The HappyFeet Story
HappyFeet Founder, Andy Barney, was born in Oxford, England and was raised in a soccer-rich family with two generations rooted in professional soccer. Andy came to the USA and established British Soccer Camps, now called Challenger Sports, the USA's largest camp organization. He went on to spend all of his adult life from 27 years of age and on developing his coaching philosophy that focuses on creating "Brave, Creative, Leadership for Life!"
HappyFeet originated in 1988 in Kansas City when running coaching sessions for 3, 4, & 5 year old children at a local area indoor soccer center with stories such as "Gus, the Banana Gobbling Gorilla" were created. Later, nursery rhymes and songs such as "Roll, roll, roll the ball" to the tune of "Row, row, row your boat" were added. Today HappyFeet is operated in over 100 locations both here in the USA and internationally.
The HappyFeet program serves as an introductory soccer experience to the Legends Soccer Club and many of it's developmental soccer concepts have been derived from that coaching philosophy. The hallmark of Legends teams is superb individual skill, notably deceptive dribbling and goal scoring.
We are proud to know that through our weekend leagues, weekly preschool classes, summer camps, and birthday parties...HappyFeet has introduced the sport of soccer to children in a way we are confident will have a lasting positive impact and hopefully creating brave and creative leaders for life!
HappyFeet has maintained it's high level of excellency by introducing the amazing game of soccer to children the right way...the HappyFeet way!
Meet Founder & Coach Andy Barney…
Andy Barney was born in Oxford, England and was raised in a soccer-rich family that had two generations rooted in professional soccer. When HappyFeet founder, Andy Barney landed in the USA, he came to Kansas City and established British Soccer Camps (now called, Now Challenger Sports, the USA’s largest camp organization). From age 27-32, Andy was Director of Coaching for the Kansas State Soccer Association and USSF U19 National Staff Coach/Selector.
For 5 years he served as Director of Marketing and Coaching for a multi-million dollar indoor soccer and sports mall company. He also coached at Avila University in KC, and is currently in his 18th year as Director of Coaching for the Kansas City Legends Soccer Club and is also an NSCAA Convention clinician as well.
And talk about experience and accreditation, Andy holds a United States Soccer Federation “A License”, an NSCAA Advanced National Diploma and coaching qualifications in 8 other sports. His teams have won 13 National Indoor Championships and 3 USYSA Regional Championships. A team made up of 10 of Andy’s former players coached by Chris Klein (of U.S. National Team fame) won the U20 National Outdoor Championship in 2002.
Andy is currently the owner of Soccer Excellence Inc., the KC Legends Soccer Club, National Indoor Soccer Championship, SuperClubs North America, the SuperClubs National Team Tours and the HappyFeet Preschool & Legends Soccer Club franchises.
