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Roger Alphonso

Roger Alphonso

  • Class
    1980
  • Honors
    Men's Soccer (1976-1979)
In 2019, the Oakland Roots Community Spotlight featured Roger Alphonso. Roger has been a staple of the My Yute Soccer Camp in Oakland since its inception. He helps start every camp day with a “One Love Chant”.

Roger has been a part of the Bay Area Soccer community for decades going back to his time at University of San Francisco where he won 2 National Titles under legendary coach Stephen Negoesco, and played from 1976-1979, graduating in 1980.

Roger is a former Guyana National Team player and always gave back to his homeland. He helped form the New Amsterdam Primary Secondary School Football Foundation whose goal is to produce footballers that can help make Guyana reach the World Cup finals (OaklandRoots).

Roger is a two-time inductee into the NCAA Hall of Fame (Class of 1976 and Class of 1978). In a 2019 interview published in Starbroek News, he listed a meeting with football great Eusibio in 1995 as… “One of my career highlights.” But his biggest pleasure undoubtedly came when his 1976 USF team defeated Clemson in the semi-finals of the NCAA tournament.  

“The Alphonso family of New Amsterdam, in Guyana, must have been proud when brothers Gordon and Mark Alphonso, 22 and 23 respectively commandeered Clemson University to the semi-finals of the NCAA Soccer Championship in Philadelphia  last December 13."

“In the semi-final match with the University of San Francisco Dons, The Clemson Tigers fell 0-1, but with no shame to the Alphonsos. They had been undone by their youngest brother Roger, 19, a freshman and striker for the Dons. “The Dons went on to edge the University of Indiana, 1-0 in the final and capture the event for the second successive year. Alphonso, Roger, that is, finished the season with 12 goals second only to Tony Gray of Liberia, who totaled 14 for the season.”

Since his brother Gordon earned the first scholarship out of New Amsterdam to Clemson University, his family thought it best for Roger to accept an offer to attend the University of San Francisco. That worked out well enough when USF met Clemson University in the NCAA semi-finals in 1976 in which younger brother Roger was able to beat Clemson, Maxie Headley, Mark Alphonso and Gordon Alphonso.  Roger had joined a number of international players at USF who had played nationally in their own countries, and thus USF had an exceptionally talented soccer team in the 1970s.

In Guyana he was instrumental in helping form the New Amsterdam Primary Secondary Schools Football Foundation (NAPSS).
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