SGP at Berkshire Soccer Academy
The connection between Soccer Girl Problems and the Berkshire Soccer Academy goes back to the summer of 2013. Fairfield University women’s soccer team came for their first residential pre-season camp at the Academy. The entire team came out with Head Coach Jim O’Brian to train and bond as a team, enjoy the lake and yoga sessions to recover from training during the first 5 days of the season. For the summer of 2015 the Stags will be back for their 3rd summer of pre-season training.
Shannon is pictured below next to Coach O’Brian and the rest of the winning team from Fairfield’s inaugural pre-season small sided tournament. The prize for winning the tournament each year is a Berkshire shirt.
SGP will be appearing at a the Academy a couple of times throughout the summer. Campers will have the opportunity to meet the girls and receive autographs during the final day of session II & session IV.
The Soccer Girl Problems Story
The SoccerGrlProbs (SGP) team consists of Long Island natives Alanna Locast ’12, Shannon Fay ’14 and Carly Beyar ’14, who are all former members of the Fairfield University Division 1 Women’s Soccer team. While in between their second and third practice session of the day during preseason of August 2011, the girls and their team were joking around about the struggles of being a female soccer player. They spontaneously decided to come up with a Twitter handle as a comedic outlet to share their inner thoughts and funny moments about the everyday life of a female athlete. Their team told past teammates, friends and coaches about the Twitter and within weeks their following grew to hundreds and then thousands. Twitter followers then began to tweet at SoccerGrlProbs, requesting a YouTube video to be created. In February of 2012, they created their first video that tallied over one million views in three days! Today, SGP has produced over 30 videos that have accumulated over 8 million views and 16+ million minutes watched. What initially once was a comedic venting outlet, became a lifestyle brand with the release of their first t-shirt.
Their Mission
It is our mission to support and encourage the well-being and positive self-image of young female athletes everywhere. We aim to encourage the idea of a strong, confident, positive female athlete who is comfortable in her own skin. We want to empower young female athletes to build a strong inner foundation and to have the confidence to proudly grow into the women they will become. Through social media and our apparel products, we want to continue to deliver authentic and original content through this lifestyle brand as a means to establish a sense of unity and sisterhood in the female soccer community.