Off the northern outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark, lies a small, quaint town burrowed away behind miles of green prairies and foothills as far as the eye can see. Shrubs, stones and picket fences line the town's narrow one lane roads, culminating in a peaceful serenity that is equal parts utopia and detached.
Out into the distance a familiar, ubiquitous noise echoes throughout the countryside. It’s the adolescent screams of children, the sound of feet darting and cutting through thick blades of grass, the thud of shins colliding with soccer balls.
Among the Danish, soccer is the most popular sport. With over 1,600 club teams nationwide, in some towns, soccer is the only sport.
IU senior defender Simon Waever knows this better than most. He is one of a generation of Danish kids who grew up needing just a ball and a pair of cleats to satiate their thirst for competition and craft.
“Soccer is everything in Denmark,” Waever said. “I grew up watching soccer and playing soccer my whole life. It’s pretty much all me and my friends did while we were growing up.”
Waever’s hometown of Holte, Denmark, is still very traditional in its ways. Technology isn’t nearly the phenomenon that it is in the Western world, sports are mostly an afterthought, and nature is the dominant pastime.
But as time goes on, the lack of opportunity in turning soccer from a mere passion into a legitimate profession has left many in Denmark longing for more. In a world where children are encouraged to reach for the stars, the dream of playing professional soccer still eludes those still reaching for them.
"It was just tough because in Denmark, it’s really hard to play elite soccer while attending a university,” Waever said.
Like many of the kids Waever grew up with, he was given two options: play soccer or find something else to do.
Waever eventually chose the former, as did his friends, and by the time he could stand on his own two feet, his parents, Ole and Suzi, signed him up for the local youth league.
But unlike most, soccer wasn't just a hobby to Waever. It was his ticket out of Denmark and into a previously undiscovered side of the world.
After tearing his way through nearly every level of Danish youth soccer, mostly alongside and against players much older than him, Waever saw his talent too great to give up on.
"As I got older, I kind of knew I wanted to play soccer as long as I could," Waever said. “But back home, sports and education don’t really go together.”
With the current structure of Denmark's education system, the mingling of sports and schooling is seldom heard of. Teenagers either attend a university where competitive sports are sparse, or they forego a top-level education in pursuit of a professional career.
For Waever, he knew what he wanted, but the means to achieve his end goal weren’t available in his hometown, or anywhere in the country. This forced the burgeoning young player to look elsewhere, even if it meant leaving his family thousands of miles behind.
“I heard some of my friends played college soccer and I wanted to look into it,” Waever said. “But very few players in Europe grow up wanting to play soccer in the U.S.”
As his friends and teammates headed overseas in search of greener pastures, Waever stayed behind to finish his high school business degree. However, his love for the sport and dedication to honing his skills continued to rage on.
While still in school, Waever received countless phone calls from prospective United States universities looking to offer him a spot in their soccer programs. After months went by and Waever learned about the educational advantages overseas, he decided the time was finally right to chase his dream.
“It was definitely a big decision for me and my family,” Waever said. “My family values education a lot, and going somewhere where I could pursue a soccer career and get an education sounded really good to me.”
Though he received offers from dozens of schools, Waever eventually settled on the University of Evansville, whose men’s soccer program is among the most successful mid-major programs in the nation.
With little knowledge of how U.S. soccer worked, Waever said he arrived at Evansville in 2016 with a broken English vernacular and knowing nobody aside from the coaching staff that recruited him.
A set of circumstances like that would deter many, but the only solace Waever needed was a soccer ball and a pair of cleats. It didn’t matter how many thousands of miles from home he was because each time Waever stepped onto a soccer pitch, his motivations became singular: make his parents proud and make his sacrifice worth it.
Following three accomplished seasons with the Purple Aces that saw him start 55 matches on his way to earning a pair of First Team All-Conference honors, part of the standout defender still felt unsatisfied going into his senior season.
“At the end of the day, I just wanted to go somewhere that gave me the best chance to play professionally and win a national championship,” Waever said. “And Indiana gave me both those things, as well as a good education.”
Although Waever said he loved his time at Evansville, he knew deep down that seeking other options in his final year and entering the transfer portal was the only way to get the exposure he needed.
Enter IU head coach Todd Yeagley and the Hoosiers.
After playing the Waever-led Purple Aces back in 2018, Yeagley said he really liked what he saw in the then-junior left back. Very few players were successful at defending the historic 2018 Hoosiers, but Waever’s individual technique and relentlessness throughout the match caught the eyes of IU’s entire coaching staff.
Because of the first impression, it was no surprise when IU assistant coach Kevin Robson immediately jumped at the opportunity to recruit the 5-foot-11 defender once he was cleared to transfer in the spring of 2019.
“They reached out very quickly and asked how quickly they could get me up for a visit,” Waever said. “And it was clear that Indiana expects to win.”
One visit was all it took for Waever to know Bloomington was right for him. While several other schools had also reached out to him, the chance to stay close to the friends he had made at Evansville, and also play for a premier program like IU, was too good to pass up.
After a summer spent training with the Hoosiers and being thrust into a starting role in addition to a veteran role, Waever has been nothing short of significant for IU halfway through the season.
“He’s been fantastic, one of our best players,” Yeagley said. “He should be talked about more.”
Filling an attacking defender role, Waever won’t ever collect eye-catching statistics, but it’s what he does without the ball that makes him so crucial to IU’s back line. The duo of Waever and sophomore defender Jack Maher are often so defensively sound that the Hoosiers rarely have to worry about their defense.
Through 13 games this season, IU is allowing just one goal per game, and it’s in large part due to having one of the nation’s top defensive pairings. Time and again, Yeagley praises his defense for being a significant strength of the 2019 team.
“I’m really happy for Simon, he’s doing a great job for us,” Yeagley said.
With just a handful of regular season games left, and likely an extended NCAA Tournament run to follow, Waever’s legend is still far from being written.
To this day, Waever still maintains that his ultimate goal is to reach the pinnacle of American soccer: a Major League Soccer contract.
The little kid from Holte that once dared to dream the impossible, is now on the cusp of making it his reality.
And that same little kid will always linger inside Waever, because until he achieves what he sacrificed so much for, his aspirations still light a fire under him.
He won’t have it any other way.
“At the end of all this, I just want to have a career that I can look back at and say I lived out my full potential,” Waever said. “That I made my family proud.”
