Jesse Wood discusses the lost history of Appalachian State’s soccer team – particularly their striking success in the 1970s and 1980s. App’s soccer program, like many other soccer programs at many other schools, is slowly losing their star status, and playing fields have slowly migrated from main campus land. The team is getting less recognition and their successes are often under-covered, and games often go underattended. Back in the day though, App State was a soccer power house. The article largely credits Vaughn Christian and his predecessors for this notorious status.
Christian tapped into what was called the “Nigerian Connection” – a term for the “recruitment of Nigerian players to App State, Clemson and Alabama A&M.” Christian in particular was very personable and would write letters to prospective foreign players – including the notable Emmanuel Udogu, the Southern Conference Player of the Year in 1974. Christian and the soccer program actively sought out players from across the globe, and set records in their prime.
One thing in particular that I found interesting from this article is how important these early years of successful App State soccer was important to the High Country as a whole. For a long while, the only soccer goals in Watauga county were owned by the college. The school allowed youth to use their soccer equipment and facilitated soccer clinics for the youths of Watauga.
It is fascinating that this long story of sports success has been seemingly lost to time, while there is so much focus on the football team, particularly after the 2007 win by the football team over Michigan State. This is not only a trend on App’s campus, but overall a college sports phenomenon – football simply brings in more money. I found this article interested as an App student (who is not even that interested in any sports), because at this point we hear very little about any sports outside of football or basketball. As a historian, I found it interesting that really only the team itself continues to uphold this history, and that even to them the stories were lost for a while. The continuation of the legacy App State’s golden era is left to those who play. Hopefully, like Wood himself points out, further attention can be brought to the game and the sport, and the golden era will return to the public mind.
