The article talks about the Golden Age of soccer at App State which occurred in the 70s and 80s, they would have one of the best soccer players in college history and would make the NCAA tournament multiple times something that would be impossible today even if they still had a team because of all the colleges in NC that would compete for recruits. This impressive soccer history is rarely talked about and has been pushed aside because of the success of App State’s football team and the upset at the Big House, which is what most people would know App for outside of the state. App State no longer has a men’s soccer team so I never would have thought it was at one point an important part of the school, I went to a game when I was younger and the team was not good and there were very few people there so it is crazy to hear that the team used to be must-see and that the whole town would come together to cheer on the soccer team the same way they do the football team. The team at one point played at the football stadium and even had an Olympian on their team, his name was Thomspon Usiyan, a Nigerian who decided to play college instead of pro to get an education. This was surprising to hear because this rarely happens today and most people play soccer in college because they are not quite good enough yet to make the pros, he would become one of the most accomplished players in NCAA history. He still holds the record for most goals in a season, most points in a season, and most goals in a playoff game with seven. The history of App’s soccer team should be told more because Thompson is one of the best athletes App State has ever had and almost no one knows his name or what he did at this school, the team also at one point one thirty-five straight conference games which is still an NCAA record. The history of sports at this school is rarely told outside of football because of the three consecutive titles and the upset against Michigan but stories like these are very important to tell because App may have had more fans come to games and better players come to the school because of the history of the team before the team was terminated. Reading this story reminds me a bit of the Open Cup in the U.S., it is one of the oldest soccer tournaments in the world but because not a lot of people know the history and there is a poor job done telling the history, the cup itself is not a very important title and most MLS teams rest their players when playing in it. Thompson would later go on to play indoor soccer across the United States and would play in multiple tournaments for the Nigeria team.
