Golden Eagle soccer to compete in 2014
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Utah State University Eastern Chancellor Joe Peterson and Athletic Director Dave Paur announced that USU Eastern will sponsor men’s and women’s soccer teams starting in fall 2014. The teams will be slated to compete during the 2014-2015 academic school year.
USU Eastern will become the second junior college athletic program to sponsor soccer within the Scenic West Athletic Conference (SWAC).
Dave Paur, athletic director said the Golden Eagles will look to compete with region nine for scheduling because they are closest region that sponsors soccer.
“It is a golden opportunity to sponsor soccer,” said Paur. “We will be the second JUCO in Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and Western Colorado to sponsor soccer. The other being North Idaho College, but they generally schedule with teams in Oregon and Washington . This decision will attract several students to our campus.”
Alex Herzog, associate vice-chancellor said the institution will be posting the job within the coming months with hopes of hiring one coach to be in charge of both programs by the first of January.
“This is a great opportunity for our institution to dive into an untapped market,” said Herzog. “We hope to find a coach who is willing to put in the time and effort required to not only start one program, but two.”
Dave Paur echoed Herzog’s comments on the task at hand for the future coach of the programs.
“We will be sending out recruiting information to high school and club soccer coaches over the next few weeks to get the word out,” said the longtime athletic director. “We want to ease the recruiting process as much as we can for the new coach.”
With the addition of the soccer programs USU Eastern will now sponsor six varsity sports.
“We have always talked about adding sports at Eastern but it was always just talk,” said Paur. “Last October our former SID KC Smurthwaite put together an actual proposal with numbers on how it could impact the community and the school. The addition of soccer will help build USU Eastern as an institution and provide a boost to our enrollment”
