Corsair Faculty crushes Santa Monica City employees
Santa Monica College President Chui L. Tsang gasped for breath about an hour after he had ditched his usual suit and tie for a pair of black tennis shoes, blue shorts, and a white tee-shirt. Tsang had fallen multiple times in the first half of the soccer game, and at one point was even sprawled out on the ground after shooting the ball towards the goal.
He missed and the City Knights, a team made up of Santa Monica city employees, came back in the second quarter to score their first goal in the long-awaited matchup between the Corsair Faculty and the Santa Monica city employees.
“That’s ok, they need one,” said Tsang after a score. “But no more! Even though [the City Knights] are all scholars and competitive players, they have underestimated our team.”
Tsang rallied the Corsair Faculty from the sidelines during the second half and reminded everyone that this game was purely for fun.
The Corsair Faculty won the game 7-2.
The SMC Administration and Staff had challenged The City Knights this past Sunday not to discuss work-related subjects, but rather for a friendly match of soccer, and The City Knights responded to that challenge.
Two years ago SMC’s network services manager Dan Rojas, who served as captain for the Corsair Faculty, had the idea to put together a faculty soccer team.
According to Martin Goldstein, a race and gender communications professor, Tsang is “a huge soccer fan” and organized the event with Rojas.
Yet there was some tension apparent between the two rival factions.
SMC professor of renewable energies Stewart Cooley had initially played for The City Knights against other teams before joining the Faculty Team.
The City Knights city manager Rod Gould was upset and called him a “turn coat.”
Luis Jauregui, a staff member from SMC’s continuing education department, scored the first goal early on during the match.
Jauregui, who has been playing soccer since the age of six, described being part of the team as something “pretty cool” because he was able to, “play along with people you normally would not even work with.”
A few minutes later Shannon Herbert, an English professor at SMC, secured the lead for the Corsair Faculty by kicking in a goal to make the score 2-0, and the score remained 2-0 at the end of the first quarter.
By the end of the third quarter The Corsair Faculty scored three more goals to increase their lead to 5-1.
Russell Ackerman Santa Monica’s ecological landscape designer and captain of The City Knights, seemed to lose spirit towards the end of the game.
Ackerman pointed a plastic medieval sword towards the goal and yelled, “Guys, kick the ball forward!”
Apparently Ackerman believes the plastic medieval sword to be The City Knights’, “lucky charm.”
A tense moment ensued in the last minute of the game when Maguette Sarr, a city credit union employee and forward for The City Knights, suffered a minor charley horse and limped out of the game.
Moments later, the game came to an end.
According to Tamara Ackerman, wife of Russell Ackerman and in charge of music for the event, “The City Knights,” benefitted from forming the soccer team even though they lost to the Corsair Faculty.
“I definitely think it brings unity, inside and outside the team,” said Ackerman.