Surge International was born from a single mission trip to Mexico with a college soccer team from Southern California, over thirty years ago. Since that time Dave Irby, founder and CEO of Surge International has helped pioneer global soccer ministry and has organized soccer ministry projects around the world.
Dave coached successfully for four seasons at Azusa Pacific University where he was twice named Coach of the Year. He was planning to be a fulltime teacher and coach at the university level, but that first mission trip kept tugging at his heart.
In 1980 He coached the Soccer Friends team on a short-term mission trip to Jordan, Israel, West Germany, Austria, and Holland. Dave says, “This trip was the ‘fleece’ for me to decide if I was to go into fulltime soccer ministry.”
In 1981, he became the first Soccer Coach for Sports Life Ministries (Tacoma, WA). In 1984, he was one of the first two original staff members for Missionary Athletes International (MAI). Following his time with MAI, Dave founded Vanguard Ministries, which is now Surge International.
Dave’s vision to have sports ministry at a higher level of soccer lead him to Salem, Oregon where he coached and managed the Cascade Surge PDL team (1997-2009) of the United Soccer League (USL). Top collegiate soccer players were invited to play for the Surge PDL team (May through July) where they also had opportunities to impact people for Christ locally, nationally and internationally. Surge teams, individual players and staff members went on short-term mission trips to Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, Germany, Austria, England, Lebanon, several Africa countries and to Central Asia.
In 2009 Surge International closed their Cascade Surge team. International Board member Likius Hafeni continued Surge’s outreach in the local soccer, school, and faith communities. Likuis has helped organize multiple church-based soccer camps in Salem and surrounding areas, and worked with the Salem Leadership Foundation (SLF) to implement:
GRASSP – a school-based program to engage at-risk students through soccer to identify with, connect to, participate in, learn from, and enjoy school – as well as develop good character & good decision-making skills for life. www.grasspsoccer.net/about-grassp/
In 2007, Surge International launched its first international soccer ministry virtual-office in Vienna, Austria. In 2016, the effort shifted to Salzburg, Austria where Surge helped a local NGO and church develop soccer projects for the many refugees that flooded into Europe during that time period.
A major shift in locations took place in 2022 when Surge began to focus on Liberia and Africa, investing in developing soccer nationally, along with leadership training, education and eventually trauma relief training.
In the USA Sammy Surge and team are active with churches through their Vacation Bible Schools VBS) and aid churches in developing soccer camps.