Soccer
Favorite athlete: Jack Wilshere
Favorite team: Arsenal
Favorite memory competing in sports: The comeback we had against PW this year. We were down 2-0 at the half and ended up winning 3-2 in overtime.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Last year, our team was given a PK. We were up by five goals, so we let a freshman take it. He was really nervous and begging us not to make him take it, but we did. He missed the net really bad, and we reminded him of it nearly every practice since.
Music on iPod: Kanye West, Meek Mill, Chiddy Bang
Future plans: I hope to be coaching soccer and working in a business related field or teaching at a high school.
Words to live by: “Everything happens for a reason.”
One goal before turning 30: Hopefully be married and have started a family.
One thing people don’t know about me: I like to sing.
By GORDON GLANTZ
Glenn Van Orden was born a few decades after Garrett Morris’ character, Chico Escuela, helped put the original cast of Saturday Night Live on the pop culture map with repeating “baseball ... been berra berra ... good to me.”
But that doesn’t mean he can’t relate.
There are some subtle differences. Van Orden is a real person, not a fictitious former player from the Dominican Republic, and his chosen game is soccer.
But soccer – like baseball for Escuela – has been....very very very ... good to him.
As a young kid, like all young kids, he tried his hand at all sports. Up until sixth grade, baseball and basketball were still in the mix.
But soccer was it.
And that is all it has been ever since.
School, soccer.
Soccer, School.
Hang with friends, talk soccer.
“It’s all I do, basically,” said the Upper Dublin senior, who also plays club soccer for the Upper Dublin Force.
And Van Orden – the Univest Male Athlete of the week - does it well.
The Cardinals were 24-2-2 in the American Conference the last two years, with Van Orden earning All-League accolades, for his versatility from the all-important center midfield position that he has manned with aplomb since his sophomore season.
Beyond his skills, Upper Dublin coach Rick Schmidt calls Van Orden “the consummate team player and impressively versatile soccer player.”
For Van Orden, whose primary objective this year was to earn back bragging rights from some of his club teammates who play for rival Wissahickon, there is no greater compliment that can be given.
Especially from the coach who named him team captain prior to the season.
“That’s how I want to be seen,” he said. “I don’t care about (statistics and individual honors). It’s really just all about winning for me.”
While he was expecting to be named captain, Van Orden admits that he saw things a little differently once cast in the role of being the conduit between the coaches and the senior-heavy squad that wound up not only ending a five-year losing skid to Wissahickon but also shared the league title with Plymouth Whitemarsh.
“I just tried to be myself, but I did feel some extra responsibility,” said Van Orden, who said he considered 2012 graduate and fellow center midfielder Brian Schaefer, now playing at West Chester.
“I just tried to stay positive. (The seniors) stayed together. We tried to get the younger guys incorporated, which they all were by the end of the season.”
When the season ended in the first round of the district playoffs against William Tennent, soccer only amped up a notch for Van Orden, who is determined to put himself in position to control his own soccer destiny.
His options, right now, are not unlike the ones that confront many high school standouts.
There are only so many Division I scholarships to go around, but the lure of matriculating at such a school – in his case, Indiana or Penn State – is also appealing.
With a daunting club schedule looming, a big TBD – to be determined – hangs over the future of the game that has been his life.
“I might be,” he says, when asked about playing soccer at the next level. “Right now, I just don’t know for sure.
“There are some smaller schools out there, but not really any specific ones. I’m just trying to keep all my options open. We have some college showcases coming up in Maryland and New Jersey. I’m very interested in playing in college. I want to eventually pursue coaching, and I think it would help if I played in college.
“It’s really something I want, to be honest.”
Van Orden explains that there are “tons of college coaches” at the showcases, but his club team – made up of top talent from Upper Dublin, Wissahickon, La Salle, Germantown Academy and Hatboro-Horsham – approaches the games with the mentality that they can’t start showing off an individual.
“We all realize that we have to stay together,” he explained. “We all realize that if we play well together and we win games, that it will make us all look better.”
Despite the change of seasons, the club doesn’t veer much off its intended course.
“We train outdoors in the winter,” he said. “We have our Maryland showcase this weekend. We have a Disney showcase coming up, too. That’s in warmer weather.”
While he is a team first all-league player who shines most when playing with a winning-is-everything edge, Van Orden is aware that college coaches will be looking for something that makes him stand out.
By his own admission, he “is not the most athletic guy out there,” but knows there is more to soccer than that.
“That’s part of the challenge,” he said. “I just want to show them that I am a team player. I play every single minute – in every game – just trying to win.
“I feel like coaches will be able to see it.”
