Date: Fri 14-Aug-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: KIMH

Quick Words:

Taubert

Full Text:

Al Taubert -- Sports Hall of Fame 1998

BY KIM J. HARMON

Al Taubert grew up in a soccer household in Portchester, New York. It became a

part of his life. And because it did, it also became a part of the lives of

thousands of Newtown kids for the past quarter of a century.

It seems like a natural progression -- with Taubert growing up with a father

and uncle who were semi-pro soccer players, becoming a player himself, then

later coaching and founding.

Taubert has always been an athletic man. In school, he played the traditional

sports -- football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the

spring -- because soccer, then, was not quite an option.

Now he gets into tennis and golf . . . when he isn't on a soccer field.

Taubert moved to Newtown from New York in 1966. A pilot with Pan Am, he played

soccer with a Pan Am team before joining a group of Newtown players on a

Wilton team in the Connecticut State Soccer Association (CSSA). Soon after, he

was talked into coaching kids in Ridgefield in 1970 and with the need for more

teams arising, he got involved in the Connecticut Junior Soccer Association

(CJSA).

It seemed to take off from there.

In a letter to The Bee, John Schwerdtle brought up the need for a youth soccer

team for the kids of Newtown and Taubert, being the soccer guy that he is,

responded and formed the first team of 12-year-olds. They trained hard and

found games wherever they could.

From that point, high school football players joined up, thinking that spring

soccer was a great way to keep in shape for the fall gridiron season. One team

grew into another and into another and into another and all of a sudden there

was a program.

Other parents jumped on board and the program -- the Newtown Soccer Club --

eventually evolved into what it is today. More than 1,000 kids a season play

on in-town and travel teams in the fall, winter and spring, with several of

the travel teams distinguishing themselves among the best in the state. And

the NSC hosts its own annual Memorial Day tournament, which hosts more than

100 teams every year.

The Coach

It seems that when Al Taubert isn't playing soccer (he is with the Newtown

Salty Dogs and is one of only four or five men in their 60s playing in the

over-40 league), he is coaching soccer.

Now 68, Taubert has coached almost continuously in the NSC, one team or

another, since the 1970s and has also coached at Western Connecticut State

University, Fairfield University, and Newtown High School. He has worked in a

number of touring soccer camps and has been affiliated with the David Gaetano

Camp for several years.

Right now, he is in charge of training coaches, setting up clinics and classes

for the NSC.

His education as a soccer coach came largely from time spent overseas with the

military and as a Pan Am pilot. He had the opportunity to spend a lot of time

seeing soccer on a national level, seeing how other countries approach the

game.

Being a founder of Newtown soccer and seeing what the game has done for

thousands of young players in this town, Al Taubert is a very worthy inductee

into the Newtown Sports Hall of Fame.