Most of the people Kirk Urso cared about and loved were there. So were others who were fans, but never personally knew the former UNC Tar Heel.
His family was there, along with teammates from both the UNC men’s soccer team, and the Columbus Crew, for whom he was beginning a professional career when he died on August 5, 2012. They were all there.
The came for the inaugural Kirk Urso Memorial Match in Greensboro, NC. The event was co-sponsored by the USL Premier Development League Carolina Dynamo, another team that Urso played for during the summers of his collegiate career.
Konrad Warzycha scored the only goal of the game in the 79th minute to lead Columbus to the 1-0 win over the Tar Heels. The score was about the only insignificant thing about that afternoon at UNC Greensboro Stadium.
All of the proceeds from the match went to the Kirk Urso Memorial Fund. Including contributions through the Columbus Crew Foundation, the total was in excess of $30,000.
Important was that they all gathered to honor a son, brother, friend, former teammate and a young professional who had a lifetime ahead of him when he suddenly died of a genetic heart defect.
He had remained in Columbus with an injury when the Crew went out of town to play. That evening in a local bar, he collapsed and died of something called arrhyth-mogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. He was only 22 years old.
Ben Speas and Urso were teammates on UNC’s 2011 national championship game, in which Speas was named MVP. He also plays for the Crew, and was wearing Columbus Crew colors on this day in Greensboro.
“For me personally, it’s awesome,” Speas said in a Greensboro News and Record article about the game.
“I think it just shows the lives that he touched. For our Crew teammates, it’s good. We still think about him daily. It’s still tough, but I think this is a good event.”
On that sunny Sunday afternoon, folks lingered on and around the soccer field for almost as long as the game itself had lasted.
They had come to remember Kirk, and they were not in a hurry to end the reunion.
There was much to remember. Urso the moon walker as a kid growing up right outside of Chicago, or the funny videos he made. They remembered that championship season when he captained the Tar Heels to the national title. They called him Captain Kirk.
The Crew remembered a player they were just getting to know, but one who earned a starting job early in his rookie season.
His younger brother Kyle, remembered the games he played in the backyard with his brother. “Either someone’s getting injured, or Kirk’s winning,” Kyle Urso said, laughing while wearing a Crew jersey and sunglasses.
And Urso left a message to future Tar Heels who never will have met him, but will know something of his leadership.
In college, Kirk was on the UNC leadership council. He shared his thoughts on leadership, and passed them on to the soccer team.
One was a letter to future players on how they should do things — how to play, how to carry themselves, how to treat others — while playing for the Heels. The letter now hangs in the UNC locker room.
“He has left a legacy that will make us better eternally,” UNC coach Carlos Somoano said. “So how do you measure that?”