While strolling down the National Mall on a typical sunny Saturday, you can always expect to see a few things: 8th grade D.C. trips, swaths of tourists from across the world and the GW Football Club playing their weekly soccer games.  

Graduating seniors Brian Rapuano and Benjy Wolf-Wagner, who serve as president and vice president of GWFC, respectively, founded the club in 2022, inspired to create the group from an Instagram group chat of GW students interested in setting up watch parties for the 2022 World Cup. After growing GWFC over the past three years and sparking a surge of interest in casual soccer at GW, the architects of the mall ball team will depart the club’s top positions as they graduate this spring, leaving GWFC in the hands of the next generation of GW footballers. 

Wolf-Wagner said he wanted to start the club with his friends after having difficulty reserving spaces across the District to play casually, as many nearby fields were typically fully booked by the GW Soccer teams and other established club sports groups around D.C.

“We decided to sit down and become an official club,” Wolf-Wagner said. “We went to the Thurston penthouse, wrote the constitution and the rest was history.” 

Wolf-Wagner said mall ball — the unofficial name for GWFC, derived from their typical practice and game location on the fields at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue — has been a “consistent” routine throughout his four years at GW. Unlike the GW club soccer team, mall ball doesn’t require members to try out, but rather serves as a relaxed, open space for students to play soccer each week. He said the weekly agreement to play has been a way for him to “take a break” from the stressors of school. Rain or shine, Wolf-Wagner said you can find him and his fellow club members on the mall in the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial every Saturday at precisely 2:30 p.m., striking up that afternoon’s scrimmages. 

“It almost goes without saying, like my friends know not to ask me to do things on Saturdays because there’s no way that I’ll be around,” Wolf-Wagner said. 

While GWFC plays most games with its own members, the club has recently expanded to play against non-soccer related student organizations like the Puerto Rican Student Organization in an effort to expand their community across student organizations. 

As he leaves GW in the spring, Wolf-Wagner said he has faith in the rising leadership of GWFC to carry the club forward and ensure a continued commitment to keeping the organization inclusive to all, with this being the first time the club transitions into a fully new leadership. 

Wolf-Wagner said his favorite mall ball memory was the first game of his senior year. He said many of the seniors had been abroad the previous semester, so it was “special” to be able to come back together to play. 

“It showed that even though we had been away, and there had been these changes, we had all kind of gotten our own perspectives, had our own experiences in the meantime, but we still came back together to the mall, 23rd and Constitution,” Wolf-Wagner said. 

Rapuano said he remembers Wolf-Wagner coming up to him and his roommate their freshman year, after noticing both of them wearing soccer jerseys, to ask them about joining his soccer group chat to set up games and watch parties for the World Cup matches. Since then, he said the club has grown from an original 20 members to a routine turnout of about 65 people on a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon. 

“It’s grown so much in our four years here,” Rapuano said. “It’s unbelievable to see.” 

Rapuano said mall ball “means the world” to him because of the club’s ability to bring people together for their love of the sport and dedication to the team dynamic. 

“I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘You know, mall ball is like the biggest thing I look forward to all week.’” Rapuano said.

Rapuano said the organization has transformed from just a club to play soccer into a more social organization, with organized trips to D.C. soccer games like D.C United and Washington Spirit and routine cookouts throughout the semester for the team to spend time together off the field. The club has also started volunteering this semester with the community service organization DC Scores, — a local group that provides free after-school soccer programs for youth throughout the District. 

“I just hope that’s how the club continues growing in this way, where we can continue doing things for the people of the club,” Rapuano said. 

Malia Robinson, a sophomore studying speech, language and hearing sciences, will take over as the club’s co-president next semester. As a life-long soccer player, Robinson said soccer has acted as an escape from stressors, instantly curing any bad mood. Robinson said she initially tried out for GW’s club soccer team her freshman year  — another soccer student organization with separate men’s and women’s teams, which requires members to try out — and after not making it, went on to join mall ball, sticking with the team ever since. 

“I love playing soccer,” Robinson said, “Always have, and that’s why I started going, and then it transitioned into friends and a support system.”

Robinson said the future of GWFC is going to be a “big transition,” and that she will continue to work to uphold the standard of community and inclusivity through welcoming new members of all soccer backgrounds, set by the graduating seniors. 

“At the end of the day, yes, we’re a soccer club about inclusion and everything, but it does take a lot of behind the scenes work to maintain that, so we have to stay semi-professional and keep a strong face,” Robinson said. 

Jamie Duke, a junior and current “mall ball general,” will join Robinson as GWFC’s co-president next semester. He said his current role of general sounds “scarier than it is,” but he has enjoyed helping out with logistical aspects of practices like setting up the goals and boundaries on the field to help practices run smoothly, and is excited to take on more responsibility next semester. 

Duke said he thinks GWFC is more of a “collective” because of how easy it is for students from all ability levels and backgrounds of soccer expertise to come play with the team week after week. He said because of the welcoming nature of the team, he has noticed a difference in the community formed at GWFC as opposed to other GW athletic clubs and organizations. 

“It’s a very good springboard for that level of connection, which is hard to foster in other spaces on campus,” Duke said.