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Soccer woes Over 300 million people are living in the United States as we speak. The size of this country gives our athletes the unique opportunity to practice any sport they love within our boarders, from ice hockey in Vermont to beach volleyball in San Diego. Our athletes have some of the best training facilities and coaches the world has to offer. So can anyone please explain to me why we can’t put eleven men together on a soccer pitch that can hold their own in international competition? The United States men’s soccer team (USMST) is an embarrassment in an otherwise impressive pedigree of sports. The U.S. has dominated the past Olympics based off of not only sheer numbers of participants but skill and dominance in most events. Yet the USMST was unable to medal in the tournament. Additionally, it took a huge effort just to keep them in the hunt for the 2014 World Cup. The USMST is not even the best team in North America; Mexico has that distinction. How do they continue to lose and lose again? I’ve been given a few ideas. Americans don’t care about soccer. This cynical view about the attitude towards the sport on our shores isn’t even entirely true. Let’s start with the fact that most people reading this article have either played or know someone who at one time played soccer. It is the most played sport in this country for children, a right of passage during elementary and middle school years to don shin guards and chase that black and white ball up and down the field. This makes sense: the process of kicking a ball in a general direction is something most children can master easily. You can’t say a country doesn’t care about a game when a majority of its citizens (this writer included) have played the game. I’m betting more than once. Another important reason this argument doesn’t hold water is our women’s team. The U.S. women’s soccer team isn’t just good at the game of soccer; they are ranked number one in the world. The best women’s team on the planet comes from the country that supposedly doesn’t care. Simple logic tells a person that apathy towards soccer can’t be the case. People obviously do care about the sport enough to win World Cups and gold medals. We do care about the game, if we didn’t would they not be just as bad as the men? Soccer is too slow. As a former player and avid watcher of the game, I’ll be the first to admit the game is long and sometimes boring. Yet it’s difficult to argue that baseball is any faster or more exciting than soccer. Football requires spending lagging minutes measuring yardage, setting up plays, icing kickers. Soccer pg. 14>>
A Second Shot: Eric Kindler
MARISSA MARZANO ’14 Copy Chief
Everything’s a little louder in an empty gym. Even the slightest squeak of the sneaker on hardwood or the hollow thunk of a slightly deflated basketball seems to magnify one hundredfold. Maybe it’s because game nights at Hagan Arena are packed with screaming fans, with the constant thump thump of the drum and wanting to “be in that number,” with rim-rattling slam dunks and hands slapping against the glass backboard. When you suck all of that noise out on a Saturday morning everything just seems the slightest bit more silent. Maybe there’s something to be said about the player who fled the relentless din of game night. In an empty gym, you can hear your heart beat in your chest. You can hear yourself think. Maybe that’s why Eric Kindler, ’14, has liked shooting around in an empty gym all this time: because your thoughts are louder than anything else. -On Wednesday, Oct. 17, Eric “Eggy” Kindler became the newest member of the Saint Joseph’s University men’s basketball team. But Kindler, while rolling a ball around between his hands in an almost natural extension of his fingertips, talks alternate realities. “If I sat down with [Head Coach Phil Martelli] and he [said to me], ‘You know Eric, we really enjoyed you and thought you did a great job this past month, but in terms of numbers… we just can’t have you this year,’ I would’ve smiled at him and thanked him and appreciated Coach just as much as I did when he said, ‘Welcome to the team,’” Kindler said. That’s no easy statement, considering the long, hard road Kindler has gone down on his journey to a spot on the squad this season wearing his own #25 jersey. His path included morning and afternoon workouts on his own dur-
ing the beginning of the school year, four weeks of limited practices with the team, and a week of full practice. And that’s not including his freshman year at Canisius College, when he lost his love for basketball and drive to play the game, or even his senior year of high school, when he was momentarily diverted to football. Yes, you read that right. Football. “[I] actually really considered playing football in college,” Kindler said. Hailing from Mechanicsburg, Pa., the youngest of five sons expressed how football is a big deal in his family, with two of his brothers playing football in college. Kindler said at times playing defensive end “came more naturally to me than basketball ever did, but despite [that]… I see basketball as a passion.” He talked about basketball as a centrifugal force in his life, pulling him back to where he’d come before time and time again. “There are certain things that you come back to in your life, no matter what,” he said. “I never could understand why I always came back to a gym, an empty gym. I did play football, but this is my home, this is what I was meant to do, but I just didn’t figure it out [yet].” Though Kindler is a lifelong player and lover of the game, his journey to figuring out that basketball was his true calling took some time. “I had wanted to play college basketball my whole life…and [I’ve] accomplished it,” Kindler said. “But I realized at Canisius [College, where he played his freshman year] that it just wasn’t the life that was meant for me, it wasn’t satisfying.” But even more than that, during his freshman year Kindler began to see the superficial aspects of playing college basketball. Kindler pg.. 15 >> Photo: May Taqi ’13
Men’s soccer falls short GARRETT MILEY ’15
Hawk Staff The Saint Joseph’s University men’s soccer team took on 23rd ranked Saint Louis on Finnesey Field this past Friday, Oct. 19. The Hawks turned in 90 minutes of great, defensive-minded soccer. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to stop the nationally ranked St. Louis Billikens. In the 71st minute, St. Louis’ midfielder Alex Sweetin netted a goal after a throw-in entered the box and slipped through the hands of goalkeeper Michael Moulton, ’14. While the Hawks outshot the Billikens 13-9 in this game, only one St. Joe’s shot required the work of the Billiken goalkeeper. A late scoring opportunity arose for the Hawks when they earned a free kick outside of the 18 with just six seconds remaining on the
clock. Saint Louis, however, cleared the attempt and managed to hold on for a 1-0 victory. Saint Louis kept the pressure on the Hawks all day long and had racked up a 10-1 corner kick advantage by the game’s end. Saint Louis, now 10-3-0 overall, continues to have a phenomenal season in the Atlantic 10 and could potentially be making noise nationally by the season’s end. Men’s soccer also held their final home game of the season, as well as their Senior Day, as they took on Butler (4-6-5, 2-3-1 in the A-10) on Sunday, Oct. 21. The game remained scoreless in the first half, but in the 66th minute the Bulldogs was able to breach the Hawks’ net when Zach Steinberger fired one into the upper right cor-
ner. The Hawks managed to tie it up in the 78th minute when Tim Lazorka, ’15, scored his fifth goal of the season in the lower left corner of the net. The Hawks almost managed to hold on to the tie score for the reminder of regulation, but in the 89th minute the Bulldogs’ Jeff Adkins put home an unassisted goal to give Butler its fourth victory of the season and its second in the Atlantic 10. The teams’ stats were relatively even in this game. Butler outshot the Hawks 21-17, but Saint Joseph’s had the slight edge on total corner kicks, 4-3. The Hawks hit the road for their final three games of the Atlantic 10 season, squaring off against La Salle next on Oct. 26 at 7 p.m.