BLAINE, Minn. – (July 16, 2015) – Thousands of players, coaches, parents and spectators have made the National Sports Center their home away from home during the Schwan’s USA Cup. More than 25,000 people are on the campus everyday. Making an event of that size run smoothly is not small task.
“Day by day people just come in and sign up because they hear it’s a really great volunteer opportunity and they want to see what it’s all about, but yeah, we should get around 400 or 500 volunteers for this year”, said Kelly Distad with Schwan’s USA Cup.
There are so many different ways that people can help during the tournament.
Distad explained, “There’s a lot of different volunteer opportunities here at the USA Cup. One of them is the field managers and they oversee one to six of the soccer fields, and they are just the key communication point between the fields and headquarters and to operations, and then they also make sure referees get to their games on time and games start on time. Another opportunity is referee transportation so we have some golf carts that drive around campus and transport refs to their fields. Another one would be final team check in, opening ceremonies. Also, before opening ceremonies is the spaghetti dinner. And then we have airport greeters. So they are at the airports waiting for the teams to arrive.”
Many of the volunteers have a history with the tournament dating back decades.
“I met one volunteer, this is his 30th year out of 31 years that the USA cup has been taking place. A lot of 25 years, 20 years, so, people are definitely experienced volunteers.”
One of the large events during the tournament is the spaghetti dinner before the opening ceremonies. 1300 people bought tickets to the dinner this year. And many volunteers were on hand to help feed the younger guests. I decided to join the team and lend a hand. My job was simple, make sure that everyone knew where to get their dessert.
I can attest that it was a lot of fun and I made some new friends.
“I mean the memories that they have from it… They get to meet people from all over the world whether it’s players, parents, coaches, referees.”
The staff that work on USA Cup all year long will be quick to tell you that there would be no USA Cup without the hundreds of volunteers.
“The volunteers are definitely the heart and soul of this tournament. We honestly could not do it without them. They keep everything glued together.”
It was clear that the volunteers were a driving force behind the tournament’s success and will continue to make it possible for future years.
