New Gamecock Soccer Facilities

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No Men's SEC Soccer kinda makes me mad.

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Maybe one day we'll have it, but maybe not for many years from now. Only SC and Kentucky have Men's Soccer of the current SEC teams. I think Title IX restrictions/financial obligations are keeping the other schools from creating teams.


Back to these facilities, SC's soccer facilities are now some of the best, if not the best in the country now.

Our soccer facilities are now much better than UNC's.
- unc's facility doesn't have a soccer only weight room, player lounge or separate film room, like our's does.
- Our facility is about twice the size of unc's McCaskill Soccer complex.
- Our facility has trainers and physical therapy equipment on site, unc's doesn't.
- Our facility also now has a dedicated indoor turf'd field (the old football IPF) across the street. unc has the Eddie Smith IPF, but it's not turf. and it's used by track and the other sports a lot.
- Our locker room is brand new and unc's is about 17 years old.

We have a decent men's soccer history, but haven't won it all yet. We have 1 Nat'l Runner Up, 4 Conf Championships, and 21 NCAAt appearances in 39 years. Plus the Goalkeeper for the US National Team, Brad Guzan, is a SC alum.
We have really an up and comping Women's team that started in '95. They have 2 Conf Championships, but have made the NCAAt 9 of the past 10 years.

These facilities will help a lot with recruiting.

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I think it's more impressive that he's been a PL starter for the last 5 years.

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yeah, I might agree. Hopefully we'll get some graphics of him up around the new facility.

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Isn't he with 'Boro now?

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Yes.

Doesn't play though, probably won't either.

So need to highlight his time with Villa... Good to see he got to stay with a PL club and not move to the Championship.

When Mark first got here I met him within the first couple of weeks ... he was dating, well "seeing," this pretty gal that worked for me at the time, Maureen Ahern from New York, or maybe New Jersey, I can't remember. Really pretty, tall, green eyed, lithe coed, played volleyball for us if I remember correctly. But through her I got to know him and have remained friends with him all of these years ... almost forty years, wow.

Anyways, at the time I remember talking to him about building a program here and he said we already had a good club system so he was going to build off of that - which he did in relatively short order. And he said, even then, that SC produced some good soccer talent even though it was just taking off back then really.

(Trivia: Ronnie Bass was an excellent college level elite soccer player but chose to play football. He had been raised as a military brat and was naturally athletic with good feet and he had learned overseas.)

But Mark was always pushing for better facilities and our program was always trying to give him better facilities ... glad to see it finally come to fruition.

I'm getting a tour of the new facility tomorrow. Looks like one of my Goddaughters is playing for Shelley this year ... at least that's the plan so far, as a walk on. She was well recruited but decided she just wanted to concentrate on school - but once she got here she changed her mind. I'm not sure how long it is going to last but for now anyways ...

The new building is finally up and running. It should be a great recruiting tool. Would really like to see Mark win the big one before he retires and I know Shelley honestly believes she can win a National Championship here.