Culture

“Pursuing Athletic Excellence While Developing Exceptional Character”

Provide transformational experience to enable players to compete to the best of their ability in soccer and life.  

Our program is focused on transcending the sport by contributing to developing the overall person to help them become the best version of themselves both on and off the field. 

1. Our coaching staff is focused on fostering a positive, encouraging, supportive and uplifting program culture that centers around excellence in Athletics, Academics, and Service to Others while educating, inspiring, and positively impacting our players toward maturity of intellect and character to sow the seeds of future purpose. 

2. The Program comes first…no individual coach, player, or parent is bigger than the program.  

3. The Freshman and JV teams are developmental teams that are focused on preparing players to eventually play at the varsity level at some point in the future. 

4. At the varsity level, players are not entitled to playing time.  Playing time will be earned at every practice and every match. Earned NOT Given

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TEAM IDEALS

1. Fiercely competitive spirit AND spirit of selflessness

2. The hardest working team AND the most technical team

3. Champions heart AND humble spirit

4. Driven individuals AND selfless teammates

5. Dare greatly AND the courage to fail

6. Game Face Joy

7. Goal: to be a champion AND being a champion is not our purpose

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ELEVATING THE PROGRAM

In order to consistently compete at the highest level of the 33rd district and the 9th region, we MUST continually provide opportunities for our players to improve mentally and physically: 

• Through our team culture, dedication, hard work, perseverance, & mental toughness.

• By improving our athleticism, stamina/conditioning, speed, strength, agility, aggressiveness, soccer IQ & field awareness.

• We must earn everything and be the aggressor on the field within the spirit of fair play.

• We must be fundamentally sound technically/tactically while being extremely tough. 

We must adopt a model, essentially a vision of the unattainable ideal with an incessant quest to get as close as possible competing to the best of our ability while pursuing excellence.

• When every team member buys into that kind of thinking, it eviscerates complacency and supercharges results. 

ONE HEART - ONE MIND - ONE PROGRAM 

1. Our purpose is found in how we conduct ourselves. We strive to be a team of grace where we accept our teammates, our friends, and everybody within our realm.

2. One heart and one mind is a reminder for each player to give of herself and her talents for the betterment of the entire program. 

3. We will play fairly with honor, integrity, and grace.  We will do our best to represent ourselves, our school, and our families by showing grace to referees, opposing players, and opposing fans.  

• We will play for a higher purpose that prioritizes sportsmanship, character development, and team over individual.

• It is our hope that this perspective will influence the players on field results because it will supercharge their work ethic and encourage smarter, more selfless play while building team unity that provides our team with a competitive advantage while striving toward a common goal. 

• The only thing worse than running is not having something to run for. 

Team Chemistry and a Culture of Excellence

• Players are encouraged to get along and develop deeper friendships where they care about their relationships with each other and will work hard in training for one another because they don’t want to let each other down.

• Players care for their “soccer sisters” “soccer family” and soccer community.” 

  • Friends First, Soccer Players Second

  • A roster of friends growing in their development together. 

  • If relationships and team chemistry come first, results will follow. 

• Players feel like they are a part of something much larger than just themselves.

  • Opportunities will be provided for the players to participate in team bonding activities. 

  • We will work hard at developing our team culture.

  • Teams that have great chemistry have a competitive advantage and consistently pull together in must win situations. 

Close relationships create a sustainable competitive advantage that is not easy to replicate.  Chemistry inspires, it motivates people to maximum effort. 

The most effective teams are cohesive.  Loyalty, commitment, morale, confidence, esprit de corps - they all flow from cohesion, and consequently, so do better results.   

The National Soccer Coaches Association of America {NSCAA} defines this intangible asset as: 

• The ability of players to get along with one another, to work smoothly and unselfishly under the leadership of the coaching staff. 

• Each player’s recognition of the specific role that she has in the team approach. 

• Mutual feelings of loyalty and empathy for one another. 

• The ability of the players to anticipate each other’s moves and to blend their efforts into the team pattern. 

• A strong sense of team identity coupled with a total commitment to the program and coaching staff. 

• Our team culture, our group dynamics, our mission, and our purpose are much more important than how we pass the ball.  

• There is nothing more important than our culture and it supercharges everything.

• Chemistry is of pivotal importance but alone it is an insufficient condition for success.  The same is true of talented players; you need them, of course, but the most talented teams are not always the victors. 

  • We seek to implement a coaching philosophy that produces optimal results when all of the pieces are working together. 

• The number one piece of developing team culture is time.  The only way it works is time invested in people.  It’s how good teams become great. 

Team chemistry is at the center our disciplines because 

it becomes the center of our competitive advantage.

WE WILL PLAY to a STANDARD

• Playing to a standard is a higher calling than winning. The problem with making winning the highest calling is, after you win, the question becomes, where do we go from there?

• Playing to a standard is a better formula for long-term, sustained success. 

• We will avoid this problem through the dogged pursuit of excellence ---even perfection--- as our standard.

• Winning is not what happens on the field during the game, 95% of it is what happens before we even get to the field.

• Winning is our goal but it’s not our purpose.  Winning is not our primary objective, we have higher purposes, one of which is to play with excellence all of the time. 

• We hope to win but we focus on striving for excellence, which is more under our control than winning.

OUR FOCUS WILL BE ON: 

• Playing to a Standard

  • Whether we’re down a goal or up by 5, we’ll play to the same standard.  

  •  Whether it’s a preseason scrimmage or a regional tournament game, we play to the same standard. 

• Continuous Improvement

• A relentless pursuit of a higher quality of play.  

• Getting better and better each practice and each game. 

• Achieving our potential, not just one year or some years or usually but all of the time, every season, every game, every touch of the ball. 

• A mindset of no finish line, that they’ve never “arrived” even if they win state, there’s always opportunities for improvement.

Every coach/player/parent is expected to leave the program better than they found it.