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It began with students kicking a soccer ball in a parking garage. On Saturday, the Coywolves had a different venue — Carter Field on the Boston campus.
It started a few months ago with students kicking around a soccer ball in the parking garage at Northeastern University’s campus in Portland, Maine.
But Saturday, the Coywolves club soccer team had a very different venue — Carter Field at Northeastern’s Boston campus.
Their opponent was the university’s men’s club soccer team from Boston.
The Coywolves are the first club athletics team at the Portland campus, and the team began only this year with the impromptu parking garage gatherings and all-day Saturday pick-up games.
But the team quickly gained steam. A notice about the games attracted other students and the team organized with help from staff.
“I heard about it two weeks ago, and I was like ‘Great! It will be crazy, but let’s do it,’” says Dan O’Brien, who is earning his master’s degree in data sciences and plays left center back on the team. “So we trained four times, got a name, designed a logo and got uniforms, and here we are ready to play.”
But the Coywolves are not your typical soccer team — rather, they reflect the unique Northeastern global experience.
“It’s a global team that found each other through soccer in Maine,” says Chris Mallett, chief administrative officer at the Portland campus, and one of the team’s biggest supporters.
Indeed, players on the team represent more than a half-dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Ghana, Nigeria, India, China, Rwanda, Ethiopia and the United States.
The team also embraces the Portland community during their pickup games.
“We have people from the community join us and kids as well,” says Daniel Kwaning, who is Ghanaian and earning his master’s in data analytics.
Meanwhile, O’Brien says the Coywolves name is both continuing the Northeastern canine mascot theme — a coywolf is a coyote and wolf hybrid that is found in Maine — and a little fun.
“Our logo is a winking wolf — kind of like we’re cheeky wolves,” O’Brien says.
But the most fun, arguably, comes on the field.
“It’s like a meshing of worlds,” says John Piesik, a fourth-year student and president of the men’s soccer club on the Boston campus, who is also a Mainer.
“It’s cool to have these guys who have an up-and-coming program and introduce them to how we play,” Piesik says. “And it’s pretty evident they’ve been training.”
Coywolf P.K Obeng Adjei says that the team plans to stay together and organize along with teams in Portland for future games.
Kwaning says he would like to see faculty join the team as well.
“It was definitely worth the trip, and we had a good game,” Kwaning said. “We’re hoping to have a return match sometime soon.”