In 32 years, Howard County has seen a lot of changes from physical, social and economic standpoints. But athletically, one of the constants has been the Howard County Men's Soccer League.
Founded in 1970 by foreign nationals living in Columbia, the league has become an arena for adult players throughout the metro area - most of them home-grown these days.
What started as a group of teams representing Columbia's neighborhoods has blossomed into an umbrella league that offers competition in three divisions, determined by skill level and won-lost records. There are games three nights a week in spring and fall.
After operating independently for three decades, the original men's league combined two years ago with one overseen by the Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks that played Friday nights.
The department also administers a co-rec league, which has men and women on each team. A women's league, also with multiple divisions based on skills, operates separately with ties to the Soccer Association of Columbia/Howard County. Youth soccer is run by other organizations.
Janell Coffman, a recreation department sports coordinator, self-described soccer fanatic and assistant women's soccer coach for the Community College of Baltimore County-Catonsville, administers the men's league.
When she took over adult soccer for the department four years ago, Coffman said, the department's leagues had 40 adult teams between co-rec and men's competition.
"Now, we have 90 teams overall - 42 in the men's league - so [the sport among adults] is definitely growing. ... I'm constantly getting calls from teams [that] want to play, and I hate to turn people away," she said.
But she has to say no at times, she said, because not enough fields are available, and the men's league is operating at maximum capacity this spring.
About 1,800 men and women are competing in department-administered soccer leagues this spring, with schedules that end this month, making soccer the second-largest rec-department-backed sport behind softball, which totals some 2,500 players also with separate men's, women's and co-rec leagues and divisions.
Craig Blackburn, manager of a Division I men's team called Tastes Great and who operated the Howard County Men's League for a number of years before the merger, calls the amalgamation a great success.
With the recreation department now responsible for collecting fees, maintaining and scheduling fields and finding referees, he said, players and coaches are better able to focus on competition.
"We are really happy with the marriage with the county," Blackburn said. "Janell has really done a great job, and we think that we have something that can last another 32 years."
Blackburn and others say that Sunday's Division I teams are viewed as the league's most competitive. Beginning in late April and running until the end of June, that division includes several teams that in fall and winter compete in the Maryland Major League, a Baltimore men's league long regarded as one of the area's top club leagues.
Division I teams in Howard County are stocked with talented players with a wealth of soccer experience, fueled by many players who learned the game as boys in the Soccer Association of Columbia/Howard County and went on to high school and college teams, many in NCAA Division I.
There also is an assortment of players, Blackburn said, with experience in indoor and outdoor, professional or semi-pro leagues. Players on typical Division I teams are 28 to 30 years old; players in their 40s and even 50s are not uncommon on the less strenuous Division II and III teams.
"Division I in the spring is extremely competitive," said Blackburn. "The guys want to win, they are highly skilled players, and they play the game the way it should be played."
But, Blackburn said, while the competition is stiff, it is far from cutthroat. "With a lot of these teams, we've known each other for quite awhile, so we play hard. But after the game, we share a beer at the bar."
Many teams entering the league for the first time are assigned to the league's second division. However, like the tiered leagues that typify soccer organizations worldwide, the Howard County League uses a system of promotion and relegation - meaning teams with the weakest records drop a division for the next season, their places being taken by the best-performing teams in the lower division.
"Relegation has helped tighten up the divisions," said John Williams, who has been involved with the league since the late 1970s and manages a team called Justus in the Friday Men's Division I.
"The quality of play has gotten better, and it's really developed in the last four years," said Williams, who also competes on a Division III team, a more low-keyed group geared toward older players.
"Our motto in Division III is, this is not the World Cup - we all have to go to work tomorrow," said Williams.