Vermont Green FC ended Women’s Week on Saturday with a 2-1 win over AS Blainville in front of a sold-out crowd.
University of Vermont Community News Service reporter Busy Anderson and editor Kelsey Tolchin-Kupferer spent the game talking with fans, and they bring us this audio postcard.
This story was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript below.
Brittany Nevins: I’m Brittany Nevins, and I am a Vermonter. I grew up playing soccer in the Vergennes area. And I am a big fan of Vermont Green in general, but I especially love coming to the women’s games, because in Vermont, we don’t have a lot of opportunities for young athletes to see what’s possible. And especially that's the case for girls. And so any chance to make it clear that girls can become pro athletes is really big. I think that if I had seen this when I was, like, 9 years old playing soccer, and then in high school, I would have worked harder to maybe play in college or beyond.
Veda Pfeifer: My name is Veda. I'm 10 years old. I play soccer, and my soccer team walked out today with the women's team. And my dad started the women's club, so we come to a lot of the games. It's really important to me because I love having the energy here. Like, the energy is really fun. And especially it's fun to support also the women, because women used to not be able to do sports like men could.
Parker Sosa: I’m Parker, and I’m 6! And sometimes I’m the coach.
Daisy Sosa: Yes, yes. I coach soccer, she plays soccer. I played soccer for years. We actually come from Addison County, which is like a 45-minute drive. And we're pretty much here every home game. Especially when the women are playing, because...
Parker Sosa: Because we’re women!
Daisy Sosa: Yes. [Laughs]
Parker Sosa: And yesterday, one of those players on the Vermont Green Team, they were on my team!
Daisy Sosa: Yeah, so she plays for Addison United. And the players actually came to, like, a clinic yesterday for the kids on the team. So they all got to play. And they were all willing to kind of get down and dirty with the kids. You could see it, they were all running up and down the fields, you know, horsing around with the kids. And I think that kind of gave them something that's like, these are people we look up to, and they're down here with us because this is where they started.
Brittany Nevins: The first Vermont Green women's game I went to, it was just a really exciting game, and I just didn't expect to feel so emotional. I had grown up watching some minor league men's games, and I just couldn't really relate to it. So I definitely got teary-eyed that first game. But what really killed me was at the end, watching like 50 girls run onto the field and giving all the soccer players hugs and asking for autographs. And you could really tell that it had a huge impact on them, and they could see themselves playing professional soccer someday, which I think isn't really a dream that most Vermont girls have because they don't see it. But now, they do see it.
This story comes from a collaboration between Vermont Public and the Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship.
