Everett Grant Germain, Jr (1931-2006)
Attorney and Founder/President of Annandale Boys’ & Girls’ Club.
Everett was a sports fanatic from early childhood. He was very active in the Boys Club of Greater Washington and the Eastern Boys Club in Washington, DC where he was a DC Golden-Gloves Champion boxer in his teens and a quarterback on his youth football teams. He graduated from Eastern High School in Washington, DC. He attended Virginia Tech as an Air Force Cadet in the Corp of Cadets, played quarterback on the Tech football team and graduated in 1953 with a degree in Electrical Engineering.
Everett earned his Law Degree from the George Washington University Law School where he was elected President of the Student Association Board of Governors in 1958. He was active in legal and political endeavors during his time at GW. He later partnered in a small law firm and soon decided to enter private practice in Annandale, VA just two doors down from where his practice would remain. He was elected President of the Annandale Junior Chamber of Commerce and was extremely active in his community throughout his life.
In 1959, he founded the Annandale Boys’ Club where he remained President for 47 years offering just about all sports including football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, rifle, etc... He began out of his home and expanded it to his law office in Annandale so he could focus and later devote his life to youth sports, his legacy today. Everett expanded youth sports in Northern Virginia and was the first of any club to institute a mandatory program requiring that in its “house league” that “Every player is guaranteed to play ½ of every game regardless of his size or physical ability” in order to insure participation and growth of every child, a program which is customarily adopted by many clubs to this day. The Annandale “Bulldogs’” football program grew to be a revered competitor to other clubs in the area winning their fair share of titles against such rivals as the Arlington Black Knights Football Club and the array of other sports offered area youths an after school activity year round.
Now known as the “Grandfather of Soccer” in the Washington Metropolitan area, he started a soccer program in Annandale in 1962 with four teams. He was quoted as saying “We have a football program but it’s not for everybody, then a neighbor asked ‘Why not soccer…?’ and since there was no good reason to say no…”…. the rest is history. Since there was no other program or competition in the area, the teams played amongst themselves. Soon, this search for competition spawned the “Travel Soccer Program” as we know it today out of a need to travel first to Baltimore, then Philadelphia, NJ, NY, and into Canada and Mexico to find worthy competition as the club and the skills grew. The concept caught on in other states too.
Soon, with the solicitation from many foreign born soccer gurus, the Annandale Boys’ and Girls’ Club grew to be not only one of the largest youth soccer program in the country at one time, but also captured numerous national titles and international trophies from North America, Britain and Europe and yielded numerous athletes into the professional ranks both domestically and internationally. Everett Germain and the Annandale Boys’ and Girls' Club are well known nationally and internationally, all to his credit. He was instrumental in the creation of other well known clubs such as Montgomery Soccer in MD, as well as many spin-offs of the Annandale club in and around Northern Virginia.
In 1963, he was responsible for altering the sport of Baseball in Washington when he got tired of watching boys strike out or walk in the local little leagues. Born from an old radiator hose and some scrap plywood, the first “T” was created and the sport grew to what we know as “T-Ball”.
Through the years he continued his sacrifice to pioneer new programs and policies within the sport of soccer. The concept of “billeting” (housing traveling soccer teams in the home town team’s homes) became a popular way to defer costs to travel to tournaments that he helped establish and enabled many new and lasting relationships for many players, coaches and parents from clubs all over the continent. In 1971 he formed and managed the professional soccer team in Washington which played in the American Soccer league and traveled in an old converted Bible Baptist school bus which he purchased with Annandale Boys' and Girls' Club sponsorship.
When his eldest sons were entering high school, he founded, funded and supported high school club, later varsity, soccer programs in Northern Virginia and later created girls’ soccer programs in the high schools. When the college years approached he founded and funded ten women's college club programs in Virginia including, most notably, Division 1 Virginia Tech, University of Virginia, James Madison, William & Mary, Radford and others.
Everett also founded the first Club Apprenticeship program, modeled after the British system, which immersed players in professional level soccer training while maintaining a college curriculum. He later founded and grew other adult soccer teams that brought home numerous titles and three National championships. As two of his sons moved on into the professional ranks, he became active and known within the North American Soccer League and in Britain and enjoyed relationships with many noted international players and coaches. He was invited to Seoul, South Korea as an Ambassador of Soccer with the Washington Diplomats in 1978, was a member of The National Soccer Coaches Association of America, Secretary of the Metro-DC VA Soccer Association, and was inducted into the VA-DC Soccer Hall of Fame in 2001.