The Whitworthian

April 22nd, 2008

Forget Beckham, I want Bech.

Ah Soccer. It’s what the rest of the world is obsessed with (though under a different name) and if you have hung out in the HUB at all recently, you know how many people have clobbered around the television set in the coffee shop to watch the pros around lunch time. For those Whitworthians who love the sport, but lack a legit Whitworth Soccer jersey, there is infamous intramural soccer. Fun, but still competitive, these after-hour athletes pull out their balls in Graves gym.

One of Whitworth’s most humble teams is the legendary Aromim FC captained by none other then Whitworth’s own Kyle Ritter. “Aromim FC is the greatest team ever assembled at Whitworth, because we have more fun than anyone. We’re not the greatest team, but we have camaraderie usually only seen on medieval battlegrounds,” said Ritter. “Unfortunately, we keep having to forfeit because our team is full of extremely busy people (like Young Lifers and people who work like 180 hours per week)”.

Jeff Warner, Captain of Team All Day, also expressed busy schedules as a frustration. “A lot of times my players can’t show up, so I think we have quite a few forfeits,” said Warner. “but when we come, we’re a good team.” Team All Day faced off with Aromim FC this past week, beating them in what Ritter called “a heartbreaker”. “We fielded a whole team and we played them well. We had roughly a million shots on goal, but Pat Bech played like an all-star and kept us to 3 or 4 goals,” Ritter said. “It was fun and I accidentally yelled a cuss word once when I missed a shot.”

Captain Warner also sung senior Pat Bech’s praises, esteeming him as the player that really carries the team and stands out, but claiming the whole game as healthily competitive. “The game against Aromin FC was very fun,” Warner said. “It was a close competitive game, which is always more enjoyable than a forfeit or blow-out.” Being a captain can be stressful in light of competition so when asked the best part about being the captain of a Whitworth intramural soccer team, Warner said, “Trying to lead and learning how to be a better leader.” For Ritter, the answer fell in the hands of personal technology benefits. “The best thing about being the captain is sending emails to the team all the time that they don’t read and delete. That’s without a doubt the best part.” Ritter then laid a humble card admitting himself no more esteemed then his fellow teammates. “Really, we [captains] don’t do anything differently than any other player except I sent everyone the schedule at the beginning of the year,” said Ritter, “and once I forwarded an email that Dave Gerig sent telling us to stop verbally harassing the ref.”
While Captain Warner loves soccer for the strategy and athleticism, Captain Ritter loves soccer, like being captain, for the side benefits. “It keeps me from getting fat. I mean it keeps me active,” said Ritter. “It’s also a great team sport, because we have Brian Stenberg on our team, and if you don’t know anything about him, he’s the most amazing athlete I’ve ever met and he still can’t beat the other teams by himself. You can’t just rely on one good player (except Pat Bech, apparently).” Moral of the story? Get Bech on your team.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 10:34 pm and is filed under The Water Cooler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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