1959
It is no surprise that the first recorded mention of Trinity Soccer comes in the 1950s. Soccer in America was growing exponentially at that time, following on from the United States surprising upset victory over England at the 1950 World Cup. Naturally, in the United States where the sports market is so saturated and biased towards the traditional American sports (basketball, baseball and football) it was not an overnight transition to soccer fandom and only recently, now nearly 70 years later, has soccer truly been incorporated into society here, and yet still remains a distant 4th (or maybe even 5th behind hockey) in terms of popularity. But during the Post-War era the surge in soccer was happening across the country. 1959 is an interesting year as it was the year of the inaugural NCAA and NAIA soccer National Championship Tournaments. Perhaps this revolution of new ideas in collegiate competition sparked something on Trinity’s campus, as 1959 is also the beginning of the first Trinity Soccer team.
The team was “formed around a nucleus of six foreign students, one Alaskan and two Southwesterners.” Led by Dutchman Jan Overman, the students searched for more players, with the Texans hoping more “Lone Star men” would join so as to continue their motto of “Texas, biggest and the mostest.” The nations and territories represented on this inaugural team were Alaska, Iran, France, Poland, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Arizona and Texas. Sadly, the team was short-lived. The Trinitonian archives contain only one more mention of this youthful team in 1959. The October 16th article describes Trinity’s season-opening defeat to the L.I.D. Independent San Antonio team. A 9-3 defeat may have contributed to the fact that there would be no further mention of Trinity Soccer until 1965, when a fresh crop of students would provide the foundation for the program we know today.