The day that University of Massachusetts soccer fanatics wait for year round is approaching as the 10th annual Supercuts SoccerFest draws near.
The non-profit event is scheduled to occur at 8 a.m. on April 28 behind McGuirk Alumni Stadium.
According to Yousaf Nishat-Botero, an event staffer, this year’s event will have something for everyone from soccer enthusiasts to those just looking for a good time with friends.
“We have shifted from being a very fun event for kids to being more competitive this year, trying to attract the best teams and the best talent from around Western Massachusetts,” said Nishat-Botero. “But also, we still want to provide that fun atmosphere for all. It’s more then a soccer tournament, it’s more of a festival.”
Yousaf is one of many students in the sports management department at UMass who are in charge of organizing the annual SoccerFest event.
The event is not all about soccer, however, as there will be a number of different activities for everyone.
Every year there is a “Fun Zone,” and this year’s will include a sponsored scavenger hunt, a PUMA Skills Competition, a home run derby and a pie eating contest.
Along with the shirt each participant will receive, participants also will be handed a card for the scavenger hunt. The participant must get an initial signature from every tournament sponsor to be entered into a lottery for the grand prizes of two Boston Red Sox tickets, two New England Patriots tickets or two four-packs of New England Revolution tickets.
The PUMA Skills Challenge will consist of four different stations spanning from contests challenging the player’s ability to dribble, juggle and score.
The home run derby will occur at what tournament organizers have coined Fenway Fantasy Park. This particular derby uses a wiffle ball and each player has five outs to hit as many home runs as possible.
The pie-eating contest will be set up like a standard ‘messy’ pie-eating contest with 10 participants at a time.
Along with these ‘Fun Zone’ events will be multiple booths where sponsors and charities will set up their own spots. There will also be food and drinks.
The sponsors include well known organizations such as PUMA, Blackberry, New England Revolution, Verizon Wireless, Supercuts, Powerade and many more.
Food options will include Bart’s Ice Cream, Baby Berk and UMass Concessions.
This year there will be three charities, which SoccerFest calls “Cause Related Marketing,” including Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County, the Kristian J. Rose Memorial Scholarship and Kick for Nick.
Kick for Nick is a foundation that was established to provide soccer balls to impoverished children worldwide. The foundation is named after United States Private Nicholas Madaras who noticed while on duty in Iraq that the children didn’t have the means to acquire a soccer ball. So when he came home he rounded up as many as he could find and brought them back with him to Iraq. His friends and family have taken on his mission to give soccer balls to those less fortunate after he died in combat.
The Kristian J. Rose Memorial Scholarship was set up in honor of Kristian Rose who was a class of 2012 UMass sports management major. Rose lost his life in an auto accident and this scholarship was created in his honor.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County is part of the larger organization, Center for Human Development, who according to their website, “provides a broad range of high quality, community-oriented human services dedicated to promoting, enhancing and protecting the dignity and welfare of people in need.”
Today is the final day that teams can register for the event. Registration must be done on the event website, soccerfest.org.
The teams must comprise of at least six players and can go up to as many as 14. There is also a team registration fee of $100.00 required paid through PayPal. Registration guarantees three, 25-minute soccer games and an individual player pack including a tournament t-shirt.
There are 15 divisions including male and female U-10, U-12, U-14, high school, just for fun and top gun divisions. Also, there is an option for co-ed top gun, just for fun and high school divisions.
At this point tournament organizers say they have about 50-60 teams already registered and are looking for at least 100 teams by the end of today.
Cameron McDonough can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @MDC_McDonough.
