UMM soccer players get trip of a lifetime
On August 5, 2008, a group will depart Minnesota for Brazil, land of a record five World Cup championship and undoubtedly the premiere soccer hotbed in the world.
The trip is a bona fide UMM study abroad opportunity, billed “Soccer: A Brazilian Experience�—in which four credits can be earned towards students’ academic totals.
A snippet from UMM’s official course description states that “This course is an opportunity for current or past soccer players, coaches, or fans to immerse themselves in learning about the world of Brazilian soccer and thus gaining a glimpse of Brazilian society.� Also, the academic portion of the trip includes “various readings about Brazil and soccer in Brazil, Blogging during the experience, conducting interviews with people of Brazil, and completing a final paper using the experience to answer the question posed above.�
In anticipation of the trip, Harper feels that “most of the team will be looking forward to having the opportunity to play soccer on foreign soil against professional youth teams…it’s the type of thing that most kids never get a chance to do.� Harper is also anticipating “being in a country where soccer and not football or basketball is the number one sport.�
The trip will be helmed by UMM faculty member and Men’s Soccer Coach, Christian DeVries, who currently teaches courses in Sports Management at UMM.. DeVries is quite qualified to lead such a group, having achieved a USSF “A� license, a NSCAA Advanced National Diploma, and a Brazilian “C� license during his career.
Coach DeVries had these comments about the upcoming trip: “I am looking forward to taking the team to Brazil this summer, as we are going to get the opportunity to learn soccer from the best in the world. The playing experience the team will have will only be rivaled by their cultural experience of being in one of the top soccer nations in the world.� DeVries also hopes “that each player will return from Brazil with a great appreciation for the sport they love.�
As far as improving UMM’s soccer teams as a whole, Harper is excited to “be trained by professional coaches and put through the same drills as all the pro players in Brazil…not to mention playing the professional youth teams who will most likely be superior to us and force us to step up our game in order to compete with them.�
The trip also comes at a key time in UMM’s soccer development. Says Harper: “After coming off the best season in our program’s short history, every team in our conference will be after us, plus the fact that our pre-conference schedule will be much more difficult than previous seasons.� As a result, “the experience we will gain from training and playing against teams in Brazil could bring us a lot closer to reaching our #1 team goal: a trip to the NCAA tournament (which UMM soccer is now eligible for).�
Zach Koening contributed to this story