Roughly 30 Tufts students showed up at Bello Field to try out for the men's Tufts University Football Club (TUFC) on Labor Day weekend in 2011. In line with the intramural philosophy, all 30 made the squad. That semester, the team was winless in all of its league games against other schools in the Boston area, finishing with an 0-5-1 record.
Following the 2011 fall season, current seniors Jordan Stinson and Ian O'Malley were elected captains of the team by their teammates, a position they have held for two years. The club does not have a coach, so the captains act as coaches, determining rosters, running practices, selecting team lineups and making substitutions during games. Of course, winning more games was at the top of their agenda. But more importantly, the co-captains strived to change the culture of club soccer at Tufts.
"When I joined TUFC, it really wasn't too competitive. It started to get a little more competitive my sophomore year, but we didn't win any league games during that season," O'Malley said. "After that season, Jordan and I became captains and really decided that we wanted to turn the club around and make it much more competitive. We ended up making cuts and running very competitive practices to prepare our team for the season."
Now, players who try out for the team endure a cut-throat tryout process, intense practice sessions multiple days a week and strong competition from teams throughout the Northeast. And the field is more talented than ever before.
"The majority of the TUFC A Team players have either played a season with the varsity team or have practiced with the varsity team in the offseason or preseason," O'Malley said. "We have a lot of players who are close to playing on the varsity team, and we've also had players who could've played varsity but did not want to make the commitment."
O'Malley believes that the club team has improved to such an extent that it could even be a formidable opponent for the men's varsity squad.
"I think TUFC can compete with the varsity team," he said. "We would love to scrimmage them. I think it would be a very competitive game."
This fall, around 90 players showed up for tryouts. Held over a two-day period, the tryouts began with basic drills to evaluate each player's technical ability and gradually moved to small-sided 3 vs. 3 and 5 vs. 5 scrimmages to determine how individuals perform under pressure. This time around, Stinson and O'Malley parsed through the talent and chose the best 50 players, setting the rosters for the A and B teams.
Their results on the field improved dramatically. In 2012, the team played to a 7-1-1 record, its best mark since the club's founding in 2006. Building off last year's success, the team went 7-3-1 this fall, including a draw against a Northeastern squad that qualified for Nationals, a tournament reserved for the best club teams in the country. Tufts' solid play was rewarded with a bid to the regional tournament, the first such invitation in TUFC history.
"It was awesome to see the hard work and effort that Ian and I put into the team turn into solid results for the club," Stinson said. "We qualified for the regional tournament in Pennsylvania for the first time ever. Although we could definitely have done better at the tournament, it was still a quality experience to go down there as one of the two Div. III schools and compete."
The Tufts A team currently ranks eighth out of 25 teams in the official Region 1 Club Soccer rankings. The club's performance and standing is particularly impressive considering the stiff regional competition.
"We have a lot of good competition in the Boston area," O'Malley said. "The other schools with club soccer are basically all Div. I schools. We play teams like Harvard, BU, BC, Northeastern, Brown, UConn, Dartmouth, Vermont, [University of] Maine - and all of these schools have a lot of resources at their disposal. Many of the teams have coaches as well."
While the turnaround on the field has been nothing short of remarkable, the club has also become more competitive off of it in the battle for funding. Men's soccer is a Tier II club sport because Tier I is confined to club sports that do not have associated varsity sports. Up until this year, only Tier I sports could receive funding for their seasons, but TUFC was part of a group that campaigned to change that.
"Ian and a few other Tier II captains spent a lot of time last year fighting to get some funding and more access to fields," Stinson said. "And with the help of Branwen Smith-King in the athletics department, they were able to get that done for this year. We received direct funding this season for the first time."
"We submit a budget, and the athletic department does what they can to get us funding," O'Malley added. "We really appreciate getting funding this year; it really helped us out when we made the regional tournament."
Both players stressed that while they are grateful for the developments in club funding over the last year, there are still improvements to be made.
"After finally getting funding this year, our next step with the athletic department is improving access to facilities," O'Malley said. "We are a very competitive club and need more field space to practice during the fall. Also, athletics allowed us to have one home game this year, but in the future it would be better if we could have all of our home games on Bello [Field] so that we don't have to pay to rent an off-campus field every time we host games."
The fact that Tufts has an A and a B team also presents a challenge.
"We have two club soccer teams here at Tufts, which is very unique in the league that we play in," Stinson said. "It would be great if the second team here could receive more support in terms of funding, access to the club sports van and more field space and time."
While the battle for funding rolls on, the team continues to practice and scrimmage indoors as it prepares to compete in the Venom Cup, an indoor soccer tournament held in Gantcher every fall semester, which also serves as the biggest fundraiser of the year. The date for this year's tournament is still undetermined, as the teams are awaiting confirmation from the executive board that Gantcher can be reserved.
The tournament is a 5 vs. 5 competition that fields about 16 teams who play three 25-minute games. The winners of the tournament receive gift cards from local businesses such as JP Licks, Boston Burger Co., Boloco, Redbones and others.
"The last one we held was our most successful tournament," O'Malley said. "We usually have a couple TUFC teams, a few varsity teams, as well as teams from Harvard, BU, BC, Northeastern, Babson, Fletcher and others. It is turning into a very competitive tournament."
In a short amount of time, O'Malley and Stinson have managed to change the culture and perception of Tufts club soccer, fielding a more competitive squad on the field and receiving more funding and recognition to support this improved performance.
"The club has come so far during my time at Tufts," Stinson said. "It was a fun experience my freshman year, and it was great to just have the opportunity to play a few competitive games during the semester. Now, the league has become much more organized and our club has become much more competitive."
Ultimately, the club's renaissance could culminate with even greater success in the near future.
"This year was the first time in TUFC history that we made the regional tournament," O'Malley said. "I really hope the team can go on to win that tournament in the future because I didn't see any teams down there that we couldn't beat."
