Seasons Greetings & Happy Holidays from the URI Men's Soccer Office,
Things are beginning to wrap up here on campus with the final week of classes ending today, followed by reading period and exams coming up next week. It's hard to believe that we are only a few weeks away from the holiday break. Time does fly.
Over the past week, we've been meeting with the players individually and catching up on things from the end of the season. As you know it came to an abrupt end with the 3-2 loss to Dayton at the A-10 Championship. The awards season is now upon us and some of the players have already garnered some post season honors. Senior co-captain Kedan Crosby (St. James Trinidad), sophomore central defender Dwayne Williams (Westmoreland, Jamaica) and freshmen forward Erkko Puranen (Viitisaari, Finland) were all named to the Atlantic 10 All-Conference team. Erkko also earned a spot on the league's All-Rookie squad and the A-10 All-Championship team. The NSCAA All-Region team will be posted soon so we are confident that a couple of your guy's will get some recognition there as well.
If you were following MLS Soccer this fall, you would have seen our Rhody alums continuing to make an impact on the field and in life. On the veteran side, URI all-time leading scorer Andy Williams '98 (Kingston, Jamaica) completed his 10th season in the league with Real Salt Lake. We send our thoughts and prayers out to Andy's wife, Marcia, who is battling cancer. Her fight has been well-chronicled in the soccer world as her condition requires help with bone marrow transplants. Any support for Andy and his family is appreciated and you can get more information on how you can help by visiting the RSL website.
Elsewhere around the league, you may have also noticed some familiar names... Danleigh Borman '08 (Cape Town, South Africa) and his New York Red Bull teammates made a great run at the MLS Cup - unfortunately losing in the final to Columbus. Houston Dynamo's "Mr. Everything" Geoff Cameron (Attleboro, MA) was a finalist for MLS Rookie of the Year after a stellar season for the two-time defending MLS Champions.
The big news of the fall was Lance Klima '89 being named to the University of Rhode Island Athletic Hall of Fame. An All-New England goalkeeper under URI legend Geza Henni, Lance was voted Atlantic 10 Player of the Year following his senior season. We are excited to see one of our own be inducted which will officially happen the weekend of February 13-14, as a part of URI's "Big Chill Weekend". You can click here to read more about the new Hall of Fame. We hope you will be able to attend and celebrate with Lance and the Rhody Soccer family. Congratulations Lance!
NEWS FLASH: We are tentatively scheduling our Annual Men's Soccer Team Banquet for Sunday, February 15th. to cap off the "Big Chill" weekend. More information and invitations to this always enjoyable event will follow. We hope you will be able to join us and make it a bigger than life event!
Whew, that was a mouthful.
Fortunately, there are still a lot of things on the horizon for URI soccer including the announcement of our new recruiting class this spring, the 2009 schedule - which includes five teams that participated in the 2008 NCAA Division I Tournament - and, most excitingly, our honor to host the 2009 ATLANTIC 10 CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS on November 12-15 HERE AT THE URI SOCCER COMPLEX!
While this is exciting and will have a tremendous impact on our program, we continue to rely on our alumni and friends generosity to support the daily operations of our nationally-recognized and respected soccer program. In this season of giving you have the opportunity to make contributions which will directly impact the experience of our student-athletes. These funds will be used to supplement some of the most essential needs of the program would go towards things like supporting our 2nd assistant position, travel to out-of-region tournaments, state-of-the-art video equipment as well as training equipment and recruiting.
We realize in these tough economic times we all have to tighten our belts but WE NEED YOUR HELP! Not everyone can give at the same level but EVERYONE who has experienced and loves Rhody Soccer can give. For instance an annual donation of $500 is just $10 per week over the year...the cost of a cutting back on couple of Latte's from Starbucks. For those who are just out of school and on your own, a $100 annual donation amounts to just $2 per week in change from the tolls on the way from work. If you don't know where to start then begin with a basic $50 donation and add $10 for every year since your graduation or since you have been a fan of URI Soccer. This is what I do with my alma mater UMaine and I know it makes a difference.
Act today as it is almost that time of year to get all the last minute donations into gift processed in time for the IRS. You can make your donation on-line by clicking here. Credit card donations must be received for processing by the end of day on December 29, 2008 in order to count under this years IRS RULES.
As always, you can also send a check made payable to RIRAA - Men's Soccer to the address below.
Friends of URI Men's Soccer
Three Keaney Road, Suite One
Kingston, RI 02881
All gifts into the athletic department by January 8th will be processed by the Friday, January 9th 2009 deadline for 2008 tax purposes.
Our future is looking very bright, and with your help, we can move ahead towards our goal of another Atlantic 10 Championship and a trip deep into the NCAA Tournament like our A-10 rivals UMass Minutemen did in 2007!
We look forward to hearing from you soon and thank you in advance for your support.
Happy Holidays,
Coach O'C