Ouachita Stories

The Ravine Rovers began their journey during the first semester of the 2021-2022 academic year at Ouachita as a group of students looking for an organized league in which to play soccer. The team was initially created by Kevin Merino, a senior biology major from Wylie, Texas, and Logan Daust, a senior business administration/sport management major from Plano, Texas.

The motivation for such a team stemmed from many small soccer games played on and off the Ouachita campus by this group of students. After committing themselves to a league, the team played every Sunday evening in Burns Park in Little Rock against many other adult teams in the league.

Although the team did not begin competing until Fall 2021, they began to form a year ahead of time. According to Merino, developing the Rovers started with discussions between himself and Daust over the desire to play at a more difficult level. As these conversations furthered, Merino was sure this was what the group wanted.

“We were playing a lot of futbol with our friends all of last year and as we got more into it, we thought that it would be a lot of fun to just have some of us be on a team together and play some organized futbol,” Merino said.

Once the basic idea was formed, the team needed a name and look, pushing Merino and Daust to spend time in design mode. Daust began trial and error of many designs, resulting in the current logo for the team. The next step the duo took to form the team required established members, subsequently sharing the vision with their desired circle of players. Once the potential members were involved, it didn’t take long for the excitement to spread and the team to be set in stone. However, the most vital component of any athletic organization was still up in the air: a name.

As expected, much thought went into the process of choosing a name, as the team took a vote on a list of four potential titles and landed on the Ravine Rovers. This name was chosen as a way for the group to represent Ouachita in some fashion, as the ravine that runs through campus was included as well as rovers, a common English soccer team name. The jerseys were a shade of green to represent the “Natural State” of Arkansas. According to Daust, the process of getting jerseys made took quite some time, but now the team is stronger than ever.

The final piece in this puzzle was creating an Instagram account with the handle @ravineroversfc. Once fully constructed, the Rovers were able to begin their season in the fall and are proud to be a part of a life-long memory.

“My favorite part of Ravine Rovers was being able to play with my friends and get closer to all of them,” Merino said. “Going out to eat and congregate with all of them afterwards was also always a joy.”

Photo by Abigail Blankenship

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