This year, the Evanston Unity Soccer Festival will take place on the Robert Crown Center turf field on Saturday, July 13th from 9am to 1pm. The Evanston tradition marks its 10th year as an event that brings together a diverse range of people to enjoy soccer.
In 2014, Elliot Hartig and his fellow ETHS soccer alumni were attending a boys soccer game at James Park when they came up with an idea.
“Evanston is a very diverse community, with people of many different ethnicities and cultures who play soccer but don’t often play together,” Hartig said. “You look around the park and you see a Haitian group, a Polish group, a Mexican group, [etc.] “Everyone was playing separately, and we thought it would be a great idea to bring everyone together and have a day where we bond over a game that we all love.”
That’s when Hartig and his friends founded the annual Unity Soccer Festival, which initially was just a tournament aimed at uniting different races on the soccer field. The first tournament featured 14 teams, with matches played across six fields at Evanston’s Camen Park.
Sportsmanship over competition
The tournament has always promoted sportsmanship and friendship over competitiveness: no scores are kept between teams, the players themselves referee the matches, and all teams play the same number of matches.
“It’s not about goals,” Hartig says, “it’s a really unique festival because people just come to have a good time. People don’t try to make sliding tackles, they congratulate anyone who makes a great play, even if they’re on the opposing team. There’s a really warm sense of community.”
Rodney Masalirambi, a participant in last year’s tournament, said he felt a sense of community and charity at the festival.
“[The tournament] “It gets people active who haven’t been active until recently, it’s great to meet new players and find connections between friends you didn’t know you had, but most importantly it’s for a great cause,” he said.
All proceeds from the tournament will benefit club soccer scholarships for players in need of financial assistance, and this year’s festival is hoping to triple the number of scholarships awarded compared to last year.
The number of participants is increasing every year
Three years ago the tournament moved from Caymen Park to the grass fields of the new Robert Crown Community Center, and attendance has increased significantly since then.
“We started with 14 teams, then 18, then 25, and then once we moved to our beautiful Robert Crown turf field, it’s skyrocketed. We expect to have 50 to 60 teams registered this year,” Hartig said.
Teams already signed up to play in this year’s game include Zentri, Taco Diablo, Campagnola and other Evanston organizations. Mayor Daniel Biss is also scheduled to appear on the field.
Additionally, Northwestern University’s women’s soccer team will be participating this year, and a big focus of the festival this year is expanding the tournament from primarily male to everyone.
“One of our goals is to increase not only racial diversity but gender diversity as well,” Hartig said. “We’re really trying to encourage everyone to participate.”
This year’s tournament will be held at Robert Crown on July 13 from 9am to 1pm. Registration closes on Wednesday, July 10. Participants can enter as a team or enter individually and be part of a team.
Register for the Unity Soccer Festival here.
