Last Friday, June 22nd 2018, Concordia's Department of Recreation and Athletics announced that by mutual agreement, I would not be returning for a 17th season as head coach for the Concordia Stingers women's soccer team. Since the fall season, with the naming of a new director, we had been discussing various scenarios for a transition plan towards a new direction for the soccer program and with it a new coach. As always, my primary concern was ensuring that any change would be done in a manner that would be the best for the athletes.
When I started at Concordia in 2002, I didn't have any idea how long I would be in the position but certainly at the time, I didn't imagine that I would still be involved 16 years later. I started out not really knowing what to expect and before I knew it, one season became 5, then I got to 10 and now here I was completing my 16th season. As I have told various people over the years, the coaching position at Concordia might be part time one, but it was in fact a full time passion. University soccer has grown in the last 16 years and with the introduction of our full indoor league during the winter, it became a commitment that ran quite intensely from mid-August to end of March but never really ended since from March to August there was always recruitment, administrative duties, season preparation, etc. During my time at Concordia, I also served as president of the coaches association for 7 years and as the RSEQ rep on the USport technical subcommittee for the last 5 years, not to mention two participations at FISU games ( 2009 and 2011 ) so it made for a very significant involvement in university soccer. As this 16th year rolled on and knowing that like anything else, with the arrival of a new director, a new vision, some longer term planning would be needed, I started thinking ahead to my exit. The winter seasons specifically had become harder and harder to manage in conjunction with my full time work that I didn't foresee staying on beyond the end of the upcoming fall season. So after various discussions, it was decided that the time for change had come. So, Friday June 22nd 2018, becomes not only the last day of my time with the Concordia Stingers, but the first day of my retirement from coaching as a whole. Most people who know about my involvement in coaching, associate me as the head coach of the Concordia Stingers because that is where I have been for the last 16 years. It is the more public of the positions I have held in coaching but also coincides with the growth in social media and online coverage which means more visibility. However the reality is that I have been coaching almost 12 months a year for the last 27th years, 16 with Concordia, 6 with the provincial team and National Training Center and 7 at the club level with Lakershore Soccer ( yes it adds up to 29 but there was a two year overlap between club and provincial teams... which made me even busier). On top of this, you can add 3 years I spent as a technical director with Lakeshore Soccer, 4 years as a coaching certification course director with the Federation and numerous clinics, presentations, 4 months working with the Sports-Etudes at Lac St Louis in a replacement position and so on. So basically coaching soccer was a huge part of my life or as my wife said over this past weekend, she has never known a period of our marriage or us living together both of which ironically started in 1991 the same year I started coaching, where I wasn't coaching. I have been saying for a few years that whenever my time at Concordia came to a close, it would in all likelihood signal the end of my active participation in coaching. Back in October, I posted an article on my blog called " When the final whistle blows for the last time" , you can access it via this link, when-the-final-whistle-blows-for-the-last-time.html sharing some thoughts on how I might feel once I was no longer coaching. I didn't know then that it would be my final fall season but I certainly knew that retirement was close. I have to say that now as the end of my coaching career has arrived many of the thoughts and feelings I expressed in that post are very accurate. I find myself reflecting a lot about what soccer and coaching has meant to me over the years. Since Friday, I have received a bunch of messages, texts, and calls from different people that soccer has brought me into contact with; former players and assistant coaches, coaches from other schools, former student journalists that covered our team and of course friends who knew of my passion for coaching. Knowing that even if I had returned for a final fall season, it would in all likelihood have been last , I had pretty much accepted that coaching was coming to the end. The fact that the change is happening now, simply advanced the timeline a bit, so I don't find myself facing a huge loss or shocking moment. I had already come to grips and reconciled most of the emotions that might come with no longer being a coach. Of course, I am quite sure that come mid-August when I would normally be kicking off raining camp, I will feel a void, or it will feel weird being home knowing the team is taking the field for training. It will be different attending games, sitting in the stands watching just as a fan. However, like anything else, life moves forward, the remaining players I have coached will move on in the next couple of years, a new group will come in and my connection to the team will change. It's only been 5 days since the announcement and I have comments that range from "congratulations on your coaching career" to " thanks for all you did for the team and the sport" to " are you all right?" I am at peace with the situation and only look back at 27 years with pride and a sense of accomplishment. I wanted to write a blog post that would try and express how I feel as this chapter of my life comes to close and what coaching has meant to me. Over the last year, I have posted a lot of articles, some related to my thoughts, related to technical aspects of coaching, student-athletes, women in sport and so one. Looking back over the last 12 months of posts, I have pulled out a few of the ones I consider the more personal ones where I share about myself and how coaching has impacted my life. You can view them via these links in no particular order; a-male-coaching-female-soccer-0-less-credible.html not-a-male-feminist-but.html my-struggle-to-grow-womens-soccer.html letter-to-my-younger-self.html every-day-i-pinch-myself-i-am-so-privileged.html i-give-up-i-quit-ok-so-see-you-all-tomorrow.html i-give-up-i-quit-ok-so-see-you-all-tomorrow-part-2.html life-lessons-ive-learned-from-sports.html So for those that might not click on the links and read those older posts, what has coaching meant to me. Well if we look at soccer, soccer allowed me to meet my wife. She transferred to the same club where I was playing and we started dating. And then as I have written many times, I got into coaching because her team needed a coach, it got me my start in coaching and it all grew from there. So at the most basic level, soccer and coaching are fundamentally linked directly into my life with my with wife with whom I have been married for 27 years and known for 32. Why is this relevant, because through it all, she has been supportive of me pursuing my passion, of having me work basically two jobs, especially the last 16 years where I has pretty much gone evenings and weekends from mid-August to end October. For that, I will always be eternally grateful to her. Coaching allowed me to find my voice, to develop my management skills, to stay involved in a sport I love long after my playing days were done with. In 27 years, I have coached hundreds of players, met some great colleagues and coaches from opposing teams, gotten to travel especially to a couple of cities that I would have probably never seen if not for soccer, learn the importance of team bonds and friendships built via a shared goals or passions. Coaching has allowed me to feel the pride of giving back to youth and my community, to hopefully impact some young lives and help them even if only in a small way into becoming the best version of themselves, it has made me an advocate for women's sport and women in sport but ultimately for the equal treatment of women in all aspects of society. I have gotten to watch some of my players on TV playing in World Cups and Olympics and have heard one of them tell my current players how something I told them over 20 years ago stuck with them and served as motivation throughout their playing career. I have seen my players graduate from university, start their work careers, get married and have children. Coaching has given me friendships that will endure even though I am no longer involved and memories that will remain forever. What might my legacy be from coaching? A number of years ago as I was starting at Concordia, two prominent names if Quebec soccer, Jacques Gagnon and Georges Schwartz put out a book on the history of soccer in our province. My name is in there a few times as a club, provincial team and university level coach. In one section, I am listed as being among the pioneers and developers of women's soccer. It's a nice recognition but enough time has passed that my involvement in the early days of women's soccer in our province has probably been forgotten. My accomplishments with Lakeshore or the provincial teams also long enough ago and at a time where the digital footprints were no where like they are today that they are just memories of the past ( or of those that were there). Just like people associate my coaching with my time at Concordia, most people will associate my coaching legacy with the lack of winning records of playoff participation. Such is the nature of competitive sport. It's very easy to look up the team's record on-line and see our win-loss record and my efforts and competence as a coach will be judged on that aspect by many. Whatever efforts I might have put into to support the student-athletes at Concordia, or build the image of the program, those cannot really be seen from the outside. Was I a good coach? for some maybe I was , for others, I most likely was or am not. Again such is the reality of coaching competitive sport. Not every athlete I coach will have a positive opinion of me. I can only hope that I am know for the most part as someone who cared about his athletes, who was passionate, what did his vary best but is humble enough to know that even my best was not always good enough. For me personally, both the highs and lows of my coaching career have contributed to my growth as a person. Do I have regrets, can I look back at see things I could have done better or differently, of course ! As the saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20 but I would like to think that at each of those decisions or actions they were done with the information available to me and with only the best interests of the team and players in mind. As the months and years will pass, how people remember my time as a soccer coach, as their soccer coach will probably be further defined and change. I can't control what others might think, I can only focus on what it has meant to me and how if has enhanced my life. I leave coaching with a strong sense of pride and accomplishment and knowing I am a better person because of it. The rest, I will leave up to each of you to decide. I want to thank all those along the way that might read this and who were a part of my coaching career. Coaching might be done, but soccer will always be part of my life, and my willingness to support anyone wanting to get into to coaching and being an advocate for women's sport will remain. Now, onto the next and exciting chapter of my life.
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AuthorAfter many years of coaching at various levels and with different teams, I thought I would share some of my experiences and thoughts about coaching. Archives
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