2013 CUNY men’s champions, Baruch College
By Randy Vogt, Director of Public Relations, Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association
November 13, 2013-The City University of New York (CUNY) has a proud legacy in Division 3 men’s college soccer as its nine four-year colleges have been playing the sport for decades.
Its very first championship game was played on October 27, 1990 at Lehman College in the Bronx and York defeated John Jay, 2-1. Players born in over 20 countries competed in that inaugural championship game and the winning York coach was Tim Bradbury, newly arrived from England. Tim was selected as the 1990 CUNY Coach of the Year and, more than two decades later, he is now the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) Director of Coaching Instruction.
The majority of CUNY players remain immigrants or the children of immigrants. These players learned the value of hard work, perseverance and sportsmanship in Eastern New York’s six leagues that play in New York City––Big Apple Youth Soccer League, Cosmopolitan Junior Soccer League, Long Island Junior Soccer League, Metrokids Interregional Soccer League, Staten Island Youth Soccer League and the Westchester Youth Soccer League.
Zak Ivkovic, CUNY’s Executive Director for the past 11 years, volunteers as the Second Vice President of the Cosmopolitan Junior League. Zak was a four-time CUNY All-Star and still holds Hunter’s goalkeeping records for shutouts in a single season (9) and in a career (20) after a stellar youth career playing for Cosmopolitan clubs including Eintracht, GH Metros, Queens United and B/W Gottschee.
This year’s CUNY men’s championship match on November 9 in front of an enthusiastic SRO crowd at the renovated turf field at Brooklyn College featured top-seeded Baruch College and second seed City College of New York (CCNY) with Baruch prevailing in the 99th minute on a golden goal by Oren Kozlowski, selected as the playoff MVP. Baruch earned CUNY’s automatic bid to the NCAA playoffs. Brooklyn College took the CUNY title on the women’s side to qualify for the NCAA playoffs as well.
Not surprisingly since these players grew up in Eastern New York, the CUNY colleges have been doing very well in the sportsmanship selections by the refs of the New York Metro Intercollegiate Soccer Officials Association (NYMISOA), who serve the five boroughs of New York City as well as Long Island and Westchester. CCNY, Medgar Evers and York have all received the Doc Feld Sportsmanship Award for men’s college soccer in the past eight years with Brooklyn College receiving the award at NYMISOA’s Annual Awards Dinner on November 11.
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 12 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.