Plattsburgh State Cardinals 2010

As hard as it is, I now have to admit that I am apart of the Plattsburgh State Soccer Alumni Club. This club is obviously an unofficial one but I know for a fact that it exists. The amount of ex-players that had contacted the then current ones after we won the SUNYAC championship was unbelievable. After winning the title and then going on Facebook, we immediately saw the love that people still have for this team. I know Waterbury also received a massive amount of e-mails and phone calls too.

I hope that in the future, the group of departing seniors act the same way that many other alumni have done.

It is extremely hard for me to write this knowing that I am no longer a Plattsburgh State athlete, a Plattsburgh State soccer player. Everything that I have done in the last 4 years has been with the team in mind. Almost everyone I know at this school has been through soccer. Everyone I live with, has at one time, worn the red and white of Plattsburgh. I love this team, this school, we all do.

In the words of Waterbury, “I blinked,” and then it was over. I remember the day I came into pre-season as a freshman. I looked at the Long Island guys and couldn’t believe how they were dressed, Pat Jones looked like a 40 year-old man, and Chad was wearing a Chelsea shirt. I remember my first scrimmage, 3 days into pre-season, when Faiella finally realized I wasn’t American. I remember my first game and goals against Johnson State and our first loss against Brockport.

It all seems like just yesterday and now it’s over. Without question, this has been the best 4 years of my life. I wouldn’t swap for anything. Maybe we didn’t play at the most glamorous school in the world but we made it mean everything to us. We gave everything, in the fall, the winter, the spring and the summer. Everything we did was to make ourselves better.

Someone said to me on the day that we lost, “at least you can go out now.” I would stay in for the rest of my life for one more college game.

Since coming here I have met the best goalie I ever played with and the best 2 centre backs I ever played with.

I have also seen the highs and the lows of soccer. The excruciating feeling of missing a penalty kick in a final and losing and the culmination of a career when scoring a penalty kick in a final and winning the SUNYAC championship.

I know this blog has been a bit of an unorganized ramble but it is so hard to put into words what us seniors have been feeling since Saturday when our careers finished at St. Lawrence.

To be a captain at Plattsburgh State has been a great honor, and I hope I did it the justice that the title deserved. To play with 2 All-Americans and others that should have been All-Americans has been a privilege. To play with my best friends for 4 years has been indescribable.

I thought about this yesterday but as a Plattsburgh State player I have achieved the following: 3 SUNYAC finals, 1 regular season title, 1 SUNYAC championship, 2 consecutive years in the NCAA tournament, and too many friends to count.