| From a humble start to over 800 teams, USA CUP is big |
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| Wednesday, 22 July 2009 | ||
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Staff Writer What started back in 1984 as a group of youth soccer players looking for a way to play in the largest soccer tournament in the world in Oslo, Norway, has exploded into what we now know as Schwan’s USA CUP.
To give some perspective, Kris Bjerkness, who interned for Paul Erickson at Sons of Norway during the first tournament and is now chief operations officer for the National Sports Center Foundation, said the original headquarters was based in a large screened tent with one table, one chair, a cheap plastic phone and an extension cord running from a building to provide power for the (one) computer that organized and printed results. “That was headquarters and a MASH tent for medical and that was it,” he said, realizing what the site has become. Now, the tournament has grown its headquarters inside the Schwan Center at the National Sports Center complex, overlooking the stadium and indoor facilities in Blaine to include the latest communications tools including a video production team that produces KickTV video content for usacup.org and nscsports.org. Tournament headquarters also has grown to include a construction trailer with a volunteer committee devoted to communications, transporting referees, organizing gift baskets and posting scores, among several the other committees, all working in harmony for one smooth operation. Each year they take a number of areas to improve and evolve, which is what they’ve done with the facilities and the fields, for example. “We now have irrigation on all but seven of the 52 fields,” Bjerkness said. At the end of the day, Bjerkness said the biggest success of the tournament isn’t decided by the job any one group does. “We’re providing a wonderful opportunity for kids to meet each other from around the world and to celebrate the game of soccer,” he said. Bjerkness and Erickson received the Founder’s Award during a ceremony prior to Tuesday’s opening ceremonies at the National Sports Center Stadium. “We had a good dream and we were able to deliver on that I think,” Bjerkness said. Evolution After the tournament proved to be a success in the beginning, the Minnesota Amateur Sports State Commission was created in 1987 which helped guide the building of the National Sports Center, the home of USA CUP, among other sporting events during the year. “These are all evolutionary things, but they’re all part of the same goal and philosophy to create events in Minnesota that would be the biggest and best. “The goal (from the beginning) was intended to be the biggest tournament in Minnesota and that was set in 1984,” Erickson, a co-founder of USA CUP said. What began as one team asking the Sons of Norway insurance group for support to travel to Oslo, Norway, has evolved to 10-day celebration of youth soccer. Ivar Sorenson, a native Norwegian, was the coach of that first team from Eagan, who came to the insurance agency looking for assistance. The coach of an under-14 boys team from Eagan wanted his team to experience youth soccer on a global level after his father suggested taking a look at the 10-year-old Norway Cup in Oslo, Norway. “It was a big deal over there by then,” he said about the Scandinavian tournament that quickly grew an international reputation. After a couple meetings with parents, Sorenson began talking with the Sons of Norway organization for some assistance before they left in 1984. “We asked them for support, financially and organizationally, through their charter flight program,” Sorenson said, now as member of the board of directors for the National Sports Center Foundation, owner of the USA CUP. “I went to talk to Paul (Erickson, vice president of public relations for Sons of Norway at the time) for two reasons. I knew they were running charter flights to Norway and this would be a program to offer to younger people because they didn’t have many at the time.” After okaying the support, Erickson and Sorenson brainstormed about the possibility of bringing the action to Minnesota. Bjerkness said they talked about the possibilities with Sons of Norway asked the question, ‘Why not recreate something like that, a Norway Cup here in Minnesota?’ After some more discussion, Paul Beggin said, “Instead of teams from Minnesota spending the money traveling. Why not why not try to do something like that here.” Organizers had to answer two big questions before moving forward: where was it going to be played and who was going to play in it. Finding a location took some time, but after looking at St. Thomas Academy, Eden Prairie, Burnsville and closely inspecting the Polo Grounds at Fort Snelling, the group decided a new Blaine Soccer Complex would be the best fit. “We realized the (polo grounds) facilities were pretty basic and there wasn’t a lot of grass on the fields,” Bjerkness said about Fort Snelling. Barclay Kruse, National Sports Center chief communications officer said, “There was a place called the Blaine Soccer Complex which was pretty much the largest soccer complex in the area.” Sorenson and Erickson made the pitch to the Blaine City Council which was willing to help where they could. The council suggested the complex, saying they would expand the area by developing an unused portion of the Blaine Airport. “And that was the site that was chosen for the site for the first USA CUP,” Kruse said. Six years later, it became the site of the National Sports Center. Erickson said the National Sports Center has another 80 acres of undeveloped land which equates to one dozen additional fields to expand the tournament capacity. “What made this so remarkable was that in the presentation we said our goal was to create the largest youth soccer tournament in the nation,” Erickson said. “The remarkable thing is that it actually happened, especially since Blaine, Minn., isn’t exactly the epicenter of soccer in the U.S. But the origins weren’t set for this to be a small by any means.” He pointed to the success and longevity of the tournament as a result of the effort of the volunteers, city and state. Since the tournament began, the level of interest in soccer has risen exponentially in Minnesota where the Minnesota Youth Soccer Association, includes 80,000 kids in its programs. Professional soccer is an entirely new topic when it comes to how USA CUP has peaked the interest of soccer fans in Minnesota. Even though there have been numerous attempts at establishing a franchise from the Minnesota Kicks to the Strikers of the late National Indoor Soccer League, nothing has stuck, until the Minnesota Thunder. Over the last 19 years, the USL-Division 1 franchise has become the most successful professional soccer franchise to establish itself in Minnesota. The team plays out of the National Sports Center and operates many youth clinics throughout the upper Midwest. Even though the team rarely has more than 10,000 fans in the seats, the general interest is there. But Erickson said the next step of establishing a top-flight team in Major League Soccer is still off in the distance. The stadium, or Field 1, at the NSC was built with the intension to expand its capacity to 45,000 seats eventually. Planning ahead Before Sorenson and that Eagan team left for Norway in 1984, he already had a couple thousand brochures ready to give out to draw teams to Minnesota that next summer. “Before we went over there I had talked to the Oslo organizers about coming to Minnesota for a tournament in ‘85 so we had the support of Oslo in place,” he said. The original idea was for four Norwegian teams to take on four Minnesotan teams in Minnesota. Teri Vogt, USA CUP tournament director and former Sons of Norway intern, recalled that estimate was way under the initial response. “We had more Minnesota teams come up to us wanting to get involved,” she said. They had 68 teams from Minnesota, 11 from Norway and six teams from other states as far away as California and Texas that first year. That number jumped over 100 in the second year, 200 in the third year which included the first Japanese teams joining on. “It really made a splash to have Japan come in,” Erickson said. Neither Sorenson or Erickson are shocked by how large the tournament has grown over 25 years. “We had no idea how big this thing could be,” Sorenson said. “We had no reason to think that we couldn’t do the same thing over here. And although its taken most of the 20 years to get 1,200 teams here, we’ve done it.” Sorenson said he and the original staff knew they were onto something special after how well received USA CUP was that first year in 1985. “Once you saw the enthusiasm and number of volunteers we had come out we said ‘Yes, we can do this.’” Ask any of the tournament organizers and the first reason for having such a long-lasting and successful event has been the commitment of the volunteers since the beginning. Sorenson said he still gets a kick out of seeing the same people volunteer year-after-year. “People actually take their vacation time around the tournament so they can volunteer,” he said. “And the small army of volunteers has been the lifeblood of the whole thing.” Jason Olson is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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