A “Serious” Project: Seniors form a coed recreational soccer team to play in a fun, low-pressure environment

“Hey, what about a rec soccer team?”

Over the summer, seniors Ryder Hendon, Syl Brundige and around 10 of their friends were brainstorming ideas of how to enjoy their senior year between the stress of college applications and senior papers when someone threw out the idea of a recreational soccer team. Most of the group had either played soccer before or are current soccer players, so they knew they could all enjoyed the sport and pull off some wins. 

Thus, Project FC was born.

The friends formed the coed, recreational soccer team as a fun and low-pressure team intentionally without the rigors of club and school soccer that so many are used to.

They had the players — the entire friend group, plus Ryder’s sophomore brother Hank and his friend sophomore Barrett Tegtmeier — but the paperwork provided by the Brookside Recreational Soccer League required one more thing: a coach.

Syl’s mom Shari Brundige was the perfect candidate. She supported Syl through youth soccer more than 10 years prior, so when he asked her, it fondly reminded her of his soccer days in elementary school. But after six years of playing on club soccer teams, Syl got burnt out due to tough coaches and rigorous, demanding schedules and eventually quit.

So when he went up to her and asked if she would coach the team, it was a no-brainer for Shari.

“When he was three and started playing, soccer was all he thought about and he could not wait for [his game on] Saturday, and if it was raining and it got canceled, he would just cry,” Shari said. “It was kind of like this full-circle thing, coming back his senior year. Like that little boy playing soccer again, he had that enthusiasm for Saturday like he did when he was a little kid.”

Now with a coach and players, Project FC was ready to go for their first game of the season. During the team’s season opener against the Dodging Coeds, they won 10-0. The highlight of the game was senior Charlie Muehlberger’s headfirst slide into the ball to knock it into the goal, which Shari compared to a cue stick hitting a billiards ball.

Two months, five games, a few casual practices at the Indian Hills soccer field and a handful of orange slices later, the team had reached their last game of the season — or games, rather. They had a doubleheader scheduled for Oct. 28. The only problem? It was below freezing and rainy for both games.

On Friday night, Hank was nervously tracking the storm by refreshing his weather app every five minutes and saw that it was being forecasted earlier and earlier until he was almost positive the game would be rained out the next morning. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

“It was super cold and wet [during] the first game, just nonstop rain,” Hank said.

It was looking good for Project FC, and most members were still making jokes and messing around despite the bitter cold. Syl took advantage of the rain, and commemorated every goal with a celebratory 20-yard slide across the slippery turf field. After four more goals — and four more slides — the team managed to pull off the win in tough conditions.

“It was like 20º and it was raining, so everybody was freezing, I couldn’t even feel my hands at all,” Barrett said. “But it still was super fun.”

But after sprinting around the soggy field in the freezing cold, seven of the players couldn’t take it anymore and left. They were positive the second game would be canceled due to the weather. Another spoiler alert: it still wasn’t.

“It felt like the coldest I’ve ever been,” senior Drew Trucksess said.

By the time the second game rolled around, the team was soaking wet, shivering and down half a team. They were seriously starting to doubt if they were going to be able to play when they saw them shuffling off the neighboring field, like a beacon of hope — the Dodging Coeds.

The Dodging Coeds were in a similar situation. Half of their team didn’t show up because they too thought the game would be rained out. So after talking with them and their coach for a few minutes, Project FC took on the Dodging Coeds as part of their team.

“It would have been the perfect movie ending had we not lost that game by one point,” Hank said. “It was really close all the way through.”

The team ended with a 4-0-1 record, and even though the doubleheader was the last game of their season, Project FC is far from being finished. The team is already talking to Shari about playing in a spring soccer league, and some of the players are trying to form a recreational basketball team for the winter season. Either way, the team will continue making memories together with or without personalized celebrations and mountains of post-game orange slices.

“It was a lot of fun despite the fact that it wasn’t as competitive,” senior Ben Hembree said. “Because coming from a constantly competitive environment in high school soccer, it’s kind of a relief that you’re able to be yourself and do what you want.”