Three years ago, a team representing The City University of New York Athletic Conference (CUNYAC) men’s basketball teams went to the Dominican Republic. In 2004, the women’s basketball team traveled to Ecuador, and last summer, the women’s volleyball team flew over to Argentina.
What’s being called the Goodwill Tour is part cultural exchange, part athletics. Each year a different CUNYAC athletic team, made up of members from all 18 CUNY colleges, heads overseas to compete while gaining exposure to a foreign country, its people and cultures.
This summer, from July 25-August 8, a CUNYAC men’s soccer team will head over to South Africa to play a tournament. For many players, it’s a taste of what it’s like to be a superstar athlete, minus the exorbitant paycheck.
BMCC’s soccer coach Kenichi Yatsuhashi is the co-coach this year and has been working alongside CUNYAC athletic director Zak Ivkovic. “It’s a very great and exciting opportunity, both for the students and myself,” says Yatsuhashi. “But it’s not going to be all fun. We really need to represent CUNY well, and that means we need to win games.”
In weeding out candidates for the trip to South Africa, tryouts began in early January, with each college’s team being evaluated by Yatsuhashi and Ivkovic. So far, 24 players have been chosen, and over the next few weeks of practice, the candidate pool will be narrowed down to a total of 18 lucky players, who’ll represent CUNY in the South Africa tournament.
The South Africa trip is a more ambitious one than the past Goodwill Tours. The CUNYAC team will tour the country only weeks after the World Cup, which is slated to take place in Germany. South Africa will also be the hosting country of the 2010 event, so our team could very well wind up in the international spotlight!
Find out more about the South Africa Goodwill Tour.
