Men’s Soc­cer Works to In­spire Lo­cal Youth 

MISHAWAKA—Bethel Ath­let­ics is dri­ven by four main goals: spir­i­tual for­ma­tion, ath­letic de­vel­op­ment, ser­vant lead­er­ship and aca­d­e­mic ex­cel­lence. This year’s men’s soc­cer pro­gram is no dif­fer­ent, and dur­ing the back­end of their sea­son they are fo­cus­ing on ser­vant lead­er­ship. 

“It’s a part of our mis­sion, our pur­pose, our iden­tity as a school and as a pro­gram, as well as who I am as a per­son,” Head Coach Thi­ago Pinto said. “It’s about re­ally im­pact­ing lives through the game of soc­cer and us­ing our team. Our guys spend a lot of time with each other, but some­times to grow you must grow with those above you, and those who are younger.” 

Dur­ing Oc­to­ber, the men’s soc­cer team is host­ing youth soc­cer clubs from around the area to at­tend its games and learn from its play­ers. These clubs in­clude the Ju­nior Irish, the Michi­ana Echo, the Elkhart Flames and Lancer Se­lect. Lancer Se­lect vis­ited on Oct. 1 in a game where the Pi­lots achieved a 2-1 win over Mar­ian. Ju­nior Irish vis­ited on Oct. 12 in a 5-1 de­mo­li­tion of Tay­lor. Michi­ana Echo vis­ited on Oct. 15 and wit­nessed Bethel beat Grace in a 2-1 win. Lastly, the Elkhart Flames will be vis­it­ing on Oct. 22 against Hunt­ing­ton. 

At each of these games, the par­ents and play­ers of the youth soc­cer club that is be­ing hosted are granted free ad­mis­sion to the game. They are also able to es­cort the Bethel men’s soc­cer team from the locker room to the side­line. This in­cludes walk­ing out with the team for the an­them and lineup an­nounce­ments. Then, at half­time, there is a scrim­mage and con­test with prizes for the kids. 

“It's an op­por­tu­nity for growth,” Pinto said. “In the first night we saw Lancer Se­lect, and just the feed­back, and the pic­tures, the kids were just elec­tric. It cre­ates in­spi­ra­tion for these kids at a young age to dream of the idea that I can con­tinue to play, con­tinue to progress and grow. It cre­ates a lot of pow­er­ful vi­sion for younger kids to at­tend col­lege and keep them on the right path with dis­ci­pline.” 

The hope is that this year’s ef­forts to make Bethel soc­cer more in­volved in the com­mu­nity will con­tinue for years to come in var­i­ous ways. For more in­for­ma­tion on Bethel men’s soc­cer visit bupi­lots.com.