Wade Barrett grew up playing soccer at the beach. That would be Virginia Beach. For college, he didn’t go far from home, traveling just down the road to Williamsburg.
He played four years at the College of William & Mary for Al Albert.
Staci Wilson graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Alexandria and traveled to Chapel Hill to play collegiate soccer for the UNC Tar Heels.
She was a dominant defensive player for Coach Anson Dorrance, helping the Tar Heels to three national titles during her four-year collegiate All-America career.
She was a member of theU.S. WNT team that won the first ever Olympic gold medal for women’s soccer at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Colleen M. O’Day was a product of strong competitive soccer in Northern Virginia, growing up in Arlington, Va. She headed North for college, and played on four consecutive Ivy League championship teams at Brown University (class of ’86).
She was first team All-Ivy for four years and NCAA D-I first team All-America as a senior.
Barrett, Wilson and O’Day will be inducted in the Players classification into the Virginia/DC Soccer Hall of Fame, in Richmond, VA, during the annual VYSA Soccer Convention (Jan. 31-Feb. 1, 2014 ).
Barrett had a long professional career, first with the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer where he made 112 appearances from 1998-2002. He played a couple of seasons in Europe before returning for 30 games with San Jose in 2005.
He completed his pro career with the Houston Dynamo, playing 99 games from 2006-2009. He retired as the Dynamo team captain.
Wilson, who played professionally for awhile after UNC, is still in the game. She has been a successful assistant collegiate coach, and club head coach.
O’Day, who has been inducted into Brown’s Athletics HOF, took a different direction, and at the time of her induction was associate director of the press office of Common Cause in Washington, DC.
The three players will be joined by four others who will be inducted for Meritorious Service. Julie Caramanica is the longtime State Administrator for the Virginia Youth Soccer Association. Denise Edwards is a past president of VYSA. Don Heldman and Robert Kunle have given great service, both at the state and local levels, as administrators.
Finally, Hacabi “Turk” Emekli will be inducted in the Veterans classification. Emekli was a standout player and later a standout coach at Catholic University where he earned more than 100 career victories.
Emekli was also the coach of the Washington Whips in the old NASL.
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