BLUFF CITY, Tenn. – For more than a decade, any Sullivan East student wanting to play high school soccer had to travel 15 miles to join a co-op team at Sullivan Central.
That didn’t bother current Sullivan East junior Loren Hensley.
“It was a really cool experience,” she said. “It taught us a lot from us not having our own team, but it definitely prepared us for what is here.”
Sullivan East now has its own program, which will debut on Monday, with the Patriots hosting Providence Academy on the Patriots’ brand new turf football field, which is definitely a case of good timing.
“We love it,” Sullivan East soccer coach Michael Husbands said. “We are looking forward to a lot of positive energy, a lot of new facilities, new faces, new jerseys, new everything. You can’t help but get excited about it.”
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That is especially true for Emme Fox, the lone senior on the 15-girls Patriots roster.
“New turf, new team, we are excited,” she said.
“We have looked forward to this day for a long time,” added Hensley.
When Andy Hare arrived as principal at Sullivan East, one of his goals was the creation of a soccer program.
“This is something that has been a vision of mine and others here to bring soccer to East High School,” Hare said. “I was fortunate to be a principal of a school with soccer and I saw the tremendous opportunities that it provided young men and women that our kids here deserve as well.”
Fox has fond memories from her days with the Cougars, but is looking forward to what lies ahead.
“I had to co-op with Central and I really grew close to those ladies,” Fox said. “At first I was really nervous and I just wanted my mom to push Mr. Hare to get a team here and we finally got it.
“I am definitely going to miss the bond with the Central girls, especially the coaches, Coach Emily [Robinette], but I am excited for the new beginning here.”
While there isn’t a lot of soccer experience available to the Patriots, both Fox and Hensley have been playing since age 4.
“It is just something that comes natural to me because I have done it for long,” said Hensley, who is joined by junior classmates Wachippi Hamelryck, who is also a kicker for the Sullivan East football team, Sunny Beach and Madison Brown. “The competitiveness of it and just all the friendships I have made through it.”
The left-footed Fox feels much the same about the “beautiful game.”
“Probably the thrill, it is a bond that my dad and I shared when I was a kid and he was my coach,” she said. “I feel like it has always just been our connection for the game.”
Directing the Patriots will be Husbands, a seventh grade instructor, who is a native of Connecticut, where he won three state championships before playing soccer at Wingate College in North Carolina. He has also been the head men’s and women’s coach at Andrew College in Georgia and assistant women’s coach at the University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky.
“I love Coach Husbands, he does a great job,” Hare said. “You will see the team improve each game and by the end of the year no one is going to want to play us.”
His roster includes 15 girls, including five freshmen who played on his middle school team last fall. Husbands said there are no extra challenges for a new program that will also have five sophomores on the roster. Freshman Cheyenne Peaks is currently listed as the lone goalkeeper on the roster.
“Finding numbers and just enjoying it,” said Husbands, who has scheduled around 14 games for this first season. “The pressure is just leaving history in good hands for the other kids coming up, the middle school kids. These girls, I know they are going to do it, I have full confidence in them.”
Aaron Nichols will serve as an assistant to Husbands.
“I think it will be a year of experience. It will definitely be a lot of building for next year,” Hensley said. “I am just looking to grow my leadership skills and help these girls a lot.”
That is definitely what Husbands expects from Fox and Hensley, who will serve as defensive stoppers for the Patriots.
“These two individuals have been strong, they have had resiliency and they have done the co-op and now they are here and they are going to be our leaders this year,” Husbands said. “They have been put through the ringer and we can finally bring them home.”
Hare shares in the excitement on the new program with the Patriots, which had shared the co-op with the Cougars for at least a dozen years.
“They deserve it because they have worked so hard because they have had to leave here and travel to Central or travel to another location every day just to practice,” said Hare, who added that the co-op team had hosted one game each in recent seasons at Sullivan East. “We did that for the girls and the boys so it is not going to be foreign to us up here. We have all seen soccer now.”
Sullivan East’s hopes for a program became more of a reality when the middle school opened with soccer on the list of activities. That is the feeder program the Patriots needed to build for the future.
“We have a lot of freshmen and we have a lot of eighth graders and seventh graders so we built the foundation at the feeder program,” Hare said. “We didn’t want to start having our own team until we had at least two years of a feeder program so we are at 2 ½ years with this year.
“That will solidify being able to have a team.”
That team finally got their moment to shine on Friday when they were introduced to the public during the “Meet the Patriots” night at the school. Up next is the first game in school history.
“It has been a little crazy,” Fox said. “Starting out we didn’t have the numbers and now it has kind of grew, but I am really excited for the opportunities and the possibilities this team is going to have, especially to have soccer grow in the East community.”