Back, left to right: Yanif Ahmad, Alex Zgolinski, Arhan Ertan,Daniel Acevedo, Aris Anagnostopoulos, Serhat Ozbay, Melih Bitim Front, left to right: Ugur Cetintemel, Pascal Van Hentenryck, Cagatay Demiralp , Gokhan Yalcin.
Last Sunday, 11/16, The department's soccer team, Bytesoccer, became the champion of the Brown Intramural Fall 2003 Middle Division Outdoor Soccer League. After a tense game, they beat team Teddie Smooth 2 to 1. A penalty kick called against them at the start of the game initiated tension that built throughout (of course, everyone in the team agreed that it was a "wrong call":)). But Bytesoccer played one of their best games of the season and deserved the win. Both teams include staff, students and faculty from various departments.
Although the department has had a soccer team in the past, Bytesoccer has existed for only three seasons. The team's creation harks back to Prof. Ugur Cetintemel's arrival in the department and his suggestion that fellow-Turk Cagatay Demiralp, a MSc candidate in the department organize a soccer team. Cagatay liked the idea -- "Wow! that'd be great -- why not?"
In the past two seasons Bytesoccer made it to the semifinals and quarterfinals, respectively. This season the team was stronger, partly because they had become more cohesive after playing together for two seasons, and partly because of excellent additions to the team this fall -- Alex, a new MSc student, Serhat and Gokhan, both from outside CS. Pascal (who had a professional soccer career in Belgium), Ugur and Melih are the team's stars. But more important even than winning was they had a great time playing together -- the win was icing on the cake.
