, ‘Here’s the things you’ve got to go do,’ but I can’t make them go do it. They’ve got to get out of bed on their own. They’ve got to want to train in the rain. They’ve got to want to play tougher teams and lose along the way.

“It’s that perseverance that separates the good ones. I tell people about (Landon) Donovan, who on the men’s side is our greatest star. I remember him being cut from a state team. Where other kids would have quit, he turned it around. That’s what you want.”

With young, talented players coming through the system, the U.S. might not be a favorite at this year’s World Cup, but with some patience it could be a power down the road.

“We’re definitely on the right path,” McNicol said. “There’s countries that have played this game for hundreds of years that have never won the World Cup. There’s only seven or eight countries that have won it.

“We shouldn’t be getting upset that we don’t win it. We get there fairly regularly now. We’re maybe the top program in our “conference”. Through time there’s going to be a message. Through time there’s going to be a special player, or two or three, that win you games without being coached.

“As good as this team is, one thing’s for sure. You can never win it if you’re not in it. You never know what’s going to happen. Every World Cup there’s a surprise or two along the way.”

McNicol will be back in town to help with the Flathead Soccer Camp from July 21-Aug. 1. He said one of the main goals of the camp is not just to teach technique, but the love and passion for the sport.

“What he set up a long time ago is to bring in coaches from different cultures. One of the coaches that we had at the camp a few years ago (David Kemp, an assistant coach at Crystal Palace) was coaching in the (English) Premier League last season. So, there’s kids that were coached by him that can look (at the TV) and say, ‘I was coached by him,’

“We like to take the knowledge off the screen and bring it to your front door. You can touch it, you can taste it, you want to be it. That was the whole concept behind (the camp), To show that it’s attainable and see which kids want to get after it.”