“Ten countries represented on 2015 men’s soccer team” – by legendary Fort Wayne sports writer Ben Smith

By Ben Smith

It was a late, early-August morning in Andorfer Commons – a couple weeks before the noise and bustle of the new fall semester began – and the boys were chowing down.

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.

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 … where, again?

“Austria,” he says.

And therein hangs a tale.

Therein hangs a lot of tales, actually, because men’s 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.

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.

Together they help lend not only the program but the student body in general a diversity it perhaps hasn’t seen since the 1980s. And that is by conscious design.

“A 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,” says Dr. Arthur Snyder, president of Indiana Tech. “A 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.

“But 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.”

The young men sitting around the table this day agree.

“I 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,” says Viviano, who was attracted to Tech not only by soccer but by its engineering program. “It’s just a really good experience to know what’s going on around the world. It helps to have a broader mind about everything around you.”

And it lends a sometimes needed perspective as well.

“I think it allows me not to take things for granted,” says Didion, the homebody in this group. “I 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.”

And it’s not an unusual phenomenon, except perhaps in degree. Kaufmann notes that it’s 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.

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.

“It was nice for me,” Kaufmann says. “I 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.”

Off the field and on, as it turns out.

• • •

The ball never led David Bokhart very far astray.

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’s over in northwest Indiana.

He’s been back in Fort Wayne at Tech since 2011, taking over a program that has been averse to spanning oceans in search of talent.

The ball may never have led Bokhart far astray. But coaching Tech has, and he relishes that.

“Tech has always been a pretty diverse institution, and certainly the athletic teams are part of that diversity, whether it means it’s international or a blend of different backgrounds, ideas and experiences from students around the U.S. as well,” Bokhart says. “I 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.

“It just adds to what you’re able to do because you have so many different ways of getting things done.”
That’s 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 – the most obvious and simple of which is language.

“Sometimes even if a student speaks really good English, if we’re in the heat of a moment … I tend to talk very quickly at times, so if I don’t enunciate or slow myself down a little bit it might be difficult for someone that’s not as familiar with English as their first language,” Bokhart says.

When he does slow himself down, the next task is figuring out how to blend all those different styles and soccer cultures.

“Every soccer-playing culture has a different attitude,” says Bokhart, whose team went 7-9-2 last season. “Some other countries have a lot more experience, so they may have some tactical experience that we’re still developing as a whole within our youth programs. So it’s a challenge, really.

“I think we definitely try to focus on everybody’s 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.”

That’s the goal, anyway. And on those occasions when it’s met, the theory is it makes Tech a more difficult opponent to prepare for and defend.

“Once everybody’s comfortable with each other personally, it makes the ability to play with each other easier,” Bokhart says “But 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.”

His players agree wholeheartedly.

“The different techniques help us as a whole team to grow,” Waits says.

“I think it makes you a little bit more unpredictable if you have a more international style,” Didion concurs. “You’re not gonna just play one style because you have all these different cultures. You’re 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.

“On the other hand, we still have to play with each other. So it’s kind of a mix.”

A mix, in the larger context, being exactly what every university strives to achieve. It’s not the sole benefit to having a thriving athletic presence – Tech now has 13 men’s and 12 women’s sports, and added ice hockey last year – but it is a benefit everyone recognizes.

“In one sense it is a recruiting strategy,” Dr. Snyder says. “But 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.
“So 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.”

From wherever that community might hail.