Davidson to honor 1992 Men’s College Cup soccer team

DAVIDSON ATHLETICS

Davidson's 1992 soccer team advanced to the first NCAA Soccer Cup semifinal on the Wildcats' home pitch. The team will be inducted to the school's athletics hall of fame.

In fall 1992, Davidson College was preparing to host the first of three consecutive NCAA Men’s College Cup final fours. 

The dream of Wildcats coach Charlie Slagle and athletic department marketing director Pat Millen, both Davidson alumni, with support of then-athletic director Terry Holland, was to raise the profile of Division I soccer championship by making the small college town soccer’s version of Omaha, Nebraska, where the college baseball World Series is held every year. They pitched the NCAA and were granted the 1992 and 1993 events. They hosted in 1994 as well.

What they never expected was that the Wildcats soccer team, often good but never great, would advance to that first tournament on campus and turn the first official College Cup into the hottest ticket in the Carolinas.

That 1992 team and other Class of 2026 inductees to the Davidson College Athletics Hall of Fame, including former basketball head coach Bob McKillop, will be honored at halftime of the Davidson men’s basketball game against Rhode Island on Saturday. 

The road from Davidson to… Davidson

The tournament finals in Davidson sold out before the college season even started in August. Tom Sorensen wrote in The Charlotte Observer, that Slagle “marketed the tournament the way the World Wrestling Federation markets WrestleMania.”

The improbable journey to actually play in, and not just host the finals, started with Slagle, a former Davidson goalkeeper in the early ‘70s who led the Wildcats to their first Southern Conference tournament title in two decades and their first-ever NCAA bid.

In the tournament’s first two rounds, Davidson gutted out penalty kick wins against Charlotte and Coastal Carolina. 

As the Wildcats team continued to win, demand increased. Well before they qualified for the semifinals with a 1-0 overtime win on the road over North Carolina State, there were none to be had. Organizers decided to increase capacity at Richardson Stadium from 5,300 to over 8,000 by adding temporary bleacher seats that also sold out.

“We’ve been thinking about that all year,” Slagle told the New York Times about the possibility of playing in the Final Four on its home field. No one besides Slagle and his Wildcats would have thought it possible. The 1991 team struggled to an 8-10-2 record.

The home team was joined by ACC powers Duke and Virginia, and the University of San Diego.

Davidson lost 3-2 in double overtime to San Diego in the semifinal game. Wildcats fans got their money’s worth as all four of their tournament games, just like the SoCon final, went to overtime. The Wildcats played 552 minutes of soccer during the NCAA matches, the equivalent of more than six regulation games. 

Including their quarterfinal win against NCSU and loss in the semifinal, Davidson went 17-5-3 that season. Slagle was named National Coach of the Year.

Slagle left Davidson in 2001 to become CEO of the Capital Area Soccer League, which was then the largest youth club in the state. In 2019, he joined the Richmond Kickers, a USL team, as vice president of community engagement and gameday experience. He would pass away after collapsing outside his Richmond apartment that July. 

Yes, Santa Claus, there is a Virginia

In the three years of the NCAA College Cup in Davidson, Virgina won every time. Before they defeated Indiana in the 1994 final, the legendary Hoosiers coach Jerry Yeagley renamed the event as the Bruce Arena Holiday Invitational, in respect to the dominance the Cavaliers coach had created for his program. Arena would go on to coach the U.S. Men’s National Team and several teams in Major League Soccer. He is currently head coach of the San Jose Quakes.

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