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A little wild and occasionally out of control. Always entertaining and definitely juvenile. Full of mischief and childish good humor.
“That’s my team,” beams junior Katy DeJana. “They’re so adorable and so much fun!”
To most high school students, baby-sitting 10 kids with never ending energy is not their idea of a good time. But DeJana, junior Kaci Yachechak, and senior Morgan Luce have volunteered their time once or twice a week to coaching young recreational soccer teams.
When Yachechak registered herself to play recreational league, she mentioned that she would like to be involved in the coaching aspect of the season. She was later assigned a U-6 team of 10 kids.
“One practice a week is about all they can handle,” laughs Yachechak, who is involved in JV soccer, and a recreational player and coach, with Tuesday being the three practice day.
“They can get really out of control, so I play follow the leader a lot because it runs them out of energy and makes them tired,” said Yachechak.
When the Greater Kalispell Youth Soccer Association called DeJana last year looking for coach suggestions, she and sister Megan couldn’t pass up the opportunity to teach children the fundamentals of soccer. They, along with friend Sara Savarud, ran two practices a week for an all-girls U-8 team.
“The best part was watching them improve,” she recalls, “and knowing that you’re looked up to.”
Luce is also coaching U-8 girls twice a week with friend Nicky LaVoie. They lost their first game 4-3 on Saturday, but Luce doesn’t think the kids really mind.
“They’re still in that stage where they run around in a blob,” she said.
All three coaches agree that the hardest part of their job is getting the kids to stay focused. To beat this attention deficit, Luce and Yachechak use candy bribes. Yachechak thinks that getting them to cooperate is also difficult.
“They like to just run and kick, but they don’t have much foot-eye coordination yet, nor any coordination, for that matter,” she says.
“The funniest moment was when we were standing around trying to think up a new drill to do,” Yachechak recalls. “This little boy named Cooper said, ‘Let’s have a grass fight!’, so they all threw grass at me and then had a dog pile on the coach.”
At such an age, getting the prospective soccer stars to pay attention for more than five minutes is quite a challenge.
“They won’t run for very far, then they’ll start to walk and there’s nothing you can do,” said Luce. “But watching them play and have fun is really the best part.”
Yachechak agrees: “The best part is watching them having fun, running around and not listening to you.”
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