The Student Recreation Center turf fields were home to soccer tournament action as the University of Oregon World Cup took place this past weekend. The event, which features two soccer tournaments, primarily serves as a fundraiser and aims to increase awareness for Hodgkin’s lymphoma and the Lymphoma Research Foundation.
“It was by far the smoothest tournament I’ve been a part of,” tournament director Eric Richter said. “The teams were all very excited to come play and the games were really competitive.”
The tournament was organized by the members of the UOWC, a group of undergraduate business students from the Warsaw Sports Marketing Club. The core of the UOWC’s membership is sports business students, but the group outsources a lot of its work to students in other majors and other student groups at the University.
The tournament used to be a fundraiser for Parkinson’s Disease, but it was changed last year because of tournament operations manager Andrew McKay’s battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Lymphoma is the most common type of blood cancer and the third most common cancer in children, according to the Lymphoma Research Foundation. The Lymphoma Research Foundation is the nation’s largest lymphoma-focused health organization and has funded more than 29 million dollars in lymphoma research.
“That’s really the main focus of the event,” Richter said. “We were extremely successful at increasing awareness about the disease.”
The event ran all weekend long as recreational teams as well as club teams from several northwest colleges and universities played against each other in the search for the tournament championship. The University of Oregon men’s club team won the Collegiate Division by beating Portland State in the final late Sunday afternoon. The other teams that rounded out the division were Oregon State, Chemeketa Community College, Central Oregon Community College and Southwestern Oregon Community College. Neo Rome won the Recreational Division for the second year in a row. The Recreational Division was made up of teams that had students from several schools in Oregon. Various student groups fielded teams for the competition as well.
“The recreational teams were especially appreciative for the opportunity to play 11 on 11 soccer; they don’t really get to do that much,” Richter said.
According to Richter, the event has received a lot of attention from local media outlets as well as overwhelmingly positive feedback from the sponsors and players themselves. The rising popularity and awareness of the event, coupled with the sunshine, resulted in a large crowd on hand both days.
The event’s organizers made it their mission to make the tournament even more attractive by bringing in larger sponsors and allocating more funds to have trainers and more referees.