What matters most in those moments when everything is on the line, according to coach Quave-Robinson, is guts. “Will is one of these guys who’s been around – he’s got experience overseas – and he’s the kind of guy you can count on to grab that moment. You could just tell he was up for it in that moment.”
SCU Heat might not be the most glamorous destination for a player trying to start, or, in the case of Inalien, restart a professional career. They don’t get paid to play. A lot of the players have side-jobs, some of them provided by the club’s co-owner Nick Lewis. “But this is one of the most organized UPSL teams out there,” Inalien said. “Training is always at a high intensity, the foundation is good.
“It’s definitely the in-between place for a lot of players,” he admitted. “But it’s one of the best places of that kind to be.”
Heat Aiming for History
Now SCU Heat are one of the darlings of the Open Cup. One of seven amateur sides to beat a Div. III pro team in the First Round, they’ve got the momentum and the Magic of the Cup is on their side. Up next – on April 2nd – is another third-division pro side in Charlotte Independence of USL League One.
“We’re just happy and humbled to be in the Cup, and getting something going,” said the coach. “We believe we belong here. There was a joke going around the internet that we’re just a bunch of pipe fitters and substitute teachers. We’re not that exactly but we aren’t full-timers either. A lot of the guys have other jobs. You see that in us when we’re out on the field, we’re hard-working people, blue collar in the way we approach life and the game.
“We’re staying true to ourselves and the spirit of the Cup too,” added the coach, who weaved his own Cup Magic when, playing with the Carolina Dynamo of the old PDL, he faced off with MLS side D.C. United.
Inalien, one of the steady heads his coach is relying on, also feels the Open Cup and its mystical forces working on the club and the players. “The opportunity in the Open Cup is just massive,” said the scorer. “Coaches can see you, scouts can see you and – you know, you can make a sensation.”
No one knows better than the SCU Heat crew how narrow the margins between winning and losing in the Open Cup are. “We’re really looking to be something in this,” said Quave-Robinson. “The excitement is the thing that stands out most – the excitement of playing against bigger competition out on the same field with a chance to win.”
Inalien is on the same page: “We have a chance to go out now and show it wasn’t just a fluke.”
Maduro is a senior reporter at large for usopencup.com