Photo courtesy of the LIJSL
By Randy Vogt, Director of Public Relations, Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association
March 19, 2015-At the Huntington Hilton on Saturday night, March 7, five soccer players who grew up playing in the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) were inducted in the Long Island Soccer Player Hall of Fame during the 33rd Annual Long Island Junior Soccer League (LIJSL) Convention. Michael Windischmann of Queens was one of the honorees.
The awards keep coming for Mike as he has been inducted into the Halls of Fame of US Soccer, the Cosmopolitan Junior Soccer League (CJSL) and Adelphi University and now adds the Long Island Soccer Player Hall of Fame to that list. He grew up playing for B/W Gottschee, Gjoa, Queens United and Brooklyn Italians plus was an All-American at Adelphi. He earned 50 caps with the US Men’s National Team and is best-known as being the US captain during the 1990 World Cup as the Americans qualified for the first time since 1950. They have qualified for every World Cup since but Mike and his teammates ended that 40-year drought.
Mike was also a player on the 1998 Olympic team, 1987 Pan American team and US National Youth Teams in 1983 and ‘84 plus helped lead the red, white and blue to the 1992 Futsal World Cup final in Hong Kong, where they lost to Brazil 4-1. He played professionally for the Los Angeles Lazars of the Major Indoor Soccer League in 1987-88 and Albany Capitals of the American Soccer League in 1989.
The other Long Island Soccer Player Hall of Fame inductees were Alan Bodenstein, Ed Cody, Emily Pickering Harner and Tom Lang. Congratulations to all five!
With 123,843 youth soccer players––68,587 boys and 55,256 girls––and more than 25,000 volunteers, the non-profit Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) stretches from Montauk Point, Long Island to the Canadian border. Members are affiliated with 11 leagues throughout the association, which covers the entire state of New York east of Route 81. ENYYSA exists to promote and enhance the game of soccer for children and teenagers between the ages of 5 and 19 years old, and to encourage the healthy development of youth players, coaches, referees and administrators. All levels of soccer are offered––from intramural, travel team and premier players as well as Special Children. No child who wants to play soccer is turned away. ENYYSA is a proud member of the United States Soccer Federation and United States Youth Soccer Association. For more information, please log on to http://www.enysoccer.com/, which receives nearly 300,000 hits annually from the growing soccer community.