Meghan Youker

BELLEVUE (KPTM) -- It was a giant sculpture dedicated to the game of soccer and the kids who play it.  Saturday what's left of it is in the dump, thanks to vandals.  The oversized ball wasn't around for long, but many saw it as more than just a work of art.

Leaders of the Bellevue Soccer Club are forced to take a saw to what was once a beloved fixture.  "It's very sad and a little pathetic at the same time," said one soccer parent.

Piece by piece the club took the giant soccer ball apart.  Vandals destroyed over New Year's. Now what's left is headed to the Sarpy County landfill.  "We just don't understand why whoever did it feels the need to come out and vandalize something like this that's pretty harmless and is just here for the kids," said club president Greg Fisher.

In September, the 10 foot tall sculpture sat between several soccer fields.  Kids played by it and teams posed for pictures.  "It was just kind of a nice symbolic piece of work that sat out there and was emblematic of the fields here.  I hate to see it go that way.  It's just very sad," said parent Colm Breathnach.

Club leaders believe the ball was actually torn from a concrete base and rolled around the fields and parking lot.  Gaping holes left it beyond repair.

It wasn't the first time the sculpture had been hit.  Leaders say so much vandalism has happened at the club in recent months and years they'll probably install a fence and gate along the entrance this summer.  "We have a lot of people that come down and do model rocketry and airplanes and parents come down with their kids and kick the ball around things like that, but it's getting to the point that we just have to close it when it's not in use," Fisher said.

A sad and disappointing reality for parents.  "For us as parents we'll have to come up with the funds just to make sure that the kids' fields here are looked after simply because somebody decided to be a vandal," Breathnach said.

A Bellevue artist spent 500 hours and more than one thousand dollars building the sculpture. Soccer club leaders say if it's rebuilt it will likely be smaller and made with stronger, more durable materials.