August 23, 2012

Dear Alums & Friends,

Pre-season is officially over and before we know it so will the summer with not much more then 2 weeks left in the dog days of August. But, it is a great sign as it means that we are that much closer to our first game of 2012 versus the Catamounts of the University of Vermont.

Late Friday morning we head north to Burlington for a 1:00 pm match the next day. The guy’s are very excited to get at it after a very good performance against Ivy League foe Harvard in the final exhibition game of pre-season training. So, we are excited to get going for real as UVM will be quite a test being their home opener as well as the first game on their new field turf facility Virtue Field. I’m sure you alums remember Vermonts old Centennial Field. I certainly do from my days at Maine as they had a great atmosphere and following including the students who sat in the trees that hung over the field and heckled the visitors. For those who can’t make it, the game will be streamed on the web for free.

The following weekend the 3rd Annual Ocean State Soccer Classic brings us home for an opening game at Brown on Friday August 31st at 7:00 pm followed by the consolation/finals held at the URI Soccer Complex on Monday September 3rd at 5:00 pm & 7:30 pm respectively. We have our eyes on the being in the finals as we were last season so keep tuned to www.gorhody.com for all the results.

There’s been a lot of news from the alumni front since I last wrote including not only former Ram Geoff Cameron’s move to Stoke City of the EPL but also his terrific performance in the USMNT historic win against Mexico in Azteca Stadium. In many of not all of the on-line soccer pages Geoff and Tim Howard were the #1 stars of the game. Congrats Geoff and our best wishes of more victories like that to come!

The other day Adam Homler ‘88 and his family dropped by the office after a little vacation in Newport before returning to their home on Long Island. They spent some time chatting as well as walking campus. The kids even got to shoot around in the new and improved URI Soccer Complex. They seemed to enjoy their visit and maybe we’ll even get another Homler on the Ram roster in the future!

Also heard just today from Perek Bellah ‘04 Who is coming down on the weekend of October 13th with his family to attend a game. Perek is coaching club soccer in upstate New York and is in close touch with the program as a staunch Rhody supporter!

A reminder that Homecoming Weekend this year is October 26-28 and we will be home with Atlantic 10 games versus Duquesne on Friday at 7:00 pm and St. Bonaventure on Sunday at 1:00 pm. On Saturday we will be sponsoring an Alumni vs. Alumni “Bread & Butter” followed by a URI Soccer BBQ in “Rhodyville” prior to the Homecoming Football game. It should be a great weekend so make plans to get back to Kingston now!

Before I sign off I wanted to let you know that this morning the team and I spent some time at the track encouraging David Isaacks ‘16 in a 1 1/2 mile in run to support him being one of 40 finalists for a $20,000 “Thriving Student” scholarship through the Cystic Fibrosis Association and the “CareForward Scholarship”. David ran the distance supervised by two people from the “Boomer Esiason Foundation” in a sleek 9 minutes with the help of teammate Parker Kuklinski ‘13 who kept him company and helped him pace. If you haven’t already be sure to support David by voting for him at http://www.CFCareForwardScholarship.com as well as check out his inspirational video. Here is this kid living a joyful life with CF buzzing around the track with determination, poise and passion. It truly was site to see and something every one of our players can refer to during games when things are difficult, their gas tanks are getting empty and they need a boost! We are truly luck to have him on the squad.

All the best and GO RAMS!
Coach O’C