Keeping a Good Weekend in Perspective

Sometimes in soccer, when you are not scoring 5 goals a game and winning every match it is hard to stay focused on what is truly important. This past weekend was one of those weekends when not much was going our way on the field. We missed several close shots, the keepers on the other teams were making some great saves, and it seemed that every shot the other teams took were just right to fall in on us. Well, I thought I would take this opportunity to push the cloud away from Eeyore.

While we did not play at the top of our game this weekend, we did have several shinning moments, the first one that comes to mind is the girls all laying in a circle in the hotel lobby playing some game they made up. Just kidding, although that was fun, actually we did play some very good U18 Division 1 teams this weekend and for the most part we played toe-to-toe with them, most of the time. The real purpose of this tournament was to have our players exposed to college coaches from as many different colleges as possible. I personally spoke with many coaches that were interested in girls from our team, and many of them are looking at several girls from our roster. If you did not take advantage of this weekend and send out E-mails to college coaches I would encourage you to consider using this tool in the future. We will be playing another showcase event in the spring and I strongly encourage everyone to start making contact with coaches from colleges that you would like to attend. I don’t want to give you a false since of reality, so let me clarify. For example, the coach from University of Texas at Dallas attended a couple of our games. If you are interested in engineering, nursing or education this is a great school for those programs, the classes are much smaller than the mega campuses and the coach can help you put together what they call a package. The package will include any scholarship funds from academics, club or other outside scholarships, the department of your major, the soccer scholarship budget and finally the balance that they will help with any potential grants, then finally student loans. You might be able to reduce the cost of school by as much as half or more but it take some effort. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or even talk to John as he had done countless hours of research on many different schools and coaches.

On the field, we also had some other shinning moments, Joey and I got a chance to watch our girls play against several collegiate athletes. Many of the girls we played against are already committed to playing in college next season. We had the experience of playing at the highest level and at a faster pace than we have seen all year. This experience will prove invaluable as we compete in the President’s Cup this spring and Division 1 next fall. We definitely learned how to better defend corner kicks, we experienced playing angles against teams with as much or more speed than us, and we saw how important first touch is at the highest level. I told the girls before our match Sunday morning just how proud I am of them and how much they have accomplished this season. I hope that each of you, are as proud of your own player as I am of them and the team as a whole. We will have one last season match then it will be off to the state playoffs. So before we get too discouraged, remember just how talented our girls are and let’s give them credit for all the work they have put in over the entire season.