By Cory Tell ’14, Sports Editor

Sports are seen as a way for countries to demonstrate their strength and supremacy, and governments often pour a lot of money into building national training centers and sponsoring sports programs to improve the athletics of their nation. Like most other countries, the United States is enamored with sports, but America somehow failed to put its own soccer team in the World Cup for 40 years, from 1950 to 1990. The fact that the United States failed to make a World Cup for over four decades showed just how little the country cared about soccer, and just how insignificant the sport was seen in the United States from a global perspective.

Since that drought, however, the United States has seen a meteoric rise in the popularity of soccer over the past 20 years. The recent ascendance of soccer in America can be seen in our own backyard at Newark Academy. There has been a dramatic surge in the sheer number of students playing soccer, and that extends as well to the fan support from the community in general. It has been terrific to see this startling change in how soccer is viewed on both a national and local level, by both players and fans.

The success on the field of both the men and women’s US national soccer teams is indicative of the growth and advancement of the game in America. The men’s team, which has already clinched a berth in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, is currently ranked 13^th in the FIFA World Rankings, which is the squad’s highest spot since 2010. The climb of the US in the rankings parallels the continual rise of the popularity of soccer amongst the nation’s youth. When children view the achievements of the US national teams on the Internet or on television, they are more likely to want to play the sport. Kids now have soccer athletes to emulate, like Landon Donovan and Alex Morgan. Sydney Feinberg ’14, a member of the Newark Academy women’s soccer team said, “When I was a little kid, I remember watching Mia Hamm on TV and thinking how amazing she was as a player. She inspired me to start playing soccer, a sport that I might not have considered playing if I didn’t see her when I was growing up.” The attraction that kids now feel to current or former soccer players certainly facilitates interest in the sport.

The World Cup in Brazil next summer will be a fantastic opportunity for soccer to increase its already growing popularity in the United States. The world’s biggest soccer tournament will be televised here at home, giving the entire country easy access to all the games and player’s personalities. Seth Wilensky ’16, a member of the Newark Academy men’s soccer team, noted the influence television has on kids when he said, “As international soccer, foreign leagues, and all the World Cup games become televised in the United States, it will encourage more kids to start playing because they will see how awesome the game can really be.”

The growth of soccer at Newark Academy is reflective of the expansion and development of the sport throughout the United States. More and more kids are beginning to focus on soccer starting at younger age. Specifically at Newark Academy, concerns over the perceived safety of football have swayed a lot of kids away from the sport and to the soccer team during the fall season. Noah Nazmiyal ’16, a member of the Newark Academy men’s team said, “With football resulting in more serious injuries, like concussions, many parents and kids would much rather play soccer.” Additionally, more fans from Newark Academy come out to the soccer field to watch the team’s games than arguably any other sport at the school. Eric Szlosek, an avid fan of the Newark Academy teams, voiced this sentiment when he said, “It’s amazing how many fans the soccer teams get to all of their games. The support that the team receives is incredible, and it shows just how popular soccer is amongst the kids at Newark Academy.” Fan support for Newark Academy soccer is difficult to overstate.

Although soccer still has a ways to go before it reaches the absurdly popular levels of football and basketball, it has come a long way in the last few years. Soccer is known as the “World’s Favorite Sport,” and that notion is starting to catch on across fields in America.  We see soccer’s foothold at Newark Academy — the school truly parallels the growth of soccer around the nation.  Hopefully, as the program grows, Minutemen soccer teams will continue to draw large numbers of fans out to their games.