Pro Soccer Coming To Long Island, With World Cup Champion Helping Lead Club

HEMPSTEAD, NY — Professional soccer is coming to Long Island, and one of the region's most accomplished players is returning home to help build the club.

Long Island is getting a new professional men's soccer team, which plans to begin playing at Hofstra University in 2028. The team will compete in USL League One, the third tier of professional soccer in the United States, pending final league and federation approvals.

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Greenlawn native and Harborfields High School alum Sara Whalen Hess, a member of the U.S. team that won the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup and an Olympic silver medalist, will serve as the club's co-founder and president. Dix Hills native Glenn Schneider, founder and CEO of SUSA FC, Long Island's largest youth soccer academy located in Central Islip, is principal owner and co-founder.

"When I was growing up here on Long Island, I never imagined one day I would be standing here, helping introduce a professional soccer club to the community that raised me," Whalen Hess said Wednesday.

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Whalen Hess said soccer became her "safe place" at a young age, giving her confidence, friendship, purpose and joy. The sport took her to UConn and then around the world with the U.S. national team, culminating with the 1999 World Cup championship before a career-ending injury abruptly ended her playing days.

She later earned a doctorate in clinical psychology and spent years working with people from a range of backgrounds before eventually finding her way back to soccer.

"In so many ways, my life has come full circle," Whalen Hess said. "Like a boomerang, soccer sent me out into the world, taught me a bunch of lessons I didn't expect to learn, and then brought me back home."

This time, she said, soccer brought her home "not to play, but to build."

That homecoming also gives Whalen Hess a chance to offer today's Long Island players something she did not have growing up.

Asked by Patch what opportunity she wished had existed for a young player when she was growing up in Greenlawn, Whalen Hess said the soccer landscape was vastly different.

"I didn't even really see women's professional sports on TV, and I didn't see men's soccer on TV then," she said. "And I didn't have a pathway to play professionally."

Now, she said, young Long Island players will be able to attend games, watch professional players in their own community and see firsthand what that pathway looks like.

"I think that players in this community now can see the pathway," Whalen Hess said. "They can come to the game. They can see the professionals. They can see what it actually looks and feels like. I think that's going to be a huge benefit to these kids now."

The club does not yet have an official name, crest or colors, but organizers say Long Islanders will play a role in developing the identity.

Whalen Hess said the organization plans to hold listening tours, clinics and meetings with children, families, recreation centers and other community organizations.

"We want to be a club that they're proud of, that they can look down the road in five or 10 years and know that we still represent how they want us to represent," she said.

Whalen Hess said the club plans to connect with community groups, nonprofits, charitable organizations, soccer clubs, high schools and families across Long Island. A head of community is expected to come aboard Sept. 1, she said, while a sporting or technical director could be hired by January.

Schneider said the club will also have significant ambitions on the field.

"We're not here simply to participate," he said. "We want to win, grow, and earn our way forward on the field and as an organization."

Schneider called Long Island one of the country's great soccer communities, pointing to the World Cup champions, national team players, coaches and generations of soccer families the region has produced.

"The greatest sports organizations don't just play in a community; they become part of their identity," Schneider said. "Our commitment is to build a first-class organization that earns the trust, pride, and passion of Long Islanders."

USL League One President Lee O'Neill said Long Island's deep youth soccer culture was one of the reasons the league saw an opportunity in the market.

"I think it's such a hotbed for talent, and at the end of the day, I think it's been probably underserved for a long time," O'Neill said.

O'Neill said he hopes to return in two years to see 10,000 to 12,000 fans packing Shuart Stadium, but said another measure of success would be seeing a player who grew up locally earn the chance to play professionally in front of a home crowd.

"I think that's just equally as important as winning a championship," he said.

The club will enter USL at a time when the league is planning a major structural change in American professional soccer. USL officials are working toward connecting their professional divisions through promotion and relegation. Teams can move between levels based on their performance.

"It's more games of consequence, more jeopardy, all the things that people want when they're supporting the game," he said.

Whalen Hess said the club's larger purpose comes back to the sense of community soccer gave her from childhood through the highest levels of the sport.

"I really believe that the best clubs don't just win games," she said. "They give people a place to belong. And today, together, that's exactly what we're starting to build."