By Ben Smith<\/p>\n
It was a late, early-August morning in Andorfer Commons \u2013 a couple weeks before the noise and bustle of the new fall semester began \u2013 and the boys were chowing down.<\/p>\n
They hoisted plates to their tables, grateful for a few minutes off their feet. Preparation for another soccer season at Indiana Tech had begun in earnest, and on this day, lunch was a much-needed respite from the building heat outside.<\/p>\n
On the right is Nathan Waits, a junior forward from Carmel who wants to go into accounting. To his left is Nick Didion, a senior midfielder from Blackhawk Christian in Fort Wayne. To his left is Adam Viviano, a sophomore goalkeeper from Sterling Heights, Mich., and to his left is Fabian Kaufmann, a junior defender from \u2026 where, again?<\/p>\n
\u201cAustria,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
And therein hangs a tale.<\/p>\n
Therein hangs a lot of tales, actually, because men\u2019s soccer at Tech has the distinction of having as cosmopolitan a makeup as any athletic program at the school. To be sure, there are local kids like Didion, and Indiana kids like Waits. But there are also the Fabian Kaufmanns, who have come to a small, thriving university in the heart of a mid-sized Midwestern city from all over the compass.<\/p>\n
Ten countries are represented on this Tech team, which takes its 1-1 record into Indianapolis tomorrow for a 3 p.m. tilt against the Bethel Pilots. Besides Kaufmann, from Stelermark, Austria, there are student-athletes from England and Germany, Portugal and Ireland. There are student-athletes from Brazil and Argentina and Venezuela. There are student-athletes from the U.S., of course, and Canada.<\/p>\n
Together they help lend not only the program but the student body in general a diversity it perhaps hasn\u2019t seen since the 1980s. And that is by conscious design.<\/p>\n
\u201cA few years ago we probably had less than 30 international students on this campus, and now we have about 250 for our traditional day programs,\u201d says Dr. Arthur Snyder, president of Indiana Tech. \u201cA lot of people comment about what it was like back in the 1980s when we had lots of international students. But over time the foreign governments stopped paying for their students to come to the U.S. and it dwindled down. So five or six years ago we had only a handful of international students.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we put on a special press to try and attract more, because we think it really enhances the learning environment for everyone, students and for us as well. We learn about the world when we have an opportunity to talk to someone from Saudi Arabia or Ireland or Africa. Yeah, it adds a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
The young men sitting around the table this day agree.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember having a class with one our Irish teammates, and all the long road trips talking to different people from different cultures and hearing the different things that happen in their countries, compared to what happens here,\u201d says Viviano, who was attracted to Tech not only by soccer but by its engineering program. \u201cIt\u2019s just a really good experience to know what\u2019s going on around the world. It helps to have a broader mind about everything around you.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it lends a sometimes needed perspective as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it allows me not to take things for granted,\u201d says Didion, the homebody in this group. \u201cI take a lot of things for granted that they might not have in their countries. Little things I take for granted that they might not be able to get, stuff like that. It makes me be humble about what goes on over here.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not an unusual phenomenon, except perhaps in degree. Kaufmann notes that it\u2019s hardly uncommon for Europeans to go to school in America, and there is an established network in place that enables American coaches to recruit internationally. Soccer is, after all, a global sport that cuts across national boundaries like few others.<\/p>\n
Kaufmann, for instance, contacted an agency that shot a video of him and distributed it. Tech coach David Bokhart saw him play in Germany, then contacted him about playing for Tech.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nice for me,\u201d Kaufmann says. \u201cI was looking for some new experiences, to learn about a new culture, to learn about a different language. I think it is a great life experience to interact with people from countries all over the world. You can learn from each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Off the field and on, as it turns out.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
The ball never led David Bokhart very far astray.<\/p>\n
He grew up playing soccer for Ron Harkenrider and Paco Castillo at Bishop Luers High School on the south side of Fort Wayne, then played club soccer at Purdue. He coached for Mitch Ellisen while pursuing his master’s at Saint Francis in Fort Wayne, then spent four years coaching at St. Joseph\u2019s over in northwest Indiana.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been back in Fort Wayne at Tech since 2011, taking over a program that has been averse to spanning oceans in search of talent.<\/p>\n
The ball may never have led Bokhart far astray. But coaching Tech has, and he relishes that.<\/p>\n
\u201cTech has always been a pretty diverse institution, and certainly the athletic teams are part of that diversity, whether it means it\u2019s international or a blend of different backgrounds, ideas and experiences from students around the U.S. as well,\u201d Bokhart says. \u201cI think for us as a team, diversity in soccer is common around the world. You have teams with men and women from all over the world with different backgrounds, different cultural experiences, different ways of playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just adds to what you\u2019re able to do because you have so many different ways of getting things done.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s both a strength and a particular challenge, because it impresses upon Bokhart and his staff the task of fusing different styles of play into a cohesive whole. And there are barriers to that \u2013 the most obvious and simple of which is language.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes even if a student speaks really good English, if we\u2019re in the heat of a moment \u2026 I tend to talk very quickly at times, so if I don\u2019t enunciate or slow myself down a little bit it might be difficult for someone that\u2019s not as familiar with English as their first language,\u201d Bokhart says.<\/p>\n
When he does slow himself down, the next task is figuring out how to blend all those different styles and soccer cultures.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery soccer-playing culture has a different attitude,\u201d says Bokhart, whose team went 7-9-2 last season. \u201cSome other countries have a lot more experience, so they may have some tactical experience that we\u2019re still developing as a whole within our youth programs. So it\u2019s a challenge, really.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we definitely try to focus on everybody\u2019s strengths. If we can take what somebody brings from another culture and really capitalize on it, it can really help each other learn some new things.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the goal, anyway. And on those occasions when it\u2019s met, the theory is it makes Tech a more difficult opponent to prepare for and defend.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce everybody\u2019s comfortable with each other personally, it makes the ability to play with each other easier,\u201d Bokhart says \u201cBut we definitely benefit from having a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of different qualities. It definitely benefits us from just a team performance to have a lot of different ways of doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
His players agree wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe different techniques help us as a whole team to grow,\u201d Waits says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it makes you a little bit more unpredictable if you have a more international style,\u201d Didion concurs. \u201cYou\u2019re not gonna just play one style because you have all these different cultures. You\u2019re gonna play differently with people from Portgual or people from Africa. All these different nations play differently, so it makes the team play tougher to play when it plays differently and not just one style.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the other hand, we still have to play with each other. So it\u2019s kind of a mix.\u201d<\/p>\n
A mix, in the larger context, being exactly what every university strives to achieve. It\u2019s not the sole benefit to having a thriving athletic presence \u2013 Tech now has 13 men\u2019s and 12 women\u2019s sports, and added ice hockey last year \u2013 but it is a benefit everyone recognizes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn one sense it is a recruiting strategy,\u201d Dr. Snyder says. \u201cBut in another way, in the case of hockey, it is an opportunity to help 40 or so young men to move forward in their lives with an education.
\n\u201cSo it partially adds to the balance of life here for activities and things for our students and our faculty and staff and community to get involved in.\u201d<\/p>\n
From wherever that community might hail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-93247","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n