Alfred University students recently hosted more than 300 students from local school districts for an indoor soccer tournament that served as a hands-on project for the university’s Sports and Health Sciences program, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Students enrolled last semester in the program’s Organization and Administration of Athletics class had organized the tournament by the end of the Fall 2025 semester. The tournament, held Jan. 18 in the Joyce Walton Center, put all their planning into action.
“It’s a great way for our students to get a feel for how to organize and execute a tournament,” says Clinical Associate Professor and program Director Jason Honeck.
Honeck says about 18 students were enrolled in the class – ATHT 432. Organizing a tournament, he adds, requires all the skills of a professional event planner in addition to a grounding in the details of particular sports, in this case indoor soccer.
“There are almost countless details to master: who’s going to referee? Who’s going to sell the T-shirts? Reserving facilities, parking, signage, police, registration forms.”
The reach of ATHT 432 is also growing. Last year, according to Honeck, the Sports and Health Sciences Program held its first regional tournament and hosted 24 teams from area school districts. This year, the tournament drew 33 teams from communities as far away as Allegany, NY, and Wellsboro, Pa.
Participating students were organized into four divisions: third- and fourth-grade boys; third- and fourth-grade girls; fifth and sixth grade boys; fifth and sixth-grade girls. And with more than 300 young children attending, there was an additionally large complement of adults: parents, uncles and aunts, and grandparents.
“At any single point,” Honeck says, “there were 600 to 700 people in the Joyce Walton Center.”
From the undergraduate perspective, all those adults and young people created a huge need for thinking on one’s feet and improvising. “I call it managing the chaos,” says Honeck.
