Soccer
Favorite Athlete: Cody Maverick
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite sports memory: My favorite soccer memory was beating Radnor in PKs in the state semifinal game. My other favorite sports memory was from snowboarding when I went to Nationals for the first time in Colorado and placed sixth in the nation.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: My good friend whiffed in our state final game, and the announcer was very funny when it happened.
Music on playlist: I like to listen to a lot of different music. However, before games, I listen to rap and a little bit of rock and roll like AC/DC to get me fired up.
Future plans: I plan to play soccer at the collegiate level.
Words to live by: “Don’t be afraid to fail”-- My grandfather
One goal before turning 30: To get a degree from college and start a good job.
One thing people don’t know about me: I used to be a top five nationally ranked snowboarder.
By Mary Jane Souder
Chase Rubincam’s chances of making varsity as a freshman were slim at best. Turns out the now Springfield senior was caught in a numbers game.
“We had a lot of returning players, and I had no intention of taking any freshmen,” Springfield coach Dan Meder said. “I knew the freshman class coming up, and I knew they were good, but we just thought – that’s going to be our JV team, and we’ll be fine.”
After watching Rubincam go through the drills and timed runs, the veteran coach was forced to rethink his position.
“Chase was in the top five guys of every drill, of every run that we did,” Meder said. “So I looked at my assistant coach, and I’m like – ‘We’ll find a place for this kid, this kid wants to play.’ He earned himself a spot.”
At the end of the first week of preseason, Meder posted a list of varsity and JV, and Rubincam was the lone freshman on the varsity.
The script, however, did not exactly go as planned.
“That Friday night of the first week I started feeling pains in my stomach,” Rubincam said. ‘I honestly just thought it was a normal stomachache, but it just progressively got worse overnight.
“I went to the hospital the next morning and had a CT scan, and they said it was an appendicitis.”
Once again, things did not go as planned.
“I went to Abington Hospital, but they said they couldn’t operate on me because I was a kid at the time,” Rubincam said. “They had to transfer me to CHOP, and that was delayed.
“Once we got to CHOP, we were in the waiting room a really long time and didn’t get a room until 4 a.m. My appendix ended up bursting, and it got worse. I got surgery that Sunday, two days after it started hurting. They said, ‘You’re going to spend at least two days in the hospital, maybe five.’ It turned into three weeks and another surgery.”
The second surgery came after Rubincam, at the three-day mark, wasn’t seeing the progress that was anticipated.
“I wasn’t eating or anything,” he said. “They took another scan, and my bowels were blocked, which is why I wasn’t eating.
“They had to do another surgery, and then they found a hernia in the second surgery. I was just banged up. That ended up being three weeks, and I missed the first week-and-a-half of school.”
Rubincam came back the last two weeks of the season but was not in playing shape and saw very limited time.
“It was crazy,” Rubincam said. “That was the first time I’ve ever had surgery or anything like that.
“Obviously, I was so happy to make varsity too, so that was a setback. Missing out on that season was rough.”
If there was a silver lining, Rubincam realized just how much he loved soccer.
“Especially because of the support from everyone on my high school team and my club team,” he said. “They were always supporting me and doing stuff for me while I was in the hospital.”
With soccer absent from his life during his hospital stay, Rubincam improvised.
“They had this outdoor garden with a basketball hoop with balls,” he said. “I would go up there with my IV and try and juggle the basketball the best I could with my foot.”
Rubincam’s soccer career has been on a decided upswing since that difficult freshman season. A fixture in the varsity lineup since he was a sophomore, he was a part of teams that earned back-to-back trips to the PIAA 3A state final.
Soccer or snowboarding?
Rubincam comes from a big soccer family – older brothers Eli and Pierson both played at Springfield, and Pierson is a senior on the Hobart squad. Eli is attending the University of Vermont.
“My dad’s side of the family all played,” said Chase, the son of Peter and Michele Rubincam. “My dad and uncle played together in college.
“I started playing before kindergarten – peewee soccer probably around the age of three or four.”
Although he loved soccer, it was not Rubincam’s number one sport in those early years. Instead, it was competitive snowboarding.
“My dad was on the junior US team as a snowboarder,” Rubincam said. “He did World Cups, US Opens, all that stuff. We were brought up snowboarding at a young age also.
“At three, I started snowboarding, and I started competing in third grade.”
Snowboarding season ran from the beginning of December until the first week of April.
“I would go up to the Poconos every weekend, and we’d have practice, and then we’d have competitions every couple weeks, some of them in Canada,” Rubincam said. “At the end of the year, there was always a big one called Nationals, which you qualified for, and it was always in Colorado. I did it every year up until freshman year.”
Around that time, Rubincam made the difficult decision to give up snowboarding in favor of soccer.
“I wanted to play soccer at the next level collegiately,” he said. “So, it was give up one or the other because they were conflicting.
“It was definitely hard to give it up. It was a big decision I had to make.”
Competing in Colorado was an annual highlight for Rubincam during his snowboarding years.
“That was always crazy to me,” he said. “Especially seeing those huge mountains and scenery that we don’t get around here.”
Rubincam, whose best finish on the national level was sixth, competed in bordercross.
“Basically, four guys at once go down a course with jumps, turns, rollers, and the first one down is the winner,” he said.
Although he no longer competes, snowboarding is still part of Rubincam’s life.
“I still love it, and I still will go up with my friends,” he said.
Rubincam is the president of Springfield’s Ski Club that takes an annual trip to upstate New York at the end of the first semester.
A passion for soccer
It’s tough to imagine what Rubincam and his teammates on the soccer team could do for an encore this year after back-to-back trips to the state championship. Especially since the Spartans have been moved up to the largest school division in the state – Class 4A. This despite an appeal by the school to remain in Class 3A.
The reasons for the PIAA moving a school to Class 4A that would be one of the smallest in even Class 3A (with just 322 male students) – that’s another story for another day, but nothing can take away what the Spartans have already accomplished.
“Sophomore year was the record-setting year,” Rubincam said. “We won the league for the first time, won districts for the first time and made states and went to the state final for the first time.
“When my one brother was a senior, they won one or two games. To come up from that has definitely been crazy. I remember my freshman year, we lost to Radnor in the district semifinals. Coming back from the hospital and being back at that game was definitely cool to me, seeing all the hype.
“Sophomore year when we went back to Radnor, and we beat them in overtime at their place - that was surreal to me, being back there playing this time and not just sitting on the bench. That was crazy, and it honestly was out of nowhere.”
Rubincam anchors the Spartans’ defense at center back.
“He’s a terrific athlete, first of all, and he’s a terrific soccer player,” Meder said. “He has good technical skills, but he’s also tough. He’s played through injuries, he puts in hard tackles. He’s not dirty, but he’s tough. He’s not hurting kids, but he wins the ball. He’s just never been afraid.”
The Spartans’ coach recalls a game that underscores Rubincam’s impact.
“It might have been his sophomore year,” Meder said. “PW had a really good player – I don’t remember the kid’s name. We only crossed over and played them once, and the kid scored two goals on us early, and I’m like, ‘This kid is killing us.’
“So I moved Chase to cover the kid, and the kid didn’t do anything the rest of the game. I didn’t man mark the kid, I just put Chase on the kid’s side, and the kid was done, the kid was shut down, and the kid was the best player on the field, and he just couldn’t get past Chase.”
Playing center back won’t put a player in the headlines. As a matter of fact, it can be a thankless job.
“The key to me is honestly – I like to stop people from scoring goals,” Rubincam said. “People don’t appreciate it enough – I’m not just saying this because I’m a defender. I notice my teammates who are my defenders and how much they do for the team – it’s just crazy.
“I like helping out the team and I like seeing everything. As a center back, I can see everything at once rather than if I’m up top or in the midfield and in the middle of things or even behind things. But as a center back I can see the whole field as once, I can talk to people the whole time.”
Rubincam - who competed with Springfield Twp Fever on the club circuit until last year and is now on Hex FC - is a perfect fit for the position.
“He is stalwart, he leads from out front,” Meder said. “He’s always doing the right thing at the right time because that’s just who he is.
“I’ll tell the kids – hey, leave a plastic bag in your bag, so when it rains, you don’t have to worry about your stuff. You can put it in a bag and just focus on the game.’ He’s the kid who always has it. He’s the kid who’s like, ‘This is what I do.’ He’s just a great kid.”
According to Meder, Rubincam as well as fellow captains Kayden Sowell and Ben Hubley are the backbone of this year’s successful squad.
“The three of them are so much fun to coach,” the Spartans’ coach said. “They love soccer, they love being here. When we had that terrible week of four games, I tried to give them a practice off.
“I said, ‘Just go home and rest, your bodies need to recover.’ They wouldn’t let me cancel practice. They said, ‘No,no, no, we should get together.’ I said, ‘But your body needs a break.’ They said, ‘Well, we should get together.’ I said, ‘Okay, I don’t need the day off. I thought you guys needed a day off.’ The three of them are outstanding. All three of them lead from out front, and it’s not forced.”
Off the pitch
The Spartans’ three captains also excel in the classroom. Rubincam is in the top 15 percent of his class, and academics are a priority. He is taking AP calculus and AP physics.
He has not made a college choice but is looking at northern schools.
“A school where I could play soccer but also is a very good academic school would be great,” Rubincam said. “I’m not sure of a major, but a school where I can balance the student-athlete life with the academic life.”
Last year, Rubincam was named a student rep on the school board.
“I can give input – say we were talking about the middle school, and I would give my input about what my experience was in middle school and what I think would be important for those students,” he said. “Along with that, I was part of the high school advisory group, which includes all the leaders in the school.”
For now, Rubincam is focused on what has already been a special soccer season for reasons that go beyond the team’s success on the field.
“Me and the other two captains – ever since we were young, we have always been playing together,” he said. “Our team is known for having good friendships and connections, not only on the soccer field but also outside the soccer field.
“We get together with the guys – maybe after practice we get dinner. So I think that’s what we look forward to – not just playing and being all serious but also having fun.”
With the second season just around the corner, the Spartans already have wins over some perennial powerhouse 4A programs and have a top five seeding in 4A.
Leading the way for the Spartans will be Rubincam and fellow captains Hubley and Sowell.
“I’ve had to have conversations with kids in the past about – ‘Hey look, you’re a great player, but I need you to be a leader now,’” Meder said. “These three captains have just always been leaders out front. We’ve had kids like that recently – not only good soccer players but good kids. They’re just always doing what they should be doing, and that’s a huge part of the success we’ve had.”
