What is your origin story? Who started the club; when and why?
Our club was founded in 2017 by current club president Kaden Bergman. After playing NPSL with Aris SC, Kaden was looking for somewhere to play closer to home. When we formed the club, we partnered with the local youth club, Hayward United SC, and played as a part of their organization. We entered the Duluth Amateur Soccer League (DASL) with a group of players from across Northwestern Wisconsin and Northeastern Minnesota. Prior to the 2019 season, we entered the newly formed Wisconsin Primary Amateur Soccer League (WPASL) and have remained in that league since.

What's been the biggest challenge to running your club and how have you dealt with it?
The biggest challenge of running this club is finding players who are able to compete at this level of soccer. Hayward, WI is a town of only 2,400 people, and our high school soccer program has only been around since 2001. Due to this, there is a limited number of players from Hayward who are able or willing to put in the time to create a successful program. Although over half of our roster still consists of homegrown talent, we must supplement this with talent from around the Northwoods. We have had players travel from as far as Houghton, MI and Hibbing, MN (over 3 hours away) to play on the squad, and our successful recruitment has allowed us to be highly competitive in the WPASL.

What makes Hayward Wolfpack FC different? What do you pride yourself on?
Our club is of humble origins and we're proud to run a successful club in our small town of Hayward. The biggest aspect of our club that differentiates us from others is the family and culture that we have created. Our club is composed of players from a large area spreading across Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, and it's really fun to watch the boys come together each year and compete at a high level. We had 45 guys try out for the squad this year and had enough for both a First and Reserve team. After most games, our squad goes out for a team meal afterwards, and this really helps us with team bonding, especially with a team composed of players from diverse backgrounds and stories. It's really cool to see guys travel hours down to our small town to play for a club, even if they have other squads and opportunities closer to them. It shows that we're doing something right, and we're always excited to see the growth of our squad from year to year.

What league do you play in and what teams do you look forward to playing the most?
We play in the WPASL, a highly competitive amateur soccer league consisting of teams throughout Northern and Western Wisconsin. We enjoy playing many of the clubs in the league, but our biggest rival would be Bateaux FC of Eau Claire, WI. Although they beat us handily in 2019, we fought them to a 4-3 loss during playoffs, losing on an 87th minute goal. In 2020 the clubs split decisions, and in 2021 we beat them in the regular season, only to have Bateaux defeat us in double overtime of the WPASL Championship Game. We also have the Connect Four Derby, whose inspiration came around during COVID, when our clubs played a game of virtual Connect Four on Twitter. This caught the attention of a podcast called SmallWorld Soccer and took off, even leading to one of the most unique trophies in lower league soccer. This is a matchup we always look forward to during the season. Some other squads we've had strong rivalries with are fellow WPASL clubs Lobos FC (Battle of the Packs) and Barron Soccer Team, former WPASL club St Croix Valley, and old DASL rivals Team Evil, Portside FC And Green Machine SC.

You recently updated your logo and it looks great! What brought about that change and have you made it available on merch?
We're very excited about the new logos and name. This change came about when we broke off from our local youth club, Hayward United SC, due to difficulty in finding sponsorship and budgetary differences. We went through an extensive process to find a new identity and found it important to include both community members and our staff and players to find a strong brand. We narrowed the name down to three strong options but ended up choosing Hayward Wolfpack FC due to the fact that most community members knew our organization as the "Wolfpack", and we didn't want to lose this already-existing nickname. Our primary logo and secondary logo were drawn up by our goalkeeper, Cole Bergman, and were put into digital form by a high school student from Hibbing, MN named Harrison Law. We did have merch available this past spring but only for a limited time. We will have new options available during this offseason.

As we head into winter of 2021, what are you working on and where do you see this club going five years from now?
We are working on a few things during this offseason. Our league, the WPASL, has become an affiliate with the Midwest Premier League (MWPL).. This is some very exciting news, as it brings some great opportunities for both our league and the WPASL member clubs looking towards the future. We also now have a fall squad which plays friendlies against UPSL and College Club teams, and will be participating in a winter league, something we have not done in previous years. The future is bright for our club, but we're very excited about some opportunities for growth that may become reality in the next few years.

Follow Hayward Wolfpack FC on Twitter HERE
Learn more about Hayward Wolfpack FC on Facebook HERE