Q: You guys get off to this amazing start and were just mowing down the Emerald City League; at what point did you realize that your 2009-10 team had the potential to really be something special?
A: Going in, we knew we had a deep team with a lot of quality players. When we found that we could score goals, it sort of kept going. We were always in the game… watching the World Cup now, teams get ahead by a goal and sit on it, but when we scored a goal they were like, ‘Okay, now we’re on, let’s keep going.’”
Q: What is the reason why you guys don’t play soccer in the spring?
A: Right now, it’s because we have two large team sports – baseball and lacrosse – in the spring. Lacrosse is the biggest, but tennis also has big numbers, and we play golf, so we have four spring sports. In the fall, we have soccer, and cross-country. For a school that doesn’t have football, like us and many schools in our league, we have a huge fan base that is very supportive. This is the big excitement in the fall, to come out and watch soccer.
Q: Describe what the recovery process from your brain cancer surgery was like and how you were able to get back to the sidelines so quickly?
A: The things that were affected, for me, were balance, hearing and just fatigue from the surgery. They told me it took a long time to get back from that, that it would take four weeks before going back to work. By the fourth week… I wanted to come in on the afternoons and at least do soccer, so I would take the bus from Seattle, and my assistant would pick me up from Redmond, and then he’d drive me back and I’d take the bus home during rush hour. It was more the dizziness, I’m okay if I’m in one place, but when I’m outside and moving around, it’s not normal yet. My hearing will hopefully come back on one side in a couple more months, and it has also affected my taste. Food doesn’t taste right, and that is slowly coming back too, but that was disappointing.”
Q: What was your greatest soccer memory from this year?
A: We were playing in the district semifinals, and I had to suspend five players for breaking training rules earlier that week, two of them were first-team all-league players, but that’s the way it goes. We wanted to (move players around), but we decided to just play it. These guys had to do their job, and they stepped up and scored six goals in the first half, and kept piling it on. They were relentless, they just kept going and didn’t stop, but also the players that got suspended came back and felt so guilty, like they owed the team so much, it was a good experience for them, maturity-wise.
Q: After 15 years of coaching, what do you enjoy most about your job, what keeps you coming back?
A: I love practice, that’s the most fun. At school I’m thinking about it every day, what will we do at practice, what adjustments do we have to work on for the next game. Just thinking about practice keeps me going in the fall, and like most coaches, I start work at 7:30 a.m. and usually don’t leave the soccer field until 7:30 at night by the time everything’s done. But their attitude and their focus, and it’s got to be fun or I wouldn’t enjoy it. They work hard, and I love coming to practice with them.
