The Real Football

Ok, so it’s about time I acknowledged the reason why I attended Appalachian in the first place, the Men’s Soccer team. How I came to be recruited here is an amazing story of fate or destiny, depending on your belief system.

So in April 2004 my club soccer team, North Shore United decided to attend the Dallas Cup International Youth Soccer Tournament. Because this team had been to international soccer tournaments before in Australia we had the required experience and qualifications to obtain entrance to this prestigious and invite only tournament.

The main reason for going on this trip was so players could gain valuable exposure to college scouts that we thought would be littered around the tournament’s various venues. This is because in New Zealand there isn’t a professional soccer league, only semi-professional, and the attractiveness of the U.S. college soccer system is that it allows players an additional four years to develop physically, mentally, tactically, and technically before a he is thrusted into the professional spotlight. Also, it provides an opportunity for athletes to pursue a education in a higher education setting.

As it turned out, there were a couple of college scouts hanging around the tournament sites, however, they didn’t really start coming out legitimately until the later stages of the tournament to view and scout the most influential players from the big teams. Despite this realization at the conclusion of the tournament, I was lucky enough to go against the common trend.

Now I’m going to provide some background information on how I exactly ended up getting recruited. In New Zealand we have native people called Maori’s. America has Native American’s, Australian’s have Aborigines, and New Zealand has Maori’s. Maori’s are tribal by nature and consequently used to battle each other for land, food, or other resources. However, before going into battle the tribes would undertake a Haka which is a war dance aimed at intimidating the opposing people and warn them for what was about to happen. Nowadays the Haka is most commonly seen and associated with New Zealand’s national rugby team, The All Blacks. Consequently, because of the sporting connotation associated with the Haka, our soccer team used to perform our own version of it whenever we went to international tournaments. Usually we received a respectful rapport from opposition, fans, and media and it more often than not fired us up for the game. However, because our team was mainly white and of non-Maori origin we didn’t have the intimidation factor that is normally associated with the ritual.

After being outclassed in our first game of the tournament, we went into the second with a philosophical attitude that we still could make the knockout rounds with a victory in this game and a result in the one following. We played a team from Oklahoma and any ability they lacked in skill they certainly made up for in physical stature and sheer muscular prowess. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, I think I saw Appalachian Football Coach Jerry Moore there recruiting this Oklahoma team. Unfortunately, the result of this game was not what we hoped for. We played absolutely terrible in the first half, with our coach threatening to quit at its conclusion, but we picked up our play for the second half and rallied to come back from two nil down to eventually lose 3-2, with a much improved display.

Despite the disappointing result for the team, my performance had attracted the interest of Appalachian’s former Men’s Soccer Assistant Coach Liam Farrell and fortunately not Coach Moore. Farrell had been impressed with my performance and leadership in leading my team back from a two goal deficit, to score the equalizing goal, and see a draw snatched from our grasps in cruel ending to a very entertaining game.

However, if truth be known, it was the Haka that had attracted Farrell from the game he was watching to our team’s field and not necessarily because he thought a team from New Zealand playing a team from Oklahoma was going to be a valuable recruiting experience. (In my opinion, I think that Farrell was just curious to know what that high-pitched rhythmic sound was coming from the field next to him!) It just so happens that I did enough to attracted his attention and after a couple of months of negations I finally committed to Appalachian for the fall 2005. At the conclusion of the tournament I was the only one from my team to gain the opportunity and realize the dream of college soccer and university in America, and as they say, the rest is history. For the record, despite a hearty effort in our third and final match of the tournament, we disappointed again and were unable to get the result we desired.

Since I have been playing soccer at Appalachian I have had an awesome experience being a student-athlete that has taught me many important life lessons and opportunity to pursue extracurricular activities, such as SAAB (Student Athletic Advisory Board), with athletes who have a similar interest in giving back as me. These life lessons include time management with the juggling of assignments and school work around practices and games, and the ability to work in a team context towards a common cooperative goal. For me personally, being on an athletic team provided me with social support and access to a variety of people and resources that helped me immensely as an international student.

Finally, as I am about to embark on graduate school after this semester, undertaking my studies without the athletic component to my education is going to be unknown experience in which I’m probably going to have to adjust my “normal” routines for. Luckily, I have loved ones which will be able to help me through this potentially difficult transition away from athletics. This because I understand, without soccer I wouldn’t be where I am today, doing what I am doing. I am hugely thankful to Coach Farrell, for what was in reality was a huge gamble on his part, in recruiting me – a kid from New Zealand – who was a complete unknown quantity, except for one match.

I will end this piece with a remark I have been thinking about for some time, such is the depth of my gratitude to Coach Farrell and Appalachian Soccer. Coach Farrell and all the others I have interacted with during my eligibility of college soccer, I hope I meet your expectations as an athlete, as a student, and as a teenager who matured into a man. You have changed my life forever, thank you.

Next time I will divulge into how I ended up at Ashe County High School for the capstone experience of my undergraduate degree.

Until then,

~Cam