Boston University’s Fitness and Recreation Center and BU Global Programs are collaborating to host BU’s first World Cup Soccer-Tennis Tournament as part of International Education Week.
Preliminary games of the tournament will take place at FitRec Sunday at 7 p.m. and Tuesday at 8 p.m., FitRec Intramural and Club Sports Manager Scott Nalette said, with the finals taking place Nov. 13 at 8 p.m.
Nalette said FitRec is excited to collaborate with Global Programs to create an event which both groups are proud.
“Our goal is always if another BU department contacts us looking to collaborate, we’re always interested in trying to do that with another group,” Nalette said. “If they have goals and they see us as somebody who can help with those goals, then we’re always flattered by that and honored and really want to try and help with that.”
Nalette said FitRec and Global Programs decided to host the tournament because of soccer’s international appeal, but in a new form that would be exciting for students.
“We created this to hopefully generate a little bit of excitement of something new that maybe players haven’t played before,” Nalette said, “and then it was advertised by Global Programs, and we advertised it to our people as well.”
Six teams of three players have registered to participate, Nalette said.
Carter Eidson, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he decided to sign up with his friends because of their shared love of soccer, but thinks that events such as the soccer-tennis tournament are a good way to unite the different cultures on campus.
“I think it’s really important to give people common ground, and sports is such a good way to do that,” Eidson said. “Being able to connect [with] people who otherwise maybe wouldn’t have been able to do so is just super awesome for the school.”
Alexa Peroni, a junior in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said she thinks including a sporting event in International Education Week is a fun way to bring the community together.
“It’s a good way to bring people together and have fun in a competitive way,” Peroni said.
Meaghan Cayer, the senior manager for marketing and communications at BU Global Programs, wrote in an email that International Education Week is a nationwide program started by the U.S. Departments of State and Education to help encourage students to engage with other cultures.
“It was originally started to promote global mobility programs – so programs that send Americans abroad and prepare them for a global environment, and programs that bring future leaders from abroad here to study, learn, and exchange experiences,” Cayer wrote.
The week is full of events that introduce students to new cultures in hopes of helping them build connections to enrich the communities on campus, Cayer wrote. This year, the activities and events all follow the theme “Global Matters,” which Cayer wrote has a double meaning.
“One is us showcasing all of the global matters happening across BU’s campuses,” Cayer wrote. “Another is that this engagement, in fact, matters.”
Students and departments on campus are able to submit events for the week that they believe fit into this year’s theme, “Global Matters,” until Monday, and a final schedule will be published Tuesday.
CAS senior Jeffrey Wu said he thinks BU does a good job of encouraging and bringing together its various international communities.
“Starting from orientation, they always emphasized how we have all these people from all these different countries, all these different states,” Wu said, “so they definitely do a great job of bringing everyone together as a community, as a part of this BU collective.”
Kiran Galani contributed reporting.
