Providing a Helping Foot : UCI Soccer Players Turn to Coaching

Anna Klein was wrong. . . . .

She was going teach soccer, that universal sport. She knew the game herself from AYSO to UC Irvine, where she was a standout midfielder. Surely coaching would be simple.

She gathered the Corona del Mar junior varsity players together for their first practice a year ago and began giving orders in soccer-ese.

“They thought I was speaking Portuguese,” Klein said. “They had no idea what I was saying.”

Simone Ferrara was impressed. . . .

While coaching the El Toro frosh/soph team, she began focusing on the position she played at UCI.

“She wasn’t the best player on my team, but she was always running,” said Ferrara, a sophomore midfielder for the Anteaters. “She was a good example for me. It made me want to hustle all the time when I played.”

Laura Lamb was proud. . . .

Lamb, a freshman striker for the Anteaters, was working with the Estancia junior varsity team and couldn’t help but feel self-satisfied.

“As a woman, I can relate to these players better than a man [can],” Lamb said. “It also gives the younger players a role model. They can see where they can go in the sport.”

Nine Irvine players have spent their off-season teaching soccer, working with local high schools as coaches for lower-level teams. Their reasons are both altruistic and practical.

“It’s a chance to give back to the sport,” Nichole Harris said.

“Where else are we going to find a three-month job?” sophomore Kelly Dohmann said.

At this point, those are more supporting arguments, really. The best reason they’ve discovered is a need for more women coaches on the high school level. Most of the Irvine players-turned-coaches never had women coaches in high school.

“You’re seeing more and more women coach, but there are still a lot more men,” said Edison Coach Kerry McGrath-Crooks, who played soccer at Irvine. “Women’s college soccer has really taken off, so you now have a lot of women playing high-caliber soccer. I contact Irvine every year.”

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Of course, there is the fun of coaching a sport they love.

“When you get to college, soccer becomes such a job,” Harris said. “It’s fun to coach these players. The game is fresh and new to them.”

Still, they are not in it merely for kicks.

“I had three different coaches in three years of high school, all men,” said Nicole Bucciarelli, who attended Van Nuys Grant High School. “The first one was a baseball coach. The second one was a tennis coach. Finally, the third one knew soccer.”

Those who did have a woman coach noticed a distinct difference.

“When I was in high school, Stacey Chapman was my coach,” said Ferrara, who attended South Torrance. “She played at California, so she knew what she was talking about. Everyone was so much more focused.”

Among Orange County high schools, men coaching girls’ soccer outnumber women by about 2-1, and that’s just on the varsity level. Those numbers are similar in other high school girls’ sports. But, with the women’s college soccer boom, there are qualified coaches coming out of college, or still in school.

“For so many years, this has been an old-boy network,” Santa Margarita Coach Chuck Morales said. “That’s rapidly changing. The tide is coming for the female coach.”

Morales said he

called Irvine looking for coaches, but got his request in too late. The players who were interested already had jobs.

Coaching for the players is perfect. The high school season runs for three months, between the college fall and spring seasons. The money isn’t great, but is within NCAA guidelines.

“This is a very, very wanted quality now in women’s soccer,” said Marine Cano, director of soccer at Irvine and the women’s head coach. “You have someone who not only can tell you how to play but can show you. They become instant role models.”

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Such respect can border on worship.

“A couple of the girls brought one of our programs to practice,” Ferrara said. “They showed us where we autographed it. We weren’t even their coaches then. But they had come to a game and got us to sign the program afterward.”

Then again, respect doesn’t always come so easy.

“The referees will always ask me where my coach is,” Harris said. “A lot of the bus drivers think we’re players too. They will tell us that the coach has to be on the bus before we can leave. It gets so embarrassing.

“I was coaching at Mater Dei last year and this one bus driver wouldn’t believe me. The girls were saying, ‘No, she’s our coach, really.’ I finally said, ‘Please, just trust me, I’m the coach.’ ”

Klein, a senior midfielder, has had the most difficult season on the field among the Irvine players. Her Corona del Mar junior varsity team is winless in Sea View League play.

The Sea Kings have improved, as Klein points out they are losing by a lot less during the second half of league play. Irvine beat Corona del Mar, 7-1, earlier this season. Two weeks ago, Irvine won again, but this time it was only 4-0.

Still, it’s a lot better than last season, which was Klein’s first year as a coach. Only 12 players came out and none were well-versed in the sport.

“The first day of practice, I got them together and started talking soccer,” Klein said. “I said, ‘OK, let’s just try some PKs,’ which are penalty kicks. One of them said, real sheepishly, “Coach, what are PKs?’ ”

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When times are tough, there is one person to lean on, although going to Cano is a double-edged sword. He has watched and advised his player-coaches, sometimes with a smirk.

“He loves to hear our complaints,” Klein said. “He starts grinning ear to ear and gets sarcastic, ‘Oh I’m so sorry to hear that.’ He loves to tease us. Then he shares his horror stories. I don’t know how he relaxes.”

His advice usually helps.

“I went to him last year to talk about my freshman team,” Harris said. “They were so disorganized and it was frustrating. He gave me some drills and we ended up going undefeated and won the league.”

All the Irvine players got their first coaching experience at Cano’s soccer camps. The camps make the Irvine players celebrities in youth soccer circles.

“They’re a little shy when they get here, so I put them in situations where they have to be outgoing,” Cano said. “If they have a problem to deal with, they can’t get a broom out and sweep it under the rug. They have to deal with it.”

Said Klein: “Last year, this parent comes to me and asked the name of a player. I asked him why and he said he wanted to yell at her from the sideline. I said, ‘No, I don’t need your help.’ ”

Other aspects of Cano’s style filter down. His players use his drills and much of his strategy. But what they find humorous is when they start using his philosophies.

More than once they have caught themselves shouting Cano-isms to their players.

“Every now and then, Nicole and I will turn to each other and and say, ‘We just told them what Coach Cano always tells us,’ ” Ferrara said. “I guess it gets pounded into out heads so much that we coach the same way.”

There are many benefits for Cano. Having his players in the community has brought more fans to Irvine games. Many high school players, most coached by Anteaters, were in attendance when UCI hosted a club team from Japan in an exhibition game Thursday.

And it certainly doesn’t hurt Cano to have his players keeping an eye out for talent. Cano says his players do not recruit.

Still, every once in a while, a little inside information slips out.

“Last year, I told him he had to see this one girl who was on the varsity,” Harris said.

Cano signed up Lamb from that advice.

Said Dohmann: “Oh, he asks all the time, ‘So who you got?’ ”

What Cano gets mostly is a little understanding after his players get a taste of coaching.

“Now they know what I’m all about,” Cano said. “They have to problem solve. They have to deal with situations. They have to get everyone working together. It will make them better players.”

Said Harris: “We always got so mad at him when he yelled at us in practice. Now we find ourselves yelling the same things. I think he finds that amusing.”

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Ah, but what he finds really funny are those times when Anteaters’ teams clash.

“Sometimes we’ll start yelling across at each other during the game,” Harris said.

Sometimes they yell the wrong thing.

Michelle Kaping, a junior defender, is coaching at Huntington Beach. Kaping also played at Edison. When the two teams played this season, she got a little confused.

“She started screaming, ‘Go Edison,’ ” Harris said. “All her girls got mad at her.”

But they don’t fool anyone. As friendly as it gets, winning is still important.

“We always compare teams,” Dohmann said. “Last year, Nicole Harris and [my team] played twice. We tied both times and we both had undefeated seasons. This year, we beat her.”

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Beyond the competition, beyond the fun, even beyond poking fun at their coach, there is one thing that makes coaching worthwhile for these players.

“The most important thing is these girls can see us as role models,” said Harris, who played at Glendora St. Lucy’s. “My high school coach was a man who was in his 50s. We didn’t even know if he ever played soccer. It was hard to relate to him.

“Our players realize we do understand how the game is played, and they respect us as players.”