Team Awards and End of Season Banquet

Last week the team got together for our end of season "banquet" (too grand a term) at Joe's Pizza in the Depot District in Richmond. The Charlie Matlack Award for Most Valuable Player was won by Irhad Strika, a senior from Bosnia whose Senior Day heroics were chronicled in an earlier post. Irhad played mostly in midfield over his four years and ended up an important contributor going forward from the middle. His free kick goal against Franklin sealed an important win and his earlier goals against good teams (DePauw and Transy) proved his quality as a threat to score in a big game.

To no one's surprise, the award for Most Valuable Attacking Player went to Ameer Yusuf, a sophomore from Palestine. Ameer attracted the attention of every opponent and one of our major tasks in the upcoming year will be to find ways of creating chances and scoring that come from other directions and lessen the load on him to create and finish our attack.

The Most Valuable Defensive Player Award was shared by Yamukumba Frank Mbaya and Mike Nsoesie. At the beginning of the year we were challenged to rebuild our defense, especially the middle, where we tried multiple combinations until we settled on Mike and Frank. Easily the smallest center back pair we saw this year, these two held their own in the air and kept us compact in midfield, making the game easier both in attack and defense.

The Lauren deCou Award for Most Valuable Firstyear was won by Ibrahim Diarra, the youngest of the 3 Diarra brothers who have come to Earlham. Ibra shows promise as that presence in front of goal we have lacked for many years. Case was forced to foul him, leading to the penalty we scored in that game and he had chances in the Thomas More game and the final against Rose that show us promise.

The Coaches' Award went to Endalkachew Demise. The award, in my mind, goes to the player that best demonstrates love for the game for its own sake. Demise "get's it"; his participation in every practice is marked by a smile and full commitment.

Two things to know about the pictures: Logan Murphy is pointing at a girl going by the window and notice how quickly the second year letter winners got those jackets on.

Multiculturalism: First Names and Ham Sandwiches

Every day you should learn something new and this year was no exception. Right at the beginning of the year we encountered an issue we might have anticipated. As Rob was taking down names for one of the reams of preseason paperwork he asked (as any Englishman would) for players to list surnames and Christian names. Back came the reply from some (Irhad, Shvan, Iqbal, others) that they didn't have "Christian" names so what should they put down. OK, first names and last names then. Easy enough.

Later, for one of our midweek road trips, I ordered some box lunches from the food service. Since I was a bit late with the order (my usual procedure), I didn't make any special requests. Half or better of the boxes come out with ham sandwiches. Alright, subtract the Muslims and Jews and I should still be OK. What I hadn't considered was that Muslims and Jews aren't alone in avoiding pork products. For example, Ethiopians don't eat ham. In the end I must confess to the deity that it was I who was the cause of sinning on the the part of some of my players.

Right, next time out it's PB&J's for all. Peanut allergies anyone ?