Men’s and women’s soccer starting in 2004

This archived article was written by: Melissa Spencer

Next fall the College of Eastern Utah will start a soccer club team that competes intercollegically. There will be two teams: one for men and one for women. The teams will be clubs, but will be school funded and travel to compete.
The birth of these teams came in an interesting way. CEU competes in the Scenic West Athletic Conference along with schools from Dixie in the south to Northern Idaho in the north.
For years Northern Idaho has been the only school in the conference with a soccer team. Because they had no one to compete against them, they sent their soccer teams to compete against schools in the Washington and Oregon area.
This year Northern Idaho was asked to bring all their teams to play in Washington and Oregon or leave all together.
The athletic department from Northern Idaho asked the athletic directors of the teams in the SWAC to get together soccer teams so they could stay in the SWAC conference.
In order to start a soccer team at CEU, Dave Paur, director of athletics, had to talk to President Ryan Thomas and student body president Jed Lloyd to secure the funding needed.
Paur commented, “They were both very supportive of this cause, they took care of everything we need.”
Paur added, “Right now our biggest concern is finding a coach, someone with the time and experience to recruit enough players to field a team. We’re committed now and there’s no going back. But I think this could be a great thing for our school.”