“Soccer brings people together,” Sylvester Nwosuji said.
The University of St. Thomas currently has over 10,000 total students enrolled, and more than 5 percent of them are international students. These international students come from a variety of different places around the world and currently live in a culture that they are not accustomed to. The international students who are a part of the one of the most diverse clubs at St. Thomas are able to live in a culture that everyone is accustomed to while playing a game of soccer.
“Soccer is so universal. Everybody in the world plays it. It is so simple to play, all you need is a ball and that’s it,” Bryan Steinsapir said.
The University of St. Thomas Futbol Club has been around campus for years, gathering in either the McCarthy Gym or one of St. Thomas’ outdoor fields every Wednesday and Friday night to play soccer. On the days they play, a club member posts a message in the club’s Facebook group with the time and place to meet and play. The 332 Facebook group members can then look and decide whether to play later that night.
“I learned about it through Facebook,” club member Steinsapir said. “I was just looking for people to play pick-up games with and I saw the Futbol Club was there.”
The club was created for students like Steinsapir, an international student from Chile, who don’t play competitively on the St. Thomas men’s Soccer Team, but want to continue to play for the love for the game.
“That’s what it is about at the end of the day: having fun and playing the sport that you love,” club vice president Sylvester Nwosuji said.
While there are many soccer clubs around the country, the unique thing about this group is the diversity of the club members.
“We have people who come from all over,” Nwosuji said. “If it’s not Africa, if it’s not Middle East, it’s something. We have them all.”
In a university that has 15% of undergraduate students and 19% of graduate students being students of color, diversity is important.The club was created in an effort to bring students from all around the world together by participating in an activity that the general student body would love. And soccer, the most popular sport in the world, was that common love.
Members not only get the chance to play the game that they love, but they also get a chance to learn about all of the different cultures that their fellow club members are accustomed to and came from.
“I have never met anybody from Saudi Arabia until I moved here and, in the Futbol Club, there are a bunch of members that are from Saudi Arabia,” Steinsapir pointed out. “It’s super cool to share one passion in common and bond through it.”
Gamiel Hall can be reached at hall0211@stthomas.edu.