BOB ETTINGER
A Bob Ettinger column...
The girls on the Edgewood soccer team have become a sort of extension of coach Juli Meaney’s family. She’s been coaching a good number of the Warriors for the last six years, after all.
Having been a mentor to the Warriors for so long, Meaney feels the successes and failures of her team a little more personally than most coaches.
“They really are family to me,” Meaney said. “I’ve always thought this was a special group. When they were in seventh grade, there were 18 people on the team and almost all of them were boys. It was the same in eighth grade. They lost almost every game in seventh grade.
“When they were in eighth grade, we were playing Riverside. They were almost all boys and one girl. We were almost all girls and we were winning the game. One of the Riverside players was waiting to sub into the game and he said, ‘I can’t believe we’re getting beat by a bunch of girls.
“I do feel pride and a sense of amazement when they win. But along with the pride when they do well, I feel their disappointment when they don’t quite do as well as they can. I’m proud of all of them.”
And the 2009 soccer season was one in which the Warriors took great strides. They finished with an 8-5-2 record. Edgewood was 4-0-1 against county competition — the only blemish being a 3-3 early-season tie with Geneva.
That season results in Meaney being named Star Beacon Ashtabula County Co-Coach of the Year with the Eagles’ Katie Carter.
In many ways, Meaney has been learning the game right along with her players.
“I started off coaching because nobody else would do it,” Meaney said. “I know some coaches might look down on a coach that’s never played the game. But the age I am — I went to Edgewood — there was no soccer in the area. It forced me to learn the game, as much as I know of it, through reading.
“My daughter (Maggie, a sophomore forward for the Warriors) went two years in a row to a camp at the University of Akron. The coach, Catherine
Byrne, let me stay and watch and learn. She was a great mentor that I learned from because I wanted to do the best I could for the girls.
“We hired an assistant coach this year, Paul Cook, that helped with that, too. He’s played the game and he understands the game. He helps me see things I might not have before.”
Meaney coached the 12 sophomores on the varsity roster and a number more on the JV team as fifth graders. Then she coached them as seventh and eighth graders at Braden before taking over the varsity team when that group reached its freshman season.
“I started for kind of a selfish reason,” Meaney said. “It was for my daughter, to make sure there were enough girls to play so the program wouldn’t die out. I had lists of girls I called and asked if they wanted to play indoor and summer (soccer).”
Ettinger is a sports writer for the Star Beacon. Reach him at bettinger@starbeacon.com.
