“GOAL!”
The word echoes across the field as the St. Joseph’s College men’s soccer team gathers around female star Shannon Rom, who has just scored the team’s first goal of the game.
It is Sept. 29, a Thursday, and St. Joseph’s is playing intra-borough rival Medgar Evers College on the old soccer field at Brooklyn Tech. Rom is one of the team’s budding stars and her goal illustrates what makes this group unique: It is St. Joseph’s first year in NCAA Division III play and the squad features six female players, three of them starters.
As he watches his team embrace and the goal is registered on the digital scoreboard, St. Joseph’s athletic director Frank Carbone, 43, smiles and describes how the players’ enthusiasm has allowed the program to successfully field a co-ed team.
“That dynamic has helped them more than anything in this experience and everyone has really grown,” he says.
The change began last fall when the St. Joseph’s club soccer program earned Division III status for the current season. St. Joseph’s had several talented female club team members and incoming high school recruits who wanted to play soccer but there were not enough to field a women’s team for the 2011 season.
Carbone weighed several options and decided on this year’s unconventional solution. The team plays all its female members regularly, which will give them experience to train next year’s female recruits and lead the school’s inaugural women’s soccer team beginning next fall.
That St. Joseph’s starts three female players on an NCAA men’s team is uncommon in college sports, according to College Sports Information Directors of America sports historian Bo Carter. Schools rarely form an NCAA Division III program directly out of a club team. Even fewer choose to overcome their initial lack of a women’s team by adding enough female players to the men’s team to essentially make it co-ed. And almost none give their female players the vital role on the team that St. Joseph’s has encouraged.
Coach Vadim Chernyakhovsky moves his starters to different positions throughout the game and freshman Rom has promise, while sophomores Christine Abbate, Sabrina Gargano and her sister, Jessica, all play important supporting roles.
The Brooklyn school has struggled on the field, losing to Medgar Evers, 8-2, and is off to a a 1-5 start, but improvement on the field and teamwork will be the team’s benchmarks for success this season.
Despite the potential for friction, the team’s male players have welcomed their new teammates, according to Chernyakhovsky.
“They are growing closer and getting better and better, so the future is bright. I think they are bonding and experiencing both personal and team growth,” the coach says.
Part of that bonding has been growing through adversity and protecting one another. The male players are supportive of their female counterparts and are protective of them on the field, Carbone says.
“There was one instance I remember where one of the girls got slide-tackled and the guys backed her up, they surrounded her and made sure she was OK and then watched out for her the rest of the game. It shows how cohesive this group has become,” Carbone says.
The male players for St. Joseph’s speak enthusiastically of the team’s co-ed approach. “The girls at my high school were phenomenal, so I was very open to playing on a co-ed college team,” says Mike Minter, the team’s 18-year-old goalkeeper. “When we go out there we are underestimated but we are learning to accept everyone and to work hard together as a team. What we are doing here is significant.”
The St. Joseph’s female players also say that the co-ed experience has been a great success. They note that there is a lot of learning and exchange going on, from which they all benefit.
“Playing with the guys and in the men’s league is teaching us a completely different mentality of the game. To be able to play at that level is important. And we are helping teach the guys something, too,” Rom says.