The Memorial boys soccer team is 3-0-1 heading into the Grapevine Tournament this week. The Memorial Messenger sat down with boys soccer coach Adam Jackson to discuss his expectations and hopes for their first season.
Q: What are your expectations for the season?
A: I expect there to be a time period of learning and building chemistry and growing, but I expect us to be a winning program. I expect us to be making playoff runs. I expect us to be competing in every single game in the district, and I expect us to be a good team early, middle and late season.
Q: What is something you and your team are looking forward to this season?
A: Of course all the boys, I’m sure, are looking forward to out of town tournaments, but I look forward to playing those district games that are important, that it feels like every minute of it is crucial and every play of it is life or death. I look forward to those district games where just every little thing is magnified and I think it’s for good and for bad, but it makes it exciting and exhilarating and I think it’s enjoyable to play in and coach.
Q: What are the pressures that come with the first Memorial soccer season?
A: Well, the whole town is going to make their determination on your school and your program based on one year, whether you’re good or bad, a lot of kids are going to decide where they want to go to school, a lot of parents are going to decide who they want to support based on that one year. So you are under a magnifying glass and we want to be successful, because we want to build long term success in the program and the more successful you are, the more people are going to want to join in that success. So there’s a lot of pressure around the city in terms of district and playoff success, that’s the same every year. You expect to do well in district and you expect to go to playoffs, and whoever you match up with, play your best, but I do think the city is going to make a lot of determinations on who’s good and who’s not just in one year, even if that’s not fair.
Q: What do you think will be your biggest obstacles this season?
A: Seeing how we bounce back if we perform badly, we’ve had good performances so far, we haven’t had too many down spots. So to see how we recover if things aren’t going well, to see how the personalities mix together when things are challenging, because things have been good and we’ve been very successful and so everybody has got along and everybody has been very upbeat. If at some point we hit a rough spot or we have a couple of bad games, I think that could be challenging just to make sure that all of the personalities match up and that we can stay unified.
Q: What do you see as the biggest game this year?
A: Now that we went from a three team to a two team city, I think that that rivalry game against Legacy is going to be the game that a lot of people are going to look toward. They’re going to have huge expectations on that. Now, soccer’s different, though, because when we go into playoffs, Legacy will go into large school playoffs and Memorial will go into small team playoffs. So we can both have a successful season. If things work out in an ideal world, we both could win a state championship. So soccer is a little bit different than other sports, but I still think that now that we’ve turned into a two school city, that the rivalry between us and Legacy is the biggest game that at least the city and the kids look forward to. Me as a coach, I see Abilene as a big game. I see Wakeland later this week as a big game. So I see a lot of games as big games, but I think in the grand scheme of things that crosstown rivalry will be the one that everyone looks at. And it’s worth the same amount, when you think about points and getting to the playoffs, that game is worth the same as the game against Abilene, but just mentally and emotionally, it’s going to feel bigger, right?
Q: How do you hope to grow the team over the year?
A: I have loved the buy-in that we have had. I think we’ve had really good preparation. I think that we’ve had really good practices. We have a really good work ethic, and I just want to see that continue. I want to continue to see the kids buy into this new program and what we’re building. I think the kids do a really good job of training and improving their skills outside of these four walls, and when we are in here, we have that unified focus of ‘hey, we have a task that we are going to accomplish together.’ So I just hope that they continue to grow together and, I don’t want it to be ‘I used to be Old High,’ or ‘I used to be Rider,’ or ‘hey, I used to be Hirschi,’ I just want us to be Memorial, not I’m from there, you’re from here, and we’re from there, but we’re all coming together. At this point, we are all Memorial, and I think once we can get over that hump of where everybody else came from and who everybody else has played with, and just realize that we, for better or worse, are all one team, that’s the end goal. Once we all recognize we’re all Mavericks, then we’ve kind of hit what I’m looking for.
