The Backroom Staff - Community Team: Ariana Dowell

Community Team: Ariana Dowell

Coaching, clinics and building community around football

In just their fourth season in the NWSL, Angel City FC has already emerged the league’s most valuable franchise. Much of that stems from playing in a huge media market and the buzz generated by a celebrity ownership group that includes legends like Mia Hamm and Abby Wambach alongside Hollywood names such as Natalie Portman (now Bob Iger is majority owner…).

But location and star power only tell part of the story. Angel City’s real edge comes from the club’s laser focus on grassroots outreach across Los Angeles and Southern California. Community team leaders like Ariana Dowell have built free camps and clinics for kids, hosted watch parties in every corner of the city, and created partnerships with local companies & nonprofits - from community gardens to food pantries - to ensure the club is visible, welcoming and connected to local communities.

In this interview, Ariana walks us through her journey as a player and coach, how she found her way onto Angel City’s street team in their inaugural season, and why making soccer accessible is the key to growing the game long term.

The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for grammar and clarity. 

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[ Background ]

I started playing in a community recreational league called AYSO when I was very young. Then I went through the club circuit and played 4 years at the University of La Verne, a DIII school, where I studied sports medicine.

Initially, I was aiming to go the athletic training or physical therapy route. I knew I wanted to stay in the realm of sports and working with athletes. In that time, I had 2 ACL tears. That's probably what gravitated me towards sports medicine. In college, I got to take some sports psychology classes and this really shifted my interest to the mental care part of performance and sports medicine.

After La Verne, I've also been able to continue playing soccer, which has been very fortunate. I played a season with SC Verdugos as well as a couple of seasons with LAFC SoCal Women in the UPSL.

After playing in college, I think the natural route is to kind of dip your toe into coaching and see how much you can do - or if you even like it at all. I started my coaching education and currently have the USSF D License. Primarily I coach camps and clinics. At Angel City, we partner with Los Angeles Parks and Rec and do a lot of different clinics and week long camps that are free or low cost for the community. I also coach with the club FC Golden State Force and am JV head coach at South Pasadena High School.

[ You started working at Angel City from the club’s first season? ]

I started right at the beginning of our debut season. There were people who had started a year before, setting the groundwork. But I’ve been there since our very first games at Cal State Fullerton!

[ Did Angel City help you get into coaching as well or were you already coaching by then? ]

I think naturally, as a soccer player, or as an athlete in any capacity, I think you hear a lot that coaching makes you a better player. I didn’t really understand what that meant because I thought my ‘soccer IQ’ was pretty high! Then, I got an opportunity to coach some younger kids and I was so hesitant, I had no idea what to do with them.

I was already coaching prior to working for Angel City, however, they really helped facilitate and streamline my coaching education through the Coaching Network. This is a community of women and gender expansive individuals and ACFC offers coaching education, mentorship and paid coaching opportunities. I was able to take several grassroots courses and also took my D License course through them, all paid through the Coaching Network. I was lucky to be part of one of the first groups they brought through. I’m waiting for them to open up a C License course to enroll in that!

Now, they periodically send out different paid coaching opportunities and additional education opportunities. I think it’s a way for Angel City to uplift and increase the amount of women in the world of soccer coaching.

[ What is your role at Angel City? ]

I think the best way I can summarize what our department and our street team does is, it’s grassroots marketing and activations that connect the sports organization with the community. Often, this means we organize different events and partner with different organizations - like LA Parks and Rec for our camps and clinics - or sponsors - like Sprouts, where we do garden work days, we go to different schools and help set up community gardens.

We also host watch parties for fans during away games. We usually have one or two watch parties around Los Angeles each game, just to stay in touch, be a regular presence in the community, and provide a space for fans to come and watch.

When I started, I was at a ‘crossroads’, looking at how I can stay involved in sports and I knew Angel City was starting and I really just wanted to be involved with them in any way I could. They were LA’s first women’s soccer team in a long time, I think the only women’s team we had in LA was Los Angeles Sol who folded around 2009, so I just wanted to be part of what we were creating here. After seeing what the goals of the community team were and just seeing how people oriented it was, I wanted to help.

I think soccer is growing, not just in LA or California but in the US in general. But it’s definitely not the primary sport. So having things like free and accessible clinics and spaces that kids can come to and just play soccer can really grow the sport and make sure it represents the communities it’s in.

[ How is the community department structured? What kind of different roles or responsibilities are there? ]

So, there are a couple of different teams involved. The department is split into the ‘community’ and ‘impact’ teams and my immediate team, the ‘street team’ is part of the community side and there are about 15 people that make up our team.

Community consists of all the camps, watch parties, game day experiences, fan fest and things like that. Impact includes things like the community gardens or partnerships like the one we have with DoorDash, where we raise money for underserved families and pack food donations.

[ Is everyone else on the street team similarly involved with soccer? ]

I think for the most part you do see people that have at least been fans of the sport. In my department, I’d say maybe 85% of us have some type of background in soccer or played at some level but it’s definitely not a criteria for being a good advocate and face for the community team. They all have an affinity and love for the sport and their community.

[ Is there an opportunity to ‘progress’ and become e.g. someone who’s helping to organize the events or other kinds of roles? ]

I would say, yes, there is room for that growth. The sports industry is so difficult and network based and I think there are several challenges but yes, there is room for growth. Whether that is growing in the community department and being more in charge of coordinating and facilitating these actions and events, but also wanting to grow in other realms. Because we are a part-time team, a lot of us have backgrounds in other areas outside of community. Being able to dip our toes in other departments and learn how they function and operate has been pivotal in my own career search for sure.

[ Is there a particular demographic or ‘profile’ of fan that you are trying to attract? Do you target certain neighborhoods or areas? ]

I think Angel City, from its inception, has been very conscious about the type of environment it creates, and the type of fans it is trying to attract to its games. There’s no particular age range or demographic but I’d say more socially conscious fans, in that, when you come to an Angel City game, you could see anything and everything! So, being open to that is important. Angel City is all about promoting equity, equality and sustainability. We do a lot of social impact initiatives.

I think it’s about creating an experience completely different from the men’s game as well as from what other teams are doing. We want to make it known that families and new fans are welcome. A lot of people who come to our games are people who have either never been to a women’s game or a soccer game at all.

Regarding the areas and the neighborhoods we hit, LA and Los Angeles County are so big but I would say we do a good job hitting every one from the 605 to the coast - I know that might not make any sense to people outside LA!

We try to travel and hit everyone but there are still some areas, like the Inland Empire, where we have a lot of room to grow the fanbase but that just comes with expanding and getting our name out there.

[ What are some of the goals of the community department? How can you measure your progress? ]

We want to measure our reach within the community. Each event is different - some we try to really incentivize with a form of giveaway or raffle and we record the number of participants. From there, we generate a lot of leads, we can see - are these people who are going to games? Are they going to the website? Are they buying merch? That kind of thing.

Every month we have a recap or a team meeting. Where they share some of the data for us to see and it’s been kind of cool to track the impact of the events we have each year.

[ Do the MLS teams in LA have similar community teams like Angel City? ]

Yes, we work a lot with LAFC and the Galaxy’s community teams, as well as other sports like the Lakers, Rams and Kings. I can almost guarantee that every professional sports organization in the US has something like this by now.

Still, I think Angel City has been pretty influential in LA in establishing a framework for how they operate their community departments and teams and give back to the community that they are immersed in.

[ What do you think is holding soccer back in the US? ]

Oh, that’s a conversation that I think is so overdue!

I think there are a couple of different factors that go into our performance globally and the advancement or the development of our players in comparison to Europe and other countries.

Historically, I think soccer has been viewed as more of a niche sport compared to American football, basketball, baseball, etc. And, I think the ‘pay to play’ model - I’m sure it’s come up a bunch - has so many more downsides for the development of an athlete. Here, parents are paying over $2,000 for club soccer, they want to see their kid on the field! In Europe, a lot of those clubs are paying for themselves, they are selecting the kids who will bring them results. I think the lack of free space to play and explore the sport at the adolescent age has also contributed to its stunted growth in the U.S.

Oh, and in terms of viewership, streaming or broadcasting rights. Last season, Angel City’s rights were spread across 3 different broadcasting services. I can watch La Liga, the Premier League or the Champions League much more easily than I can watch MLS or NWSL!

[ Does Angel City have youth teams or a youth academy? ]

No, not like the Galaxy and LAFC. I don’t know if that’s something that might be in the works but I think investing in more free or low cost, grassroots level training will promote a lot more play and competition in the US.

[ You’ve seen a lot of sides of soccer already – what are your aspirations for the future? ]

Short term, I'm really interested in growing in the space that I've been in with Angel City in terms of increasing the accessibility of soccer and providing high level spaces for people to develop. I’ve found more reward and joy in it than I thought I would!

Long term, I think - similarly - creating opportunities for minorities and underserved kids to have more access and opportunity than they have now.

Besides the work, I was really inspired by this book called The Away Game by Sebastian Abbot. It's about a program that was called Football Dreams, where they’re creating spaces and opportunities for kids in Africa. Like I said with pay to play - soccer is a very cheap sport that’s been turned into a very expensive commodity, so there’s a lot of opportunity to increase who can afford to play.

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