Coach Jake has been with most of us for almost two seasons now on the 05 Gray Team. Most of us view him as a comical person who always makes us laugh, but at the same time, also shows when we need to get serious about the game. He has been with us through our highs and lows, and never loses faith in us, no matter what the score is. Jake is constantly giving his all to make us better soccer players and to understand everything we do wrong, and make the improvements needed. He not only dedicates his time to focus on our strengths and weakness as a team, but has built a relationship with each and every one of us as individuals. Not one practice goes by where he not only talks to us about how we are outside of soccer, as well as providing his coaching points. He isn’t just a coach that goes through the motions, he takes the time to build his teams relationships so that it will strengthen our game of soccer.

Jake travels almost an hour to our practices, and we can all agree that he shows up in a good mood, always spreads positivity no matter what, and is dedicated. At the same time, he tactically plans out set pieces and key points to focus on in practices, making it very visible that he knows what needs to happen for our team to be more successful. This really shows how much he cares about our team and how much he believes in us as we are striving to become better soccer players. He shows us everyday how much he is committed to helping our team grow and exceed our goals, which we all highly admire and use as an example when we step onto the field. The combination of our team as a whole and Coach Jake is something that cannot be replaced.

As well as Jake's great personality, he also has had a significant impact on our technical, tactical, and emotional standpoint in soccer. We can all say that we have felt like we have improved the most under the period of time that we have been coached by Jake. He is also prepared for every training session and every game. No matter if it’s 9 in the morning or 7:30 at night, he never fails to show up with a smile on his face ready to make us better players. Jake has taught us how to move on from bad situations, and that you are always still in the game and should give 110%, no matter what the score is. He has shown us that even if we are losing, good soccer is what matters. Even when we are not performing our best, Jake is always giving us his all at practices and games. His personality makes us comfortable in talking to him about anything. He is our coach who makes sure we are serious when we need do be, but he is also our friend. He focuses on building up our confidence rather then tearing us down, but still gives us feedback to make us stronger. His dedication to not only our physical performances as players but our mentality, is something very rare in coaches.

Having Jake continue as our coach would help us continue on this path of improvement that we have experienced in these past two seasons. We all feel that starting with a new coach would cause much unnecessary stress and would backtrack us in our improvements rather then further develop us. We can truly say that each season we have gotten stronger as a team, and we give much recognition of that to our coach. Jake shows his commitment to our team in everything he does, and we would all like to propose to keep him as our coach, so we can keep advancing as a team and individually, as we have shown in the past years under his direction. As the NLSA 05 Gray Team, we can all see the improvement in this team, so please let us keep our coach who has helped us develop and change everyday into even more strong and successful soccer players. 

Thank you,

 NLSA 05 GRAY TEAM