Here is a photo from the last Pitt NCAA soccer tournament game in 1965, played at PITT Stadium in the mud, lost to East Stroudsburg 2-0.
Pitt's last NCAA soccer tourney game photo
- Thread starter California Panther
- Start date
Here is our 1965 schedule (7-2-1), wow, look at that murderer's row!
W 3-0 vs Frostburg
L 1-4 at West Chester
T 1-1 Grove City (OT)
W 3-1 Kent St
W 2-1 Slippery Rock
W 2-0 at Ohio U
W 1-0 at Akron
W 3-1 at WVU
W 3-0 Bucknell
NCAA Tournament
L 0-2 East Stroudsburg
W 3-0 vs Frostburg
L 1-4 at West Chester
T 1-1 Grove City (OT)
W 3-1 Kent St
W 2-1 Slippery Rock
W 2-0 at Ohio U
W 1-0 at Akron
W 3-1 at WVU
W 3-0 Bucknell
NCAA Tournament
L 0-2 East Stroudsburg
I believe it probably was. A cousin of mine played Pitt soccer just a few years later as a teammate of our former long time soccer coach. As i recall they were giving partial ships at that time.
My guess is there were no divisions and it was basically club soccer. Under the NCAA umbrella but I highly doubt there were scholarships. Just played local schools like the club teams do. Practice maybe once or twice a week and play a game on the weekend.
Update. My cousin graduated in 1976. They were scholarships given during his time at Pitt (1972-1976) but I may have jumped to a conclusion about 1965.
Yes. No one got a full ride. A couple of players got 1/2 rides, but more common was 1/4 or 1/8. I think they had 5 scholarships to divide, maybe less.
The schedule wasn’t that way to try to rack up wins. It was a matter of economics. The travel budget was so limited that Coach Benis tried to schedule teams within a short bus ride. In 1967, the first year I traveled with the team, we played Slippery Rock, Grove City, Kent State, Allegheny, PSU, Bucknell, Lafayette, Frostburg State and Michigan State. Bemis scheduled MSU because he wanted one game against a big time program. They beat us 6-0. We played at PSU on a Thursday afternoon, drove to Lewisburg and then played Bucknell on Saturday morning.
just curious - was soccer a high school sport anywhere or did they just have local clubs.
When I went to HS, almost no local public schools played soccer. The Pitt team had some guys from a private school in Rochester, NY, who had played in HS, two African students who had played a lot of soccer growing up, a few kids who had played club soccer (mainly for fraternal organizations like the Polish Falcons, and a bunch of guys who had played HS football but weren't college-level players. There was one local kid who played HS soccer and played central midfield at Pitt. I want to say he had gone to Springdale but I am not really sure.
I am from that area near Springdale and I graduated high school in 66. Can't remember a lot of high schools playing soccer, but now you mentioned it, Soccer and Springdale seems to ring a bell
