001compared to our lack of depth. I think I think one other thing too is the the new transfer order rules. Yes. You know, I don't know exactly what that'll do to Newcastle, but I do feel like that that's going to help the new path on Mount Vernon. So, I think I think that's yet to be determined, but I could see it really helping them more. So, yeah. Can I I'd like to It's going to take me a few minutes to get this out. Yep. Um, I coached the, uh, soccer boys. Jake played for me. Uh, so did Nan's son uh, back in 98 through 2006. And then when I retired, Jake took the next eight years. When we started, we were the smallest school in the conference. And we had lost 32 conference games in
002a row. Never won one. And we had, I'm going to say, 16 winning seasons. And 16 winning conference seasons after that. between the the two of us, we won three conferences and or three sectionals and four conferences. So, uh when I had a chance to help the high school girls, I had at least some reason to think that we could turn some things around. Um that was a lost hope. There was no chance in hell that we were going to make a dent in this conference. U and I'll just give you there's such a great disparity now between um its wealth. Okay, we are not an upper uh an upper middle class upper class community. Uh we're a middle class community at best. I mean we're on preschool lunches. Okay. Uh we don't have a
003practice field. We don't have one for boys, girls, middle school. Uh we have to when we're going to have a high school field here in about a month and a half because Jake and I are going out and make it. It's what I did with the coach last year. We draw up the field. My girls have to use the bathroom this past season. I drove them to Speedway because we don't have that kind of facility. Locker rooms crap like that. We wouldn't have known what that was. But it goes way beyond that. Uh the it takes 11 players on the field to play soccer. takes 17 on the team. And it takes a lot of years of a lot of skill uh to bend it like Becca, if you know what I mean. Uh to
004stop a ball like you see on TV where they bring it right down, that's not easy to do. Uh it's not like a sport where you can go out and run it. Okay? You have to learn it over a lot of years and you have to have good coaching and you have to have the opportunities. Um we've got a few parents around here who can pay for club ball. Um, but we don't have anything like they do. I talked to the Greenfield coach and he had 30 players uh come out for his team. All 30 play club ball year round. They have indoor facilities, too. Okay. Uh, we don't have anything like that. U, he cut 10 of those to leave him with 20. I was lucky to have 15. Two of my players played
005some club ball at one time or another, but we don't have any club facilities. We wouldn't have a field to play on if if anybody wanted to play club in our camp. Uh and and to find enough parents with enough money to take their kids elsewhere, to take them all the way to the donut uh to play in the kind of club all they need to for us to be competitive. It's not going to happen. It's just it's just not going to happen. So, we don't have those facilities and we don't have the money. Um, like I said, you can walk outside, look out that window, and you'll see our field. What you'll see is is a bunch of grass. You won't see a field. Uh, because we haven't made the field yet, but we'll
006make it soon. Um, Greenfield by all of the schools, all of the schools have at least two dedicated soccer fields that they can practice on. We don't have one now. We have a beautiful football field and when we bring them in, they see how wonderful our field is and but they don't know that we don't have a practice and we have to make our own. We couldn't host uh club ball if we wanted to because we don't even have a field to play club ball. So, uh we don't have a field. We don't have the money to pay for club and we don't And another thing I have, sorry I'm kind of emotional about this. Um, my girls couldn't afford to play club anyway because they were working. One of my girls worked four jobs
007this summer. She couldn't play club all if she wanted to. And you know what I mean by yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Because that's what we're facing. We don't we don't have we just can't do it. Um, Greenfield is in the middle of the pack there. And so, they're not at the top, they're just in the middle. Hancock County gets 500 new residents a month. Okay, we're lucky if we can hold our own. Um, so the the demographics is only going to get worse and it's horrible right now. So, let me give you some statistics. our regret. Sorry. I take my soccer very seriously and I love my girls just like I love my boys. Um, our seniors best my despite my best efforts won no conference games their entire high school careers. They
008went 0 for 30. Okay. Um, we get no allconerence players. When I coached and when Jake and I coached in the conference, they were allotted to us based upon our number of victories and we got used to having three or four or five a year, but we picked them. Now, you have to go over there and meet with with the other coaches and they don't give us any. I don't know when the last time we've had an all-conference player in soccer. Do you, Corey? I don't know. Three years. Yeah. They they don't have any interest in giving us all conference and so we don't get it. It's just that simple. And I'm talking a little longer than I wanted to, but I want to make some points here. I love going back to the fieldhouse.
009I love looking at the pictures on the wall. My two boys, Nansson, Jake is on that, you know, it means a lot to me. And we can't even get, excuse my French, um, we can't even get a picture on the wall. So [Music]