Often friendships developed in childhood can die out, leaving those memories made to live in the past. However, in some fortunate instances, some friendships do carry into adulthood. Luckily for these three musketeers, their sport is what brought them all back together.
Playing on the same team as young boys, forward Dante Davidson, midfielder Kellen Larson and defensive midfielder Alex Wenske were reunited as they began playing on the Schoolcraft Men’s soccer team.
“Larson is a more reserved, shyer guy; but he’s still pretty funny, and Davidson is very energetic, he’s a crazy energetic dude. But that [youth] team in particular had a lot of really young talent, and so it just made it a super fun team,” said Wenske. “We pretty much hung out almost everyday. Whether it be rides to practice or hanging out on weekends after games or anything. We would almost always do extracurricular activities together.”
(Photo courtesy of the Wenske Family)
Starting in 2013, the then boys joined a Livonia soccer club and immediately found a special connection to each other. They grew up together playing the sport for the next few years, becoming an unstoppable trio.
They spent summers in Larson’s pool, roomed and traveled together in tournaments out of town, celebrated the shared birthdays between Davidson and Wenske and were best friends to each other. Something that is additionally special for these men is that their current coach, Rick Larson, was also their coach growing up.
“I know [Coach Larson] for sure gets emotional seeing three players he kind of built from the ground up to then come play for him. Even I get a little in my feelings about how our childhood went, and how it came full circle,” said Davidson. “It’s really special to play with two kids that you played with growing up your whole life and now you’re back to win a national championship.”
After those few years, however, going into their high school years is when the men’s paths deviated. Starting with Davidson, he went to play for his high school soccer and basketball teams at Franklin High School. Wenske then left to play for the Columbus Crew Academy in Ohio for a few years, and Larson continued to play for Livonia soccer clubs until then playing for his high school, Catholic Central.
After graduating, Davidson and Wenske started playing on the Schoolcraft team in Fall 2022 where that friendship rekindled, but it was not until this fall semester that the trifecta was finally pieced together when Larson joined the team.
“[Playing together now compared to playing as kids] is a little different; everyone’s older and we’re more mature,” said Larson. “We’ll still be friends the same way we used to, but we just got our own lives going. I do hope [that we hang out as much as we did.]”
As cheesy as it sounds, soccer has brought these men together to play again and revive the friendship that never died.
For more information and to keep up with the Men’s Soccer season, go to https://www.schoolcraftocelots.com/landing/index.
