News and Updates
Millennium Soccer Club Kicks off First Season at Warner Park
For 31 years, Maggie Strader has been a familiar face on the east side of Madison — from growing up in the area, teaching in elementary school classrooms and coaching East High School’s women’s varsity soccer team.
Strader, now the vice president of the Millennium Soccer Club, has helped bring the game home to Warner Park on Madison’s east side — a long-awaited step toward opening more opportunities for the community she has called home.
Since its founding in 2001, Millennium has rooted its soccer program primarily in Madison’s south and west sides.
According to Strader, her role in teaching on the east side inspired her to pick Warner Park as the final club location. She began by using her connections through coaching and teaching to contact people about how Millennium could expand its presence on the east side.
Behind Warner Park, there are two soccer fields near the community center, which serves as a convenient space for families to gather.
Depending on the number of children participating, the club typically sets up two or three fields side by side.
The club’s teams laced up for their first official season at Warner Park this fall, allowing new opportunities for more than 40 children attending the elementary schools on the east side to play soccer.
“I’ve seen so many kids that are looking for extracurricular opportunities, but they’re hard to find because they don’t have access to transportation or funds,” Strader said. “It means everything to me that we could get this site on the east side. Kids love soccer, and it’s amazing to have the sport accessible for them.”
The club chose Warner Park for not only its ideal location, but also for its community feel, safety and accessibility.
“Location is important. I grew up with sports being around and accessible for everyone, and that had died down in the east side of Madison,” said Antonio Cruz-Rodriguez, the current site manager at Warner Park. “Now, with Warner Park, kids can take pathways from different areas.”
According to Haley Brisky, president of Millennium Soccer Club, the Warner Park location has already made a difference, especially for the immigrant communities the club serves. With approximately 50% of the club’s players identifying as Hispanic or Latino, the new east side location offers these families a more accessible option to participate in a sport that holds cultural significance for many.
“Soccer plays a huge role in so many people’s lives, especially in the international community,” Brisky said.
“It’s special to the international parents to bring their kids out; it’s a great way to have that family connection, feel included and return to.”
The new site allows for practices and scrimmages for elementary schoolers and coaching opportunities for east side high schoolers, allowing older students to give back to their community while gaining valuable leadership experience.
“We want our young people to be able to see themselves reflected in places of success, to connect with people who don’t look like them,” Brisky said. “We want our young players to see our older volunteers and see themselves reflected in race, community neighborhoods and locations.”
Following the club’s initial success at Warner Park, the club is looking to expand to other neighboring areas and schools in Madison by guaranteeing revenue streams, growing sponsorships and hiring more executive team members.
“I almost have to slow myself down because I would love to see our fields grow and be everywhere,” Brisky said. “We want to ensure we’re growing for another 20 years and can help another generation or two.”
Multiple generations of participation in Millennium as players, coaches, and leaders.
Millennium Soccer Club is more than just a soccer program — it’s a community built on giving back, connections and joy. Tom Grogg founded the club at the beginning of the millennium and has been able to create lasting generational ties that continue to shape
lives.
For more than two decades, Millennium Soccer has provided a safe and inclusive space for children and returning players to experience the game of soccer fostering a sense of belonging.
“It's fun for the kids,” said Anne’ Knezevic, a board member and co-site manager. “It's fun for the adults. There is a real sense of joy that accompanies the work. That spreads throughout the ranks and that keeps us coming back for more.”
A community unlike any other
Tom Grogg’s impact on the Madison community is immeasurable.
“Tom was the glue that held the program together,” said Haley Brisky, successor to Grogg and the current president of Millennium Soccer Club.
He didn’t just teach soccer, he built relationships with students, community members and families, turning Millennium into a community that people are eager to join.
Two of Grogg’s former elementary school students, Miguel Cuellar and Anthony Smith-Broadus, have grown up since their time with the club but keep Millennium as a crucial part of their lives.
Cuellar came to the United States in the third grade. As a student of Grogg’s, he was proudly welcomed into the soccer club, and it was the first place he felt welcomed.
Now Cuellar manages a site at Leopold Elementary, ensuring the program gives the new generation of children the same sense of inclusion he once felt.
Smith-Broadus is now a physical education teacher at Lincoln Elementary and frequently volunteers at Millennium, occasionally bringing his son to play.
Seeing families and former students pass through the club is “kind of like a tradition,” Smith-Broadus said.
“Thomas Garcia Jr. was on my basketball team eight years ago and now he's out there as an 18 or 20-year-old leading the kids, so for me, that was really cool [ ... ] he came back and gave back to the community,” Smith-Broadus said, calling it a “full-circle moment.”
Jack Connelly, a current board member and one of the founders, has seen the program's growth and direct impact through other club members.
“It was pretty fun to see Ted [Gurman], who used to be the coaching coordinator and teaching the coaches how to do things — now his son was coming out and being a volunteer coach,” Connelly said.
Sharing the Millennium Soccer experience with generations touches a lot of people because everyone is “super passionate about this club,” Connelly said.
“The Madison soccer community is very tight-knit, not exclusionary,” Brisky said. “But if you play in a soccer league, the chance of you crossing paths with other people is so high, so you get to know each other well.”
More than soccer
The generational impact is what makes Millennium extra special, Brisky said.
Millennium Soccer isn't about producing the next Ronaldo or Messi, as Knezevic puts it.
“It’s the personal connection where [previous players, volunteers and members] are coming back because of a person or the feeling of being included,” Brisky said. “This program is a safety net making sure that no one gets left behind. Knowing families remember what it felt like and coming back making sure their children feel the same.”
Over the years, the club has gone through a period of modernization so that it can be sustainable for another 20 years. However, the spirit of the organization will always remain the same.
“If we can get that connection from a small child back up to being involved with the club [as adults], well that's very powerful,” Knezevic said. “Both for the sense of our motto of ‘building community through soccer’ and for the connection and the roots that it builds in our local community — making us stronger as we cross different transitions and still have familiar faces.”
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