By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – Everything has to start somewhere … even something as storied and superbly successful as the Seattle Pacific men's soccer program.
 
Heading into its 55th anniversary season – a milestone that will be part of the Legacy Night celebration on Saturday, Sept. 16 at Interbay Stadium – SPU has become synonymous with winning:
 
– Five NCAA championships.
– 12 regular-season titles (spread among three different conferences).
– And a whopping 660 victories, with an all-time winning percentage of .677.
 
The Falcons will look to keep adding to that tradition this fall when they play a rugged non-conference schedule that includes No. 21-ranked Colorado School of Mines on Legacy Night, and an always-challenging Great Northwest Athletic Conference slate that starts off with No. 6-ranked Northwest Nazarene in Nampa, Idaho, on Sept. 28.
 
But even with their many highlights and celebrations through the years, Seattle Pacific had a most humble beginning on the soccer field.
 
Those 660 all-time victories? Only one of them came during the first three seasons.
 
After an 0-7-1 inaugural campaign in 1968, the Falcons (still known then as Seattle Pacific College; it became "University" in June 1977), were shut out in their first four games of 1969. They finally got into the win column on Nov. 1 of that year with a 2-0 decision against Puget Sound.

 

They wouldn't log another 'W' for nearly two more years. By then, coach Arnie Aizstrauts, at the helm in 1968 and '69, had moved on. Cliff McCrath, who came out west from Spring Arbor College in the Michigan town of the same name, took charge.
 
He, of course, would go on to become legendarily synonymous with Falcons soccer. But, just like his predecessor, McCrath had a rough start, going winless in 1970 (0-7-3).
 
Seattle Pacific finally scored another victory – its second as a program and McCrath's first in maroon – on Oct. 16, 1971. Once again, it came against Puget Sound, this time by a 6-4 margin.
 
GOING AIRBORNE – AND STAYING THERE
Ultimately, that was the point at which the Falcons began to take flight. Counting that UPS game, they went 7-1-2 the rest of that year, finishing 7-3-4 overall. That was the first of 37 consecutive winning seasons, encompassing McCrath's entire tenure with the program.
 
Along the way, his 37 autumns included 30 NCAA tournaments. Of those,10 extended all the way to the national championship game, five of which – 1978, 1983, 1985, 1986, and 1993 – ended with Seattle Pacific winning it all.
 
As is true in all aspects of life, names, faces, and places change with the passage of time.
 
 

Mark Collings, who played for McCrath and the Falcons from 1995-98, took the coaching reins in 2008, eventually guiding the Falcons to five straight NCAA tournaments and back-to-back GNAC championships. Kevin Sakuda, now beginning his third year in charge, directed the team to a conference crown and NCAA berth in 2021.
 
There have been unbeaten streaks: a 17-gamer (15-0-2) bridging the 1986-87 seasons under McCrath. A 22-gamer at home (all wins), also under McCrath, that stretched from Nov. 6, 1991 through Oct. 22, 1994. And a single-season 15-gamer (14-0-1) under Collings in 2014 that included a school-record 13-game win streak.
 
That's not all.

– The 1985 team went 20-3-0, thereby becoming the first four-year school in the state to log 20 victories.
– Those 20 wins included four against NCAA Division I opponents.
– The Falcons have amassed 79 all-time wins against D1 teams.
 
 

From the old North American Soccer League all the way to the English Premier League and multiple other circuits home and abroad, numerous Falcons have taken their careers to the professional level. Several went on to play for various U.S. national teams, including forward Jason Dunn and goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann with the senior USMNT.
 
All of that – tournaments and titles, stars and streaks, milestones and memories – in the first 55 years.
 
And the next 55 are just getting started.