Royce Smith’s prowess on the pitch has led to a new contract.
The Iola native has signed a two-year contract extension with Jarpens IF, a soccer team based in northern Sweden.
Smith, 22, will return to Sweden in March shortly before the season begins in April.
“They offered me a contract, which is a little better than what I had earned last year,” Smith said.
Jarpen IF finished in the middle of the pack from last season’s Division IV soccer league.
But Smith’s work as goalkeeper led to his being named Jarpens IF’s teammate of the year, as chosen by a group of supporters.
He’s the first American to play for the club.
“We’ve got a lot of guys coming back,” Smith said. “We’ve also signed a couple of Portuguese guys, another guy from Greece, and another from Albania. We should have a pretty good mix.”
The goal, he noted, is to finish in the top two of the Division IV standings, and thus earn promotion to Division III, with a step up in competition — and compensation.
“It’s the minor leagues, but I’m out here making a living off it,” Smith said.
SMITH’S dream is, eventually, to take his playing career back to America.
His wife, Frida, is a Swede, and is in the midst of earning a visa to move to the United States, en route to obtaining American citizenship.
“Once that happens, we’ll need to reside here” in the United States, he explained.
For now, Smith is content experiencing life in northern Europe, where Jarpens IV is based, and where most of the matches are held.
“The weather is bad,” he laughed, particularly early in the season, where it’s common for tractors to plow snow off of the pitch in order for games to take place.
And because goalkeepers are largely stationary, it means they aren’t able to move around to generate body heat like their teammates.
