Aug. 24, 2007
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The 10th-ranked Notre Dame men’s soccer team will wrap up its 2007 exhibition slate against No. 14 Northwestern on Monday, Aug. 27 at Alumni Field. Game time is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. (ET). All proceeds from the match will benefit Grassroot Soccer, an international AIDS awareness and education organization that reaches youth in Africa through soccer clinics. Admission to the contest is $1. Further donations are welcome.
Monday evening’s match will mark the fourth straight year that Notre Dame has held an exhibition game with all proceeds going to benefit Grassroot Soccer. The cause is very important to Notre Dame head coach Bobby Clark since his oldest son, Tommy, is the founder of the organization.
“Grassroot is a great cause and this is a simple way for us to help,” states Bobby Clark. “AIDS is a terrible killer in Africa and soccer is trying to help the fight over there. It’s nice that we can also use soccer to help.”
Another Fighting Irish connection to Grassroot Soccer is Methembe Ndlovu, a native of Zimbabwe who is a former volunteer assistant coach for the Fighting Irish along with coaching the Indiana Invaders of the United States Soccer League. Ndlovu returned to Zimbabwe in 2006 to help with the Grassroot Soccer cause. Clark brought Ndlovu over to the United States from his native country in 1993 to study at Dartmouth College. Clark was the head coach at Dartmouth from 1985-93.
A Notre Dame soccer alumnus, who wishes to remain anonymous, will match the donations dollar-for-dollar just as he has the past three years. Clark and the Notre Dame men’s soccer camp will also match the donations dollar-for-dollar. Last year’s game brought 2,500 fans to Alumni Field and raised $7,000 for the charity.
For more information on Grassroot Soccer, please log onto grassrootsoccer.org.
The Irish are coming off a 3-0 victory over No. 10 New Mexico on Thursday evening. Notre Dame used goals from senior Kurt Martin (McAllen, Texas/Memorial), sophomore Michael Thomas (Olathe, Kan./St. Thomas Aquinas) and freshman Steven Perry (Edmond, Okla./Bishop McGuinness) to defeat the Lobos. Junior Cory Rellas (Plano, Texas/Plano West) added two assists for the Irish, while goalkeepers Chris Cahill (Louisville, Ky./DeSales) and Andrew Quinn (Silver Spring, Md./DeMatha) combined on the shutout. The match was part of the National Soccer Festival in Fort Wayne, Ind.
“The win over New Mexico was a great start and I think the final score flattered us a bit,” says Clark. “I felt that we controlled the game fairly comprehensively. New Mexico is a good team and I think they’ll have a good season. We did a lot of the things that we had been working on and we did them reasonably well. We still have some work to do, but it was a positive start.”
Notre Dame will open the regular season against No. 1 UCLA on Friday, Aug. 31 at the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic in Bloomington, Ind. Game time is slated for 5:30 p.m. (ET). The Irish will square off against No. 9 Maryland on Sunday, Sept. 2 at 11:30 a.m. during the second day of the tournament.
Fans should be aware of the new parking situation at Alumni Field that will be in effect for all Notre Dame men’s and women’s soccer games this season. Due to the recent groundbreaking and start of construction for Melissa Cook Softball Stadium, the soccer programs had to shift one of their practice fields to the area immediately south of Alumni Field. In the past, this area had served as the primary parking area for games at Alumni Field. With the new configuration of the various fields, fans attending soccer games at Alumni Field will not be able to enter by car off Ivy Road. All vehicles carrying soccer fans should enter campus off Edison Road and proceed straight to the Eck Baseball Stadium parking area (a.k.a. Gold Lot) – before walking east on the small access road to Alumni Field.
Stay up-to-date on the Fighting Irish men’s soccer team by logging on to und.com or by calling the Notre Dame Athletics Hotline at (574) 631-3000.
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