JUST ONE DAD MADE THINGS RIGHT.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Some stories make you want to stand up and cheer, they're so inspirational. This is one of them.

It's about a humble, 47-year-old man from El Salvador named Jose Garcia, who everyone calls Roy. I'll get to why later.

The first time I met him was back in 1994 when some police officers and city Recreation and Parks supervisors suggested I stop by Valley Plaza Park in North Hollywood one Saturday because there was some magic going on there.

A young El Salvadoran father was single-handedly making the neighborhood park come alive again on weekends with local kids and their parents, who had been avoiding it because of bad influences hanging around.

Kids like Maria Guadelupe Martinez, only 5 back then, had to spend her weekends kicking the soccer ball around with her father in their back yard because he was afraid to take her to the park.

``It was full of bad people, so we wouldn't go there,'' Maria, now 12, said Friday. ``But when Mr. Garcia came, he made it a good place to come and play.''

Garcia had taken his two young sons to the nearly empty park one Saturday to kick the soccer ball around when he noticed about a dozen other kids in the park just hanging around.

He went over to a local sporting goods store, bought a couple of soccer goal posts, then went back to the park. The other kids wandered over to see what was going on. Pretty soon, they were playing in a soccer game with Garcia's sons.

``When we were leaving, I told them we'd see them again next Saturday,'' Garcia said. ``When I returned the next week with my sons, there were 50 kids waiting for us.''

The next weekend, there were 100 - the weekend after that, 200. You get the picture.

``He made that park come alive with neighborhood kids and parents every Saturday - took it back for the community,'' said former LAPD North Hollywood Division Capt. Richard Wahler, who has since retired.

Within four months, the United Nations Youth Soccer League had been formed by Garcia to reclaim a neighborhood park from bad influences and give it back to 940 kids ages 4 to 14, playing on 54 teams every Saturday in front of 2,000 or more parents and friends that first year.

Today the league, which kicked off its seventh season Saturday with a two-mile parade attended by thousands of people, has more than 5,000 kids playing on 326 teams.

The only thing that's changed in the last seven years besides the incredible growth of the league is the cost, Garcia said Friday.

It's gone from free to $25 a year. That's, of course, if parents can afford to pay. If they can't, it's still free, bankrolled by the league founder.

``One parent, early on, told me that he walked over to the park with his son and asked Garcia if his boy could play in the league,'' Wahler said.

``Jose said sure, and when the man asked how much he owed him, he said nothing. All he's ever asked from these parents is that they volunteer some time to the league and come watch their kids play.

``He started a soccer league for almost 1,000 kids with his own resources and ingenuity,'' Wahler said.

As the league grew, local businesses kicked in to help, but the backbone of the league was always the people who lived on those neighborhood streets, Garcia said.

``I know what it's like for many of these parents in poorer communities, without the resources for entry fees and uniforms,'' he said.

``I told them, 'Listen, we don't have to wait for help. We can do this ourselves. You help me referee games, mark fields, help with sign-ups, and support the league, and we can make this happen for our kids.'

``They laughed at first, but not anymore,'' Garcia said. ``It has happened.''

Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents that area, said Friday that Garcia ``has given the people in that community 10 times more pop for their buck than the government ever could have.''

``He pays for all the awards, and you should see these kids beam when they win one,'' Wachs said. ``He makes sure their grades and attendance are good, or they can't play.

``I just wish we could turn Jose Garcia loose to replicate this sensational success story all over the city,'' Wachs said.

Talk like this embarrasses the humble Garcia because none of this would ever have been possible if not for a man named Roy Davis, who owned a Van Nuys hardwood flooring company before he passed away in 1983.

He knew Garcia's family in war-torn El Salvador, and brought Jose, then 26, to this country in 1981 and gave him a job.

``He used to take me around with him on jobs and introduce me as his partner,'' Garcia says. ``People thought he was crazy.

``Here was this foreigner who couldn't even speak English and didn't know a thing about flooring. How could I be a partner in anything?

``He taught me everything - from flooring to English to how to be a U.S. citizen, and what it meant.

``He taught me that in this country, anything is possible.''

Even starting your own flooring company after your mentor dies and naming it after him - Roy's Flooring in Van Nuys - and legally changing your own first name to Roy, too.

And even taking some of the profits from that company to bankroll a soccer league, and giving a community its neighborhood park back.