Eric Struble ’11 and his teammates on the men’s soccer team know they’re the new guys in town. But they’re also proud to be joining an historic athletic program that’s won its share of Old Dominion Athletic Conference championships.

For their first home game against Ferrum College, the men’s soccer team wore their pride on their sleeves. Literally. All the players took the field wearing armbands bearing the letter “W”.

“To show respect for the people who came to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College,” explains Struble, a first-year from Fuquay Varina, North Carolina.

The crowd of close to 400 raucous Randolph students loved the gesture. “We’ve gotten very good support from the students so far,” says Struble, an outside midfielder. “We’ve only had two home games but we’ve gotten good turnouts for both of them.” When we spoke to Struble, the team was coming off a nail biting, double-overtime win at Southern Virginia University. It was the WildCats second victory of the season and their first away win.

Struble feels the team could have won even more of its early games if things had gone their way offensively. “Right now we’re working on getting our attack together and finishing the chances we get,” he says.

The team practices three hours each day that they don’t have a game. Over Fall Break, it’ll be two practices a day. For the brand-new men’s soccer squad, this year is all about getting up to speed as a program. During this first season, the team is playing a mix of ODAC and non-conference schools. They’ll officially compete in the ODAC starting in Fall 2008.

Men’s soccer is one of six new men’s sports at Randolph College, the others being basketball, cross country, lacrosse, riding and tennis.

Struble’s loving his entire Randolph experience so far. He’s one of just a handful of students who bear the title of Presidential Scholar. Membership in the College’s most prestigious scholarship program is granted to students with the highest academic ability and a wide variety of achievements and aspirations.

According to Struble it’s a lot of hard work, but it’s fun too. His favorite class right now is cryptanalysis or code-breaking. “We’re given different ciphered messages and we have to decipher them and get the original message,” he explains.

Even between classes and daily soccer practice, Struble says he still has plenty of time to get active in campus life and to hang out with all of his new friends.

Find out more about the WildCats athletic program and check out the game schedule to get out there and cheer on the team.