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Maddie Lay (from left), Kyndall Cochran and Abigail Durisseau vie for the ball at the alumni women’s soccer game on Friday, Aug. 4. -
Landon Matz (from left) tussles with opponents Booth Bassett and Antonio Barrera during the frenetic fray of the alumni men’s soccer game Aug. 4.
Larry Griffin
lgriffin@thesmokymountaintimes.com
This past weekend, high school athletic alumni descended on Swain County with the purpose of playing their old sports to help raise money for the sports programs – and have fun.
On Friday, the alumni soccer games saw crowds flocking out to the rec park soccer field, where they sat in the hot sun and drank Gatorades and ate snacks while cheering on their old friends and teammates playing one more round.
Both games were full of raucous energy, with the players colliding several times in their quests to chase the ball, all of them working hard to score goals.
In the break between the girls’ and boys’ soccer games, two local luminaries in soccer were acknowledged. First, the presenter honored David Outlaw, who helped to start the first ever women’s soccer team in Swain County. Then, the school gave a “big thank you” to Dr. David Zimmerman, who helped start the first ever soccer team for the county in general, going before the school board to make his case decades ago.
Then, Saturday saw alumni games for both volleyball and basketball, and Sunday had an alumni baseball game. The money from tickets sold will go toward various causes for each individual sport at the high school going forward.
Girls’ soccer coach Scott Cline said there had been people traveling to the area from all over the region.
“One person flew in from Boston, one drove from DC,” he said. “Some people came from Virginia, and from Chattanooga. They were coming from all different places. Some people played multiple sports – some of the guys who played soccer also played basketball, and some girls did soccer and volleyball. There was a good amount of overlap.”
Overall, Cline thought the weekend went well, especially since it was the first time, they’d added the other alumni sports besides only soccer.
“It connects the alumni back to the programs they were in. The best part is seeing all these people together that used to play together. I think it’s good for the former players to get connected back to a current program,” he said, adding that he thought maybe some of them would get the spirit back in them and come out and watch future games with the current teams.