Springtime marks the beginning of an annual tradition throughout the United States. Children put on their uniforms and cleats and begin to practice their soccer drills. Parents begin their end-of-the-week excursions to the local soccer fields hoping to witness their children score the winning goal of the game. Soccer, as much as any sport, has become part of the American fabric. Even the phrase “soccer moms” has come to symbolize, in many ways, the idealized suburban middle-class American dream. However, lost in this scene of modern Americana is the story of a man named Nicolaas Steelink. To most familiar with the name, Steelink symbolizes the very meaning of soccer in California. To history, his name represents agitation, strikes, and even revolution.
Nicolaas Steelink was born in Amsterdam in 1890 to parents who worked as grocers. Steelink recalls in his memoirs how his love for soccer developed early in his childhood, reminiscing how he and his friends would chase animals off the field in order the play a match. At age 18, he joined the youth soccer team for the Dutch Steamship Company, a premier soccer team at the time.
In 1912, he traveled to the United States where he settled in Los Angeles. He soon discovered a vibrant football culture, run primarily by Mexican and British immigrants. Through this community he was introduced to a variety of political activists, including trade unionist, socialists, and other variants of radicalism. Angered by poor working conditions, the war in Europe and other issues of the time, Steelink joined the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) in July 1918.
Steelink became involved in the LA chapter of the I.W.W. and was soon seen as a leader by both his peers and the authorities. At the time, due to a combination of the U.S. involvement in World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, a growing paranoia and fear of radicals permeated the country.
The I.W.W. was seen as the number one menace in the country because of its militant labor positions and its opposition to the war. In 1919, as a way to combat and suppress the growth of the organization, California passed what was known as the Criminal
Syndicalism Law. This law, in essence, criminalized membership of the I.W.W. with a penalty of one to fourteen years in prison.
On Oct. 1, 1919, the same day the law took effect, Steelink and fourteen others were arrested under the Criminal Syndicalism Law. He was the first of nearly 600 people indicted or tried under this law, many of whom were guilty of nothing more than possession of a union card. He was sentenced to serve at San Quentin and was eventually released on March 30, 1922.
After his discharge, he continued to be active in the I.W.W., regularly contributing articles to the organization’s newspaper, Industrial Worker, under the pen name Ennes Ellae. He and his wife, Fannia, lived in Boyle Heights where they engaged in community activism, including helping to establish a local library. Their son, Cornelius Steelink also became a political activist, working with the American Friends Service Committee and the ACLU of Arizona.
Nicolaas Steelink continued to follow his other passion of soccer. In 1958 he was one of seven individuals who founded the California Soccer League. He felt that soccer could help underprivileged youth develop a better sense of solidarity and self-pride.
Through his lifetime the league grew to over 100 teams, including six girls’ teams. Even into his eighties, Steelink organized soccer clinics for boys between nine and 14 years of age in East Los Angeles, El Sereno and Highland Park. Though he stopped playing soccer at age 66, he still claimed he could “waltz through the teams” and would often demonstrate how quick and limber he remained despite his age. In 1971, Nicolaas Steelink was entered in the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame for his involvement in founding the California Soccer League.
In 1974, Nicolaas Steelink moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he continued to coach and promote soccer until he died at age 99, six years after his wife. In a 1973 Los Angeles Times interview he offered some words of wisdom: “Love your fellowman. Try to see something good in everyone you meet.” Though he was once considered one of the most dangerous men in California, he lived his life filled with love for humanity and the sport of soccer. His life’s path took him from San Quentin to the Soccer Hall of Fame and in the process made California history along the way.
Originally appeared in U Magazine (March-April 2015)