The Path of a National Champion

Every student athlete’s college career ends in a loss. Years of dedicating their life to the sport they love only to end in a loss. That is, unless you’re one of the lucky ones. There’s only one champion and only one team that wins it all. On Nov. 23, BYU Men’s soccer won it all, making Senior Connor Fordham one of those lucky ones. 

            Connor has been through it all with BYU Men’s soccer. He’s been on the team since 2015 and has seen it through its PDL transition to club. The team transitioned from the professional development league in 2017 and won the national championship in their first year of club soccer. 

But then 2018 happened, and the Cougars fell to Florida in their final game that year. “It was definitely very disappointing,” said Fordham. “It was something I don’t think any of us expected to happen and I think it helped us put everything into perspective and realized the focus and work that it was going to take the next year to pull off winning six games in three days and winning the championship.” 

            The minute that game ended preparing for the 2019 season started. Remarkably, in the three years BYU men’s soccer has been a club team the Florida loss is their only defeat and the team was determined not to lose again. The players that remained on the team came back with a new drive and stronger desire than ever to take back the national title. Throughout the entire 2019 season the boys remained humble and focused. 

In practice, strategy became more important than ever. According to Fordham, the team spent a lot of time on situational drills and scrimmages in practice. Team meetings were important to help fix the small issues they saw in practice. It was critical that the team took each game one at a time. One of Fordham’s favorite moments of the year was playing against rival University of Utah, because one of his brothers plays for Utah and Fordham was able to score during that game, which is big for a defender. 

With an undefeated regular season, the leadership of this team played a large part into its success. Lead by coach Brandon Gilliam and captains Connor Fordham and Christian Bain. Fordham’s focus was on the bigger picture, the national tournament. As a leader he led by example. “I personally tried to get in the best shape I could and tried to be a leader within the team with my mentality. Not sure how great of a leader I was through the whole process but all the guys did really well to prepare themselves physically and mentally and it obviously showed at the national tournament,” says Fordham. Fordham’s position as an outside back contributes to how he’s able to lead. From the back, he’s able to watch how the opponent defends and has first-hand experience seeing how the opponent attacks. 

After dominating at regionals, the team traveled to Texas to compete for the National Title. Six games and three days stood between the team and their goal. Starting the tournament off with a draw against Texas A&M didn’t shake the team’s confidence. They continued to move forward by taking down Iowa State in a 5-0 shutout. 

Day two came with two more shutouts against Drexel University and Michigan University. In the Final Four game against the  University of North Carolina the Cougars earned their fourth shutout in the tournament with a 3-0 win advancing to the championship game against Ohio State. 

Ultimately the entire 2019 season came down to this final game. It was a quick turnaround as the game was scheduled hours after they beat the Tar Heels. This made for an extremely quick recovery time for a sport that requires a high level of endurance. Ohio State was not to be underestimated. They also brought an undefeated record to the table with only 8 goals scored on them in 2019. 

Ohio State struck first and put a goal on the board in the first 10 minutes of play. Fordham explains, “going down in the first ten minutes is something you really hope never happens but I don’t think any of us really panicked. We knew we had the whole game left and we had prepared for situations like this so we knew that if we were calm and just played the way we had played the whole year that we could win the game. We responded really well right after that to equalize about six or seven minutes later and then go ahead before the end of the first half.” As the second half began BYU was up by one, not a dangerous lead but still a lead. The team needed to do what they had done every game leading up to this: remain organized and focused. They knew they had the talent and capability to win the game, but they had to continue to play like it. But then with three minutes left to play BYU put away one more goal to solidify the win. 

“We put the third goal away with about 3 minutes left it was just a total sense of relief and excitement,” says Fordham. “The whole team celebrated in the corner and I ran probably my fastest sprint of the game to go celebrate with the team. It was just excitement and sense of accomplishment knowing that everything we had worked for the whole season had just been accomplished and we could just celebrate after that. It was a great feeling hearing the final whistle and having the whole team so happy and excited for one another.” 

 It was a bittersweet ending for Connor Fordham and the other seniors, but he says his BYU experience was everything he could have hoped for. The BYU Men’s soccer team will begin training soon in hopes of defending their National Title.