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Quinnipiac coach Dave Clarke. (Source: QuinnipiacBobcats.com) |
The spring was not without its issues. Coaching and coaching women in particular assures that to be the case. I have now endured and come through some serious personal issues involving my players that can only make me a better coach and in time when my three daughters are teenagers, a better father. Sometimes I wish coaching could be just about the events on the field and not those off it.
My players leave for the summer tomorrow and my focus has already shifted to the fall 2009 season. Yet, here I am writing about last fall. It is a season that has been discussed and dissected by me, my coaching staff and my players from the minute the final whistle blew in our final game of the season, a 1-0 loss to Central Connecticut. Seven one-goal losses contributed to our 7-7-2 record, a decent season in many ways, but ultimately a failure because we did not make the conference play offs.
But similar to our plight in 2007, we only had two bad weekends and yet the results in those four games are what defined both seasons. Despite outplaying four teams we picked up one solitary draw and three one-goal losses including one in over time and one in the final minute. Frustration was the order of the day and a definite sense of déjà vu. How can we outshoot a team, 39-12, have 18 corners to their three and yet walk off having drawn 2-2. It makes no sense. Then again it does. It is hard to break down a team when they put 10 men behind the ball. Just ask Barcelona. We didn’t solve the problem for the second year in a row and subsequently our mistakes were punished.
I don’t like Arsene Wenger or his team, but at times last fall I finally understood his frustration when Arsenal can outplay a team like Hull City at home and yet lose 2-1. Hopefully I can get it right tactically this fall. Hopefully Wenger doesn’t!
Yet for all the frustration and disappointment I have when looking back at the season it now has to be put into proper perspective. While we lost a couple of games and did not have as successful a season as hoped all we had was a disappointing couple of games. Since then the world economy has had a melt down and people have lost their jobs, their homes and their life’s investments. The economic situation hit Quinnipiac where our golf, men’s track and volleyball programs were eliminated. Players and staff we know lost their teams and their jobs. I am sure they would love to struggle through another disappointing fall season.
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(Source: QuinnipiacBobcats.com) |
And if the financial world did not provide me with some perspective about the fall, a funeral I attended last Monday certainly did. A player I was lucky to coach for a short period of time was laid to rest in Wethersfield, Conn. Jackie Spellman, 25, played for Windsor World Class and Connecticut ODP before playing college soccer at Northeastern University. I tried to recruit her to Quinnipiac, but she chose the Boston school over us and graduated with distinction before moving to Texas to work with the NFL’s Houston Texans. Last year Jackie was diagnosed with cancer and succumbed to her illness last week.
Sitting in the last pew on Monday, my mind drifted back and forth between the Mass and my own reflective thoughts. I thought of my four kids, my wife, my family and how fortunate I was in my career and the things I have to look forward to this summer and fall. All of a sudden a 1-0 loss at Long Island and a referee’s blown call at St. Francis University were irrelevant. A cliché maybe, but sitting in a pew at a Funeral Mass made it less so.
While growing up in Ireland I was turned on to coaching by Noel O’Reilly. He was a legend of the Irish game and a father figure to a generation of players and coaches. His stories of foreign trips with his various Irish teams stoked my imagination and desire to reach the same heights. Noel was my first coaching mentor and encouraged me to take up coaching and strive to achieve as a coach what I was not good enough to achieve as a player.
Last September I finally fulfilled a life time’s ambition when I was an assistant coach for the Irish National Team in their three games against the United States Women’s Olympic team. Noel died unexpectedly the week after Ireland played in the United States. I never got to thank him and let him know of my achievement. Hopefully I did him proud.
I can’t remember the last time I spoke to Jackie or Noel, but that does not diminish the memories I have of them. They will both be missed by their immediate families and friends and by the soccer community at large. May they both rest in peace. Jackie was the fourth of my former players under the age of 26 to have died in recent years. Brian Alexander, Kerri Donlin and Chelsea Cohen were the other three. That is four funerals too many. I lost a couple of games. They lost their lives.
Perspective.
Dave Clarke is entering his 11th season at the helm of the Quinnipiac Division I women’s soccer program. Check for Dave’s insights in the “Coach’s Corner” periodically at Soccer-New-England.com
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