Youth club Tacoma United reveals first-ever club crest

TACOMA, Wash. — Youth soccer club Tacoma United has revealed its new crest exclusively to goalWA.net. The logo features Mount Rainier on the top and a large “T” representing Tacoma with a “U” for United on the inside base of the shield. The colors are red, gray, black and white.

Tacoma United teams like to differentiate their age groups by playing under a famous club name. For example, Tacoma United FC Manchester was a recent finalist in the U18 Washington Youth Soccer Founders Cup. The Tacoma United Boys U14 Chelsea won their age group of the 2013 Pacific Coast Super Cup. The club is working its way toward the new single crest.

Tacoma United has been around for nearly five years, but was boosted into a new era of growth and organization in part thanks to Washington Youth Soccer’s “Soccer Across Washington” program. In this December 2011 article from Play On! Magazine the story of Tacoma United is explained:

Tony Echaniz had players, coaches, and a passion for soccer — but little to no fields or equipment.

The Seattle Sounders FC and Washington Youth Soccer’s “Soccer Across Washington” program had access to equipment and connections with local parks and schools, with the goal of helping an under-served community.

It just took one fortuitous meeting for both parties to realize they were playing on the same team.

“I met Tracy Murphy (Soccer Across Washington committee chair) at an event in Seattle and she suggested that we form our own club, which we called Tacoma United, and offered to help us find fields to play on,” Echaniz recalls. “At the time, we only had 6-8 teams, but when word got out that we were starting a club, we got a lot of registrations and ended up with 12 teams — more than we had fields or equipment for.”

Without their own fields to play on, Echaniz’ Tacoma United players and coaches — 90 percent of whom speak Spanish as a primary language — were scattered across the region, to wherever a club could accommodate an extra few teams. It didn’t help that most of Tacoma United’s families worked low-income jobs, meaning the club needed to keep costs low to guarantee that the kids could continue to play.

Tacoma United (white) put a team in the 2013 Founders Cup Final in the BU18 age group. (Jeff Halstead)

Soccer Across Washington is designed to provide the opportunity for all players regardless of geography, economics, gender, language barriers, or ethnicity to be introduced to Washington Youth Soccer. In the true spirit of the game, to afford, foster and provide opportunities for playing soccer in Washington State. Soccer Across Washington provides a network that offers soccer training, administrative guidance, equipment assistance, and technical support to our communities.

Tacoma United has multiple age groups of boys and girls playing in the Puget Sound Premier League. They also put teams into Washington Youth Soccer state cup competitions.

Tacoma United defenders set up a mini-wall in the 2013 BU18 Founders Cup Final. TU eventually fell to Crossfire Select B94-Johnson. (Jeff Halstead)

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