ALEX SMITH Staff Writer
Alex Smith: What is your best memory at Piedmont?
Chris Keller: My best memory at Piedmont would probably have to be our freshman year when we were playing N.C. Wesleyan and they were beating us at halftime 2-0. Our team made a couple of changes and their team made a couple of changes. You could tell that they thought they had it in the bag, you know no big deal because we are playing Piedmont. We actually ended up coming back and tying it up and forcing overtime. In overtime, Justin Whitaker played a ball over the top to Vincent “Slim” Thomas and Slim scored the game winning goal, and I remember that so well because I was in a sling. I had dislocated my collarbone the week before, and I remember running on the field celebrating with everyone in my sling, and Conner Lockridge looked at me and started punching me in the shoulder while we celebrated. That’s probably my favorite memory at Piedmont. Kevin Posmer: That game is the first thing that came to mind. Just because playing in it was very very hard. We were down 2-0 at halftime and we were working hard but it just wasn’t going our way. Then we came back and ended up winning in overtime. That felt great…it felt great.
AS: What about with school? What are some of your memories in school?
CK: I am glad you mentioned that Alex. My greatest time here at Piedmont has just been with the soccer guys, making friends with the soccer guys. I won’t go into any detail of some of the stories of some of the “yardies” and Kevin and the cabin. I think Kevin is the heart of all of the stories. All kidding aside though, just the friendships that I have made here, especially with guys like Kevin and Dylan. We stuck it out the four years here, I know we came in with a class of ten and now we are what’s left. There have definitely been some good memories that we have made. AS: What is the funniest thing that happened on a bus ride or in the locker room?
Kevin Posmer: Oh geez, I can’t say that CK: Ok. What we do on the bus, and on away trips. We play this game called sports or consequences. We have a group chat and what we will do is text each other, “Ok we are playing sports or consequences” and we will all meet at the back of the bus. It’s always something super simple, like you have to throw a piece of paper into a cup, which is the sport. Whoever is the last to do that has to do the consequence that we decided. From that, there have been some good memories on the bus.I know off the top of my head, we had pizza one day and the guy had to basically had to put a piece of pizza in his pants and sit on the pizza the entire trip back, just silly stuff we do.
KP: Remember, wasn’t it Mo had to go up to the front of the bus when we were sharing the bus with the girls and just do 20 pushups. He just walked to the front and didn’t say a word and looked at everyone and dropped down, acted like he was trying to impress the girls, he flexed a little then walked back to the back of the bus.
CK: We do it at the hotel too.
AS: What is a weird pregame ritual you have?
KP: I always put my left shoe on first. Like left shinguard, left shoe. Always left side first then right side. It’s just the way things happen.
CK: This is a pregame ritual of a student that goes here, I won’t say his name so I don’t embarrass him, but he would go the bathroom before every game. The reason I remember that is because he would take all of his clothes off. You guys remember that? He would only go to the bathroom completely nude. I guess that was his game day ritual.
KP: I do remember that.
CK: I felt like you deserved to know that.
AS: Who was the worst roommate to have on away trips and why?
CK: Kevin I know you happen to room with someone who was a terrible snorer freshman year.
KP: Well, no I lived with Waldyr. Living with him wasn’t bad because we had a wall between us, but everyone has told me that rooming with Waldyr was bad on away trips. He does snore quite a bit. There were a couple of times, like in our room in Johnson that he would fall asleep on the couch and he’s snore so loud that he would wake himself up. He’s snore and then look at me like, “Why did you wake me up” and I never touched him, he was just sleeping. I can imagine on away trips where there’s no wall, it could be pretty bad.
CK: There were a couple times this year that we would get into it with the freshman, and I think this happened a couple times last year. Basically we would break into each others rooms and just hide everything in their room. One day, I went to lay down and the lamp was in my pillowcase. I know I put someone’s telephone in the shower one day. Dylan Krimmer: I actually had pretty good roommates. I had Colin, Griffin and Conner. Those were pretty good roommates.
AS: What was the most meaningful thing that happened to you on senior night?
KP: For me, I had been recognized last senior night because I could have graduated last year, so I wasn’t recognized this senior night. So, instead of that, I was very fortunate to get Chris and Dylan to come get a picture with me. Like we said earlier, I was just the three of us from our freshman year. It means a lot that we were here through everything. We have definitely had some rough times, but we have had some very good times as well. There’s a lot of memories between the three of us.
Dylan Krimmer: I think that my most memorable part was when the whole team and our families got together and took a picture.
CK: That’s definitely it, what Dylan was just saying. We took pictures with our families and with coaches and stuff. We looked over at the team and they were just ready to get over there with us. You could see how excited they were and they ran over and got around us and our families were around us and our coaches were around us. It was just like a big family with the whole PC soccer family there. That was a cool moment.
AS: Who was your favorite rivalry every year and why?
CK: My favorite rivalry every year was probably Huntingdon. We really didn’t have a problem with them this year. This year was the best we ever played against them. For me, the kind of player I am is I am a big talker. The mental aspect is huge for me. I like to get in people’s heads a little bit and play the whole chatty game. Huntingdon is one of those teams who will absolutely give it back to you. They love getting in your head, and love talking and throwing elbows and the stuff behind the play that the ref doesn’t see. A lot of our guys, we especially feed into that. They absolutely feed into it back. That’s always been a big game for me. You know what you’re going to get when you play them. You know its going to be physical, you know its going to be full of yellow cards. That’s definitely my favorite rivalry.
KP: It’s definitely good to put them in their place the past couple of years. For me, I guess it would be Ferrum, actually. Just because going away to Ferrum is awful. It is a long bus ride, and their fans are terrible. If I played for Ferrum I’d love their fans. They’re always there to get in their opponents heads. Playing them is awful because they’re there and they get at you. Its rough playing against them.
CK: Those are the fans that look up the roster and call you by your name and they look at like your Facebook friends.
KP: Dylan got his mom called out.
DK: They kept saying, “What would Lisa think about that?” Just like, how do you know my mom’s name? In the moment it made me so angry, can’t do anything about it.
CK: Yeah it doesn’t even make sense why you’re mad. Just like, “It’s my mom’s name”
DK: Don’t speak my moms name. Yeah just the fans are bad. The first time we played them freshman year, it was a rough game. I just always wanted to beat them.
AS: What is the biggest lesson you learned from Piedmont soccer that you’re going to take into your career and into your life?
CK: One of the biggest lessons I learned is what it means to be a teammate. We were here freshman year when some incidents went down and we all got punished for it. Just because of some decisions that some other guys on the team made. We’ve seen that happen throughout our four years here. Where a couple guys would make some bad decisions and we all had to pay for that. What I have taken from that, and what I will take into the workplace is that when you’re on a team, that how a team works. Everyone has to be held accountable for decisions that one or two guys make. When you get a team that buys into that philosophy, a team that understands that you may get in trouble because of a decision someone else made, you have to have a bunch of guys that buy into the theory that we are a team. We represent each other, we have to be held accountable for whoever does what.
KP: Kind of piggy backing off of what Chris said, no one is bigger than the team. Especially this year, there have been one or two incidents where coach decided not to travel a player or two because of their grades or whatever’s going on. That was a little unexpected because it was one of those where you’re like, he’s a smart guy and you think he is going t class and stuff, but it turns out that he wasn’t. I applaud coach for sticking up to it and keeping us to our academic standards. It was one of those situations where, he was a starter, he shows up to play everyday, but no one is bigger than the team. You get punished the same way anyone else would. That extends back to other things that have happened in the past. It doesn’t matter if you’re a starter, you’re held to the same standard.
DK: I agree with both of them. Just working as a team. You don’t rely on just yourself because you have your teammates.
