A funny thing happened Saturday. I met a guy that actually likes Parsons Field. Loves it. Cherishes it. Gets all dreamy and nostalgic when asked about it.
Meet David Greenblott, Newburyport High School boy’s soccer coach, father of two and one of three “Fathers of the Program” that kick-started Northeastern men’s soccer and took part in Saturday’s alumni game held at the infamously weak Parsons Field.
Twenty years ago, Greenblott, goalie Whit Stockwell, defender Ali Kowsari and the rest of the fathers set out on a rather unlikely goal: to form an NCAA Division I soccer program at Northeastern. The school’s soccer team had been cut after the 1931 season and laid dormant for 53 years until a gaggle of club players decided to form a Husky contingency.
At the time, Greenblott was writing a paper on that very topic: forming a varsity soccer team. Ironically, when Timmy O’Brien ran through the library yelling “We have a varsity soccer team,” Greenblott’s paper got the ending he was looking for (even if O’Brien’s yell did disrupt other less-important papers from being written).
“I transferred from Eastern Connecticut State College and my sister had been up here,” Greenblott said. “My hope was that we could somehow get a team together. She told me it was probably impossible because they had been trying for years. I joined the club team and we had a bunch of good guys that showed up every week. After one game we pulled together and said, ‘Why don’t we form a committee and try to push for a soccer team.’ We all had our specific tasks. Mine was public relations: putting articles in the paper, scheduling scrimmages with other colleges and things like that.”
In 1983, while still a club, the program got the break it needed when Curry College’s homecoming opponent backed out and the Father’s Huskies stepped in. Northeastern won the game.
“I had called and that week they called me back and said ‘Can you play us for our homecoming?’ And we ended up beating them,” Greenblott said. “We weren’t even an official team. That was really our first official game because they took it really seriously. After that game we said, ‘There’s gotta be something wrong if they don’t give us a varsity team.’ But we still thought that it wouldn’t happen.”
Oh, but it did.
That off-season, Parsons Field officially became a soccer field.
“When they were lining the field, I was the only one here,” Greenblott said. “It’s hard to explain, it was just a real intense feeling. Just seeing this and knowing that soccer is officially here. It was unbelievable. Something that silly, I was just stopping by because I lived right here, and said ‘I gotta see this.’ You know, making it a soccer field for the first time since 1931. I’ll never forget that.”
Northeastern won its first official game that year, downing the University of Massachusetts-Lowell at Parsons, 2-0.
“Everyone wanted to score the first goal so bad. I remember coming down on this goal over here. I took a shot and it dipped, [it was] a beautiful shot and it hit the cross bar. Then Carl Menard scored the first one. He was running so hard and was so excited that he punched me in the mouth and gave me a fat lip,” Greenblott said.
Things have changed. They’ve got kids. They’ve got jobs. They aren’t as nimble. They aren’t as strong. They tire easier. They don’t have the touch they used to.
And the program they started has never been better. Northeastern is currently attempting to record its sixth straight season with 10 or more wins. Two years ago, the team made an appearance in the NCAA Division 1 tournament for the first time in school history.
“It’s great coming back and seeing what [current coach Ed Matz] done with the team,” said former goalie Whit Stockwell of NU’s fourth coach, Ed Matz. “We had kind of a rough start and it’s really come a long way.
“For those of us from that first season, we feel like we got it started,” said Stockwell, now the chief technology officer for a software startup company in Newburyport. “We started the whole program, so there is definitely pride in seeing them win the America East and go back to the NCAA tournament.”
But what’s more, Northeastern soccer is a community that betters lives. It continues to do so.
“I see all the guys, all the good players that come through the program and it’s just real nice,” Greenblott said. “I meet guys that say ‘I played soccer at Northeastern.’ I meet them all the time.
“Soccer has always been a big part of my life,” he added. “If we didn’t have a varsity soccer team I wouldn’t have had all these connections throughout life. I know that my life wouldn’t be fulfilled the way it has been. I’ve had a lot of accomplishments and soccer has been a part of it in many indirect ways. It all stems from being a part of Northeastern soccer.”
Lowell should be so lucky.
— Jack Weiland can be reached at [email protected].
