by Michael Swinea | Apr 6, 2011 | Opinion
Tuesday, March 29, 2010 is a date I will always remember. I won’t remember it for the weather, my classes, or for the Singarama practice I missed—I’ll remember it for being the day that I attended my first international soccer match. The United States Men’s National Team (USMNT) played Paraguay on Tuesday at LP Field, and I was lucky enough to get a ticket and go with seven of my good friends who love both soccer and America. We ordered our tickets on the pre-sale, so our seats were pretty good—12 rows up around midfield—and we had been looking forward to the match for months. On game day, Trey Weatherly, Taylor Ezell, Casey Boyer, Drew Lewis, Alexander McMeen, Bryce Davidson, Garrett Crothers and I all met up outside of High Rise (wearing almost every scrap of USA apparel we owned) to head to McDougal’s for a little pre-game chicken. After filling up, we headed out to LP Field and joined the masses of red, white, and blue just before kickoff. Before I even entered the stadium I knew that this sporting event would have a different atmosphere from the Braves and Titans games I was used to attending. Never have I seen so many crazy costumes for a professional sporting event. Normally, you would just see people wearing a team jersey, shirt or jacket. Here, there were shirts, jerseys, shorts, pants, flags, bandanas and scarves galore proudly displaying the red, white and blue. Like I said before, our seats were fantastic. You could hear the players shouting and the ball hitting against them. It was incredible. The fans around...
by Michael Swinea | Mar 30, 2011 | News Slider, Sports
The first season of intramural indoor soccer at Lipscomb University has just heard its final whistle, and according to intramural coordinator Mike Smith, it could not have gone any smoother. “It all really went without incident,” Smith said. “The only thing that could be seen as a problem was using McQuiddy and having to share it with the student athletes when it rained, but if that happened, we just went to the [Student Activities Center], so it really wasn’t a problem.” The amount of student participation was surprising, considering it was the first year of both the intramural sport’s existence and the addition of imleagues.com. Casey Boyer, a senior information technologies major from Palm Harbor, Fla., and member of the Lady Goats intramural soccer team was surprised by the amount of participation. “Everything turned out great because everyone got to play more games,” Boyer said. Smith was overjoyed by the numbers. “There were 14 teams of seven or eight each, so that makes over 100 people participating in intramurals who wouldn’t normally be participating,” Smith said. Almost all student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive about the addition of indoor soccer to the list of intramural options, he said. In a season dominated by basketball, students were quick to jump onto an alternative. “We just wanted to offer an alternative winter sport to basketball,” Smith said. “But with this huge participation and it only costing us the amount we pay the three referees, it’s really a...
