If you are one of those fans who only get excited about soccer when the World Cup rolls around, you may want to consider this - the William and Mary men’s soccer team is off to its strongest start in recent history.
After finishing the past two seasons with a .500 record, the Tribe will complete their first winning season in four years. If you want to find success like these players have - whether it be in academics, fitness, or relationships - it’s time to find the varsity soccer player within you.
Leadership and experience: is it in you?
The Tribe’s winning season comes from a surprisingly young team with only two seniors on the roster - Nathan Belcher and Doug McBride. Their leadership, however, along with a strong junior class and experienced coaches, has made the men’s soccer team the team to watch this fall.
“Our expectations this year were to win the CAA and get a bid to the NCAA tournament, and these are well within our reach,” explained Nathan Belcher ('09). “The coaches have done a great job creating this team.”
Head Coaches Chris Norris joined the soccer staff in 1995 under legendary coach Al Albert. This season is his fourth as head coach of the Tribe. He is assisted by the experienced Chuck Connelly and Tom Duffy, who together combine for 17 years of experience behind the Tribe bench.
Endurance: is it in you?
Men’s soccer has already started breaking its fair share of new records and outstanding statistics. Alan Koger scored a hat-trick in the first 16 minutes of play against Delaware. This was the 14th-fastest hat trick in NCAA history. Koger is the Tribe’s leading scorer so far this season, with Price Thomas leading in the assists column.
Yet a statistic about the team that you might not find in the game report is that the team is one of four on campus to graduate 100 percent of its senior class last season. William and Mary is one of the few schools in the country to hold this high graduation rate among most of its sports teams.
Like any other William and Mary student, the men’s soccer players are constantly simply trying to find that balance academics with extracurriculars.
“Academics at W&M are rigorous as is, so having to schedule time around athletics is very tough. […] If it were not for the athletic staff here, mainly Jason Simms, I don’t believe that I would have had any of the success I have had so far. I owe a lot to them,” explained freshman Nicolas Abrigo.
This success does not come easily - it takes hours of studying, or in this case, training, to be the best at their sport. Even in the off season, the men’s soccer team was working to prepare for this season. The endurance required of them demands it. If you can’t run, you can’t play soccer, whether you have the footwork of Pele or not.
“The preseason conditioning definitely helps with the fitness, and establishes a good base level of fitness to draw on throughout the season,” said Belcher. “Our coaches did a good job this preseason of mixing hard physical practices with hard mental practices, so that we could recover yet work on our skills. It has definitely paid off as we have moved through the season, and conditioning is something we work on a bit at each practice.”
Teamwork: is it in you?
In between the preseason, practices, and games - these athletes had one more thing to work at - their relationships. Relationship advice is the last thing you might expect in a sports article - but building relationships is what any athletic team is all about.
“We always try to hang out together as a team after tough losses and celebrate together after wins,” explained sophomore Jimmy Carroll.
By supporting each other on and off the field through past three difficult seasons, the Tribe men have created the sort of bonds that lead teams to championships. This improvement, as Belcher adds, truly “has come with increased chemistry on and off the field and execution on the field. We are a very tight-knit group, and I believe this has helped with getting results when we need to. […] We have a ton of talent on the squad and a bunch of guys who are ready to work hard every day.”
If you find the lessons to be learned through sports in you, anyone can appreciate Varsity men’s soccer - whether you call yourself an athlete or haven’t even heard of Pele. But no matter what your sporting background, these qualities are something we can find in all of us.
So find the varsity soccer player within and support the team in their last home game this season. 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 7. It will be the last chance to watch the best men’s soccer team in years - so don’t miss it.
This piece originally appeared in the November 2008 issue issue of The DoG Street Journal.