Soccer is the most popular sport in the entire world and it’s not close. With an estimated 3.5 billion fans worldwide, soccer securely has the top spot. One club on campus is growing that popularity even more. The TU Soccer Club.
Dalton Jones: Why did you decide to start the TU Soccer Club?
Mitch McGeath (Club President): The club was really born out of the need for reconciliation between some groups of international students and the general student body. There was a lot of schism. I think it was a lot of division between, like, kind of the white majority of the student body, but a growing international student population. And there was at the time a cut of the JV soccer program. A lot of those guys that wanted to play more casually couldn't get an opportunity to do that because of being on the JV squad. There was a need for an opportunity for students to come together and really see soccer as worship. So that's the primary goal, is to reinvigorate how we see sports as an act of worship in fellowship.
Jones: What has been the biggest difference from when you created the club to where it is now?
McGeath: We've multiplied significantly, which has been incredible. Started out with about five people for the first six months or so, no more than 10 people in the club, and we average about 30 to 35 at practice now, playing three or four times a week, with over 100 people signed up for the semester. So just incredible expansion.
Jones: What is TU Soccer Club all about?
Elijah Choi (Club Vice President): We're a soccer club that really enjoys both playing together and worshiping God together in the way we play. So every day that we play, which most often is Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, we start the day off with prayer, and then we have fun. We just scrimmage around most of the time. However, recently, we've been playing other schools soccer clubs as well, which has been a super exciting opportunity. And because of that, we also run, like, small scale practices and things like that. But ultimately we want to worship God in the way we play and we want to have fun. Ultimately, those are the two big things that matter to us. Because if we play and we feel like we're getting a little too heated, or getting a little too crazy, then it kind of draws away from our two core aspects of having fun playing this beautiful game and worshiping God through playing this beautiful game.
Jones: What’s next for the TU Soccer Club?
McGeath: We're definitely kind of at a, I think, a phase where we're starting to transition into being a little bit into kind of outpacing what we can get just from crowdfunding. And so we're hoping to do a fundraiser our first like, like an actual organized, perhaps a baking fundraiser, and trying to look for church organizations that might be willing to sponsor us. So we're actively trying to, kind of share that vision of soccer as worship with the community and see if people would be willing to partner with us and work with us to help make it a reality, especially for those students who are international students that don't have money that they can invest. We want to pay for it and we want it to be free to travel. We want their jerseys to be free. We want to pay for meals. We don't want people to be paying internally. We want it to be something that is for those students that are coming into a new place without a lot of money, and that is really something that we need partnerships and people that share a vision to help us with.
