Vice Article

MY SOUTHERN SOCCER STORY

Soccer...aka Communist Kickball..”sissy football”, and some names I won’t repeat. When I was growing up those were only a few of the names many Americans and even my friends referred to soccer. I went to a great school, Alexandria High School. Football was king and Basketball was a close second. Even baseball was overlooked after you turned 12. The baseball field was a backstop placed in a corner of the football practice field which also served as a parking lot during the gridiron season. Nonetheless it was in this piece of Americana that I discovered “The Beautiful Game”, Soccer.

While he probably doesn’t remember this, my 5th period P.E. was run by a high school student who was a teacher’s aide. He was introduced to us by Mrs. Sonya Tucker. His name was Gary Cargal. He was an umpire in the youth baseball league (Bronco) but more importantly this H.S. Junior or senior was a kicker on the football team. To make a long story longer, Coach Cargal introduced us to soccer. Why soccer? Probably because we weren’t allowed to play tackle football and what other sport can you include all 22 students? I don’t remember what rules, if any, we played by. I remember we actually developed a hybrid game called “Soccer Football”. But something about soccer caught my attention. I didn’t abandon football (though probably should have with my limited skill as a receiver) but I started watching “Soccer Made in Germany” on PBS , Pele’ and the New York Cosmos, and the World Cup on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. My mother, the biggest sports fan in the world, enrolled my brother and me in afternoon sports classes at the Gadsden YMCA. She always wanted us to have other opportunities and experience the best possible sports experience. She had the full support and encouragement of my father who is the hardest working man I have ever known. We took Karate, Gymnastics, and swimming, however, it was Soccer in the gym that really excited me. Soon, when I turned about 14 it was back to the gridiron after a 7th and 8th grade stint in the High School band. I love football, so much that I watch it year round, NCAA, NFL, Arena League, Indoor Football League, CFL, and every spring league that has ever been attempted. However, I never gave up on my passion for soccer.

I attended Gadsden State Jr. College (now GSCC) which was a safe harbor for every potential foreign college student who had yet to master English. I met students from all over the world and even played soccer with them down below the cafeteria in front of the dorm. When I transferred to Jacksonville State University I played intramural football and basketball for the Baptist Campus Ministry, but even then I watched the International House Students play soccer almost daily. I joined a local fraternity (Pi Sigma Chi) which would later become a Sigma Phi Epsilon Chapter. It was there that I finally found a soccer team to officially play on. We played some of the other Fraternities but my favorite memory was when we beat a team called the “Nigerian Jets”. I scored 1 goal in the 1st half and another in the 2nd. I was hooked for life.

After a brief stint as a WalMart associate and a Chemist, I was hired as a History teacher and a football coach at Coosa High School in Rome, Georgia. I moved my young family hoping to start a career. Though my JV football team did pretty well, (future NFL standout Bernard Holsey on the roster didn’t hurt), our varsity team struggled and rumors began to circulate that the football staff would be shuffled and adjusted. As a young non-tenured teacher who loved teaching and coaching, I was terrified that I would be one of the ones let go. One day at lunch, Mr. Homer Mathis, an assistant principal, was talking about his son who was a football and soccer standout at West Rome H.S.. He casually mentioned that we needed a soccer team at Coosa. Dr. Terry Lewis, the principal said “Coach Vice, why don’t you do a signup sheet and see if there is interest”. He remembered that I had placed soccer on my resume. Dr. Lewis caught a lot of flack from local principals and Athletic Directors in the area but he and our A.D., Gary Graves, held firm. We fielded the school’s first team during the spring of 1989.

The team we started actually went 2-7 that first season. That would be one of only 4 losing seasons in school history. We started playing only away games and by our 5th year never played in front of less than 150 people. I retired from Coosa High 29 years later with over 320 high school games under my belt as head coach. I had coached Boys, Girls, Varsity, and JV. In several seasons all of the above simultaneously. I also coached several youth teams in Alabama and Georgia. I actually played a few years for the “Las Chivas” club team in the local summer league. I retired from coaching 1 year before I retired from teaching in Georgia (my second coaching retirement). In 2017, my last year at Coosa, the team I started and under the direction of my good friend and former assistant Ruben Maldonado, played in the Georgia State Championship final. While they lost the game, I felt like we had finally arrived.

I am forever indebted to all of the former administrators, teachers,and players who helped me through the years. I saw over 40 students including 7 players die either before or shortly after graduation. My memories of how I interacted with them remind me how important each word said by a teacher or a coach can be to a young person.

In January of 2017 I was driving home from Coosa trying not to fall asleep at the wheel when the phone rang, it was Chris Winningham, the principal at Southside HS near Gadsden,AL. Only 6 miles from where I lived. In the fall of 2017 I became a History teacher and the Head Soccer Coach at Southside High School. A school only 20 miles from my Alma Mater, Alexandria. During my first season at Southside we lost a coin toss which would have put us in the Alabama State Soccer Playoff Tournament. The next season we won our Area and entered the playoffs. We made it to the second round. The 2020 season was a great year which ended with the season terminated due to Covid 19. We were ranked #1 , Area Champs, 11-1 in the state when the season was cancelled. 2021 ended with our 3rd straight Area Title and a 2nd Round loss on PKs to eventual runner-up Ft. Payne. We won our 4th consecutive Area title on April 12th, 2022. As we begin our 3rd consecutive (skip Covid) Alabama State Soccer Playoff Tournament, I felt the need to remind myself where and how it all began..