Ninety minutes gone and one last season of extra time

Is this the final whistle for the KPU Eagles?

When centre-defender Jessica Anderegg was a rookie in 2012 she received two calls on a Friday in September.

The one in the morning, from her former KPU soccer coach Don Sparks, told her to be ready for Saturday’s game, assuming she’d be mostly a benchwarmer. Sparks said they were considering “un-redshirting” her for the weekend, the red shirt being what signifies someone as a practice player. All year she had been donning her scarlet and remaining tethered to the bench during game time. But this Friday, so many Fridays removed from when she started playing soccer at the age of six, was different. It was the eve of Anderegg’s birthday, and the Friday before a formative game day. All her years of practice would finally be put to use.

The second call came that evening, when former captain Brittany McNeil told Anderegg that, in fact, she’d be starting defender.

“Oh crap.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there in the back,” McNeil told her. “Just listen to me and you’ll be fine.”

Team—it’s both singular and plural. The plural part is inherent in the culture of the varsity teams at KPU, meaning that for these athletes, there’s always someone there on campus. And not just to meet at practice, either. But things are changing, right now. In early July, KPU announced massive funding changes to the athletics department, citing the financial hardships of participating in regional sport authority PACWEST, and the duty to accommodate more diverse inter-campus demands for athletics services.

KPU will leave the league after playing a final season in soccer, basketball, badminton and golf. After the KPU Eagles fly the coop, it’s hard to tell what’s next. Will KPU athletes be able to stand together as they transition into the ambiguous futures of their historic sports teams?

It was 1999 when KPU Eagles basketball launched. People were scared of the world ending. Anderegg was probably gearing up to play soccer for the first time as a child, not knowing she would play for a women’s soccer team that would become BCCAA provincial champions in 2009, placing bronze in nationals in the same year and becoming provincial champions again in 2010. But good players aren’t without great leadership.

When goalkeeper Chantalle Bracken joined the KPU women’s soccer team, for example, her coach Julie King didn’t even know if Bracken would make the cut. Bracken was in the back of a charter bus with her soccer team, riding 15 hours to Edmonton after a breakdown in Kamloops, when King told her that she, “wasn’t sure if she was gonna have me on the team.” But King saw potential as long as she worked for it. And Bracken was willing to work hard to reach her expectations.

Her team had to play hard to break expectations, too. Last year, Bracken says the team had a bunch of new rookies and that nobody really saw KPU as a “scary opponent.” One day, at the end of their season, the women’s team played a game against the Quest Kermodes. Coaches King and Joan McEachern—McEachern, by the way, played on the Canadian national team from 1987–1995— told the team they had to win the game to qualify for provincials.

Everyone was high-strung, everyone was pushing. Despite playing an excellent technical game, Eagles and Kermodes were still tied 0–0. Five minutes left before the last whistle.

Goalkeeping coach Amelia Ng and coach McEachern shouted from the bench, “Okay, settle down, settle it down, hold onto it, hold onto it!”

And the players on-field didn’t know what their esteemed coaches were talking about, because in their minds they Needed. To. Win. But when the final whistle blew the game was a draw, leaving the women’s team deflated. McEachern came up to them as they receded back to the bench.

“Girls, you’re going to provincials,” she said.

“What are you talking about? We needed to win!”

“Oh no, a tie was fine, we just wanted you guys to play good!”

Bracken says that on that day, the team had never been more happy.

A lot of the student athletes, Bracken and Anderegg included, at least initially came to KPU purely for varsity sports. Anderegg was working in a gap year between high school and her first-year of university, when she would eventually take “a couple of random courses,” still unsure of what she wanted to do. Then a friend of Anderegg’s on the soccer team and her field hockey team told her to get in touch with soccer coaches. Anderegg wouldn’t be going to school if it wasn’t for that. She says that she, “probably would’ve dropped out after the first semester,” if she didn’t make the team, and that the only reason she was taking general studies for two years was so she could have enough credits to play.

Then there’s the battle of keeping the actual department up, financially and as a public entity. Oftentimes athletics teams hold fundraisers, sometimes in the form of bake sales, and they’ve organized food drives and volunteered their time to bring assistance to those living in the Downtown Eastside.

“I think we’re all scared,” says Bracken, who we spoke with under the gazebo at Surrey Main. Coach McEachern walked by.

“See you later?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah!” Bracken had a soccer team meeting and practice shortly after.

“We know if they break us up, we’re not all going to the same university, we’re not all going to be playing on the same team … it’s just … unimaginable,” says Bracken, at a loss for words.

Teams are already losing players, even some that were recruited for the new season.

“We recruited seven new players this year,” says Anderegg. “And all seven of them were recruited to play soccer. They were choosing between schools because they wanted to play, and they chose KPU because of the culture we have here.”

“They’re saying, ‘oh… I’m probably not going to stick around if there’s no team.’ So for the younger players, yeah, most of them will probably go to other schools,” adds Anderegg.

All four teams still have a final season coming, and in this uncertain time, student athletes have realized that this could be their “last chance to put it on the line.” This impending recycling of KPU athletics seems to have galvanized the will of the athletes. There’s nothing to lose.

For the women’s soccer team, that means winning nationals, that means proving something to themselves and, ultimately, it means proving something to KPU administration.