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About Goddard Soccer


The Goddard Soccer League was founded with the sole purpose of providing soccer players of all skill levels with a fun and inviting environment. The league is open to all Goddard employees and their family members as well as the occasional guest players. Each team is rich with history, some dating back to the 1970’s. While the Gold and Blue teams enjoyed early success, the Grey and Green teams have made a name for themselves the past decade. Join a team and become a part of the Goddard League experience.

 

League Information


 

Officers


President:Marcello Rodriguez
Vice-President:Javier Mendez
Secretary:Roger Foltz
Treasurer:Khashy Parsay
Field Chairman:Zoran Kahric
Scheduler:Bruce Macomber
Webmaster:Javier Mendez

 

Join the league


Interested in joining the league? Send us an email. We would love to hear from you!

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How The Goddard Soccer League Began


My belief is that the origins of the Goddard Soccer League can be traced to a show of interest by my American colleague and office-mate, Ken Frost, in about 1968. I had started work at Goddard the year before as an NRC Resident Research Associate with Ken. Naturally, being originally from England, Ken knew that I had played soccer in school and he asked me to show him the basics of the game. I think he went out and bought a soccer ball and one afternoon we got a few guys together and went out on the grass across Aerobe Road from Building 1 and started kicking it around. This attracted other people including Jim Underwood, another Englishman, and Haiki Ogelman from Turkey. We had to restrain some of the Americans (Ed Rothe) who joined us as they wanted to play tackle football so it got a bit dangerous.

Eventually the group got too big and we moved across Greenbelt Road to the playing field behind Duvall High School. At first we didn't have any referees but after the first fight between Jim Underwood and the president of the OAO Corporation, we decided that more control was needed. It became obvious that we had to get professional referees. People began to take the games way too seriously and the early use of players from other teams proved inadequate. We had some rather nasty injuries, broken legs and noses, so we hired referees at ~$50 a game from the local branch of the Soccer Referees Association. This was better although the standards were not uniformly high.

 

About this time, we applied for, and got GEWA support. This led to the use of the playing field behind Building 11 that is used to this day. The field had already been leveled by the time we got to use it but it required a lot of volunteer work to get grass to grow, to provide adequate drainage, and to lay out the field for first one and then two pitches.

When the league started and was sanctioned by GEWA, there were four teams - the Astros (Red), Green, Gold, and White. I was captain of the Astros for several years. Other people on the team in the early years were Ken Frost (goal keeper), Pete Kenney until he broke his leg, Stuart Jordon until he broke his nose, Larry Orwig (right wing), Ed Rothe the football tackler, Norm Ness (defense), Mario Acuna with no left foot on defense, Peter and Art Serlemitsos from Greece, Haiki Ogelman from Turkey. Mercifully, I played for over 20 years without sustaining any serious injury eventually quitting after reaching 50 when my youngest son lost interest in playing with me on the team.

 

Brian R. Dennis

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD 20771

 

The Goddard Cup


And then there was one...The awarding of the coveted GSL Cup is the culmination of the fall and spring seasons. The top four teams in the league face off in a single-elmination playoff to determine who is the best! To the winner goes the trophy... the rest? Better luck Next Year!

 

Check out the table below for a history of GSL Cup champions.

YEAR CHAMPION RUNNER UP
2018-2019BlueGreen
2017-2018BlueGrey
2016-2017GreyPurple
2015-2016GreyWhite
2014-2015GreenPurple
2013-2014OrangeGrey
2012-2013GreyOrange
2011-2012GreenOrange
2010-2011GreyGreen
2009-2010GreyBlue
2008-2009GreyGreen
2007-2008GreyGreen
2006-2007GreyGreen
2005-2006GreenBlue
2004-2005GreenBlue
2003-2004BlueGrey
2002-2003BlueGreen
2001-2002GreenGrey
2000-2001BlueGold
1999-2000GreenBlue
1998-1999Green
1997-1998Green
1996-1997Blue
1995-1996Blue
1994-1995GreyBlue
1993-1994Purple
1992-1993BluePurple
1991-1992GoldGrey
1990-1991Blue
1989-1990Gold
1988-1989Blue