About the MOJOS FC

Our History

As the FC77 Old Nick's moved into the new millennium, fellow teammate Robert 'Beto' Johnson, who later came to be known as Bobo, inspired by Pierre's (his brothers' team), suggested we register to play in a soccer tournament held in Las Vegas over the MLK weekend in January. Beto had traveled with his brother many times to the tournament before and felt the event would be a great experience for his fellow teammates.

So he set about putting together a plan, registered us for the Over 40 Rec division, and with the addition of a couple addon players we hit the road to Vegas, BABY in 2001. It didn't take us long to realize we were in over our heads. The term ex-pro would easily describe the skill level demonstrated by some of the players on the teams we were scheduled to play. Rec level ... yeah right, for old ex pros maybe!

Undaunted by this experience we looked forward to going again and decided to enter the Over 48 Rec division this time. The year 2002 saw us playing on tiny fields and scheduled to play against Pierre's in our last match. The best part of this trip was we felt more competitive in this division, even tied our second match, and went on to beat Pierre's! We were elated.

We looked forward to returning again in 2003. 2004 found the team playing under the name Renegades sporting an alternate color jersey (a souvenir t-shirt from the Voodoo lounge in the Rio) and the inception of coach Juju. The trip in 2005 almost didn't happen, but brought about the birth of the MOJOS. Interest from the Nick's crew had hit it's lowest point to date, compounded by the earlier departure from the team of both Stig and Beto, so those of us that were still committed to going decided to openly recruit additional players from within our city league division.

The final team consisted of players from three different teams (Masterbooters, Old Nicks, and Jimmy O's) and a new name seemed to be in order. There were a few suggestions that were being considered but a late submission by Rock Courter got the final vote. MOJO's is an acronym for the three teams represented plus it seemed to tie in well with the whole coach Juju ideology.

2006 saw interest on the rise, the addition of a second tournament in Snohomish, Washington, and the purchase of our new domain name fc77mojos.org. With a renewed energy spearheaded by Rick McCoy, Roddy Coles, and Rock Courter, 2007 started with the MOJOS strength at two full teams, new jerseys, a couple small sponsors, the addition of a third tournament in Sidney, BC, Canada, and a whole new web site. Sam Imperati is appointed 'Captain Mojo' during a dinner social, organized by Scott Denis, held at Dan & Louis Oyster Bar March 23, 2007 . . .

Incorporated in 2009 as a social club (with a soccer problem) the membership of Mojos FC, Inc. consist of both the players and the 'Enablers'.

The Enablers is a grouping of wives and significant others who enable the players' persuits of happiness, aka playing soccer and drinking beer. They take an active part in our tournament, social, and charity planning/exectuion. Obviously, critically important for if it weren't for them we wouldn't be where we are today.

MOJOS Magic? It 'tis not magical as some submit. Some consider us "long in the tooth" ...but in reality we are "short on procrastination" and "long in medicinal and healthy lifestyle foresight" for we are mere mortals who happen to be quite fit for our age, active, fanatical about futbol, enjoy good times socializing with all nationalities and do charible works. We have 22 nationalities of birth. Our average chronological age of our 135 Player pool is now exactly 60, ranging from 47 to 80 ! Our active and mental age is much less, except for our knees and lower back's, which are much more. There is sometimes a fine line between actively playing and inactively grazing on the pitch !

MOJOS Decorum: The unsuspecting public may view us as a bunch of Beer bashing, Porter pouring, Stout swilling, Wine worshipping Holligans, which...O.K. we may be some of that, and there are witty quotes defining Futbol a.k.a. Association Football (read soccer), as 'a Gentlemen's game played by Holligans'!, but the reality is the MOJOS believe in decorum, fair play, altruism, charity and fundraising.

Board of Directors and Charity: We are an INC., file a 990N, have a Board of Directors with seven active members: two Enablers + five Players. We took a hard look at a 501(c)3 in 2009 but decided against. Too restrictive on who or what we might want to support plus too much paperwork. We have more charitable flexibility the way we are now organized. We do engage in multiple charity endeavors:

Oregon Food Bank (OFB):

A - Dec 2009: collected 385 #'s of food from a fall tournament with Ballyhoo FC, Olympia, Wa. and from our annual Christmas party.

B - January 2011 henceforth: we now ask all players who attend Saturday practices to bring 1-2 cans and boxes of food. The details are on the weekly practice e-mail which Rock Courter sends out. Rocky collects the food for delivery to the OFB. We delivered 256 #'s 21 April from 1st Qtr collections + 831 #'s May-August for 1,087 #'s August YTD. Please help us to expand our giving to the more needy Oregonians.

C - April 2011 "time donation": Our first volunteer effort for the OFB was 21 April. Twenty-three (23) Mojos/Enablers helped pack 20,532 #'s of beans and oats (bag/box inspect, sorting, repacking, re-bagging etc) which equated to 15,794 meals!!! The roster filled up quickly.

D - August 3rd Qtr. "time donation" henceforth: 25 August was our 2nd bagging outing which we now plan to do quarterly.

E - November 08 4th Qtr. "time donation" henceforth: Notices sent out Monday, 10 October.