Facility Profile: BREAK AWAY
SPORTS CENTER MADISON
WISCONSIN
by Sylvie Green
In 1985, Matt Lombardino began managing the first indoor soccer facility in Wisconsin, the Capital Sports Center, where the Milwaukee Wave trained. The facility's two fields were about half the size of regulation. In 1995, two individuals whom Matt knew well, because of their involvement in the local sports community, asked him whether he would be interested in opening a facility with full-size fields for indoor soccer, as well as inline hockey rinks. "That's when we opened Break Away Sports Center. We played inline hockey during the summer and indoor soccer during the winter."
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ecause of its climate and because the University of Wisconsin hockey team has won a number of championships, Madison, Wisconsin, is a hockey community. Although hockey fans embrace the traditional game, they were not necessarily willing to participate in inline hockey. There were already a number of ice hockey rinks in the area, so the owners of Break Away Sports Center decided to replace the inline hockey rinks with in-filled
turf. "It's a little too cumbersome to take off the fields every summer, nor did we want to do that any longer, so we stayed strictly indoor soccer."
Each of the owners of Break Away Sports Center (Jeff Annen, Mark Landgraf and Matt) played and coached various sports. They all wanted to create a place where they could develop athletes in an atmosphere of sportsmanship and fair play. The welcome page of their website (BreakAwaySports.com) reads: "Playing
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the Game, Teaching the Game, Respecting the Game." Respect–for the game, as well as for players, coaches and officials–is integral to participation at Break Away Sports Center. It is included within the rules. Banners regarding character decorate the facility.
"We train our referees that we want to see good soccer played. Effective soccer can be played both fair and unfair, so if you trip somebody running by you, it's effective soccer–you stop the attack–but it's not fair soccer. Our referees have been trained with that in mind, and we're known for that in the area."
Matt played soccer in high school and has always been involved in coaching. "I coached camps all through high school and college, and I refereed both at the high school and college level. I actually refereed at an exhibition game with the UW and the
