faculty/staff

Jim Findlay

Coaching soccer in a family atmosphere

This game gave so much to me, I’m just happy to be able to give back to a new generation of student-athletes, whether it’s by teaching the fundamentals or even getting out and demonstrating the drills myself . . . which seems to get a bit harder every year.

I’m proud of the program our soccer players have built. There’s a real desire to win, but we’re far from a win-at-all-costs organization. You’ll hear this from any coach at SU—part of our job is to help our student-athletes grow as people. It’s great to be competitive and certainly good to learn the value of hard work, but it’s equally important to learn how to deal with setbacks when life doesn’t work out exactly as you’d hoped. That’s a lesson that can pay off in grad school or down the road in your professional and even your personal life.

One of the things I especially like about coaching here at SU is the family atmosphere. Some of the faculty, staff and other coaches come out to our games, and they bring their families with them. There’s a big hill that overlooks the soccer field, and during a game you can sometimes look up to see a bunch of little kids playing on the grass or rolling down the hill. The players tell me they enjoy having the kids around and the support of the SU campus community.

Our team parents are great, too. They host “tailgates” at various home and away games and come out to cheer on the team and their kids as well. That kind of stuff goes a long way to making this feel more like a family than a sports team, and that feeling is one of the things that keeps me coming back year after year.

Some parents of our prospects are concerned about an athlete being too busy or too tired to study. But over the years I’ve found—and a number of athletes and parents back me up on this—that a student often does better in season when he has a schedule structured with practice, games and meetings. It’s when they don’t have to manage their time that they may fall behind.