This fall season was the first time the North Shore boys soccer team won an Independent School League championship in our schools history. We are all very proud of this team its players and its coaches.
When the outside world looks at championship seasons, they often reflect on certain moments during the season that made the year special. I am sure the last game of the conference season on October 8th will be forever looked on as one of those key moments as our Raiders had to win or tie against U-High to win the conference. If U-High beat us they would win the conference, and we had to play at U-High. The U-High field -- many soccer people in our conference feel -- is a significant home field advantage because it is a crowned field. Most soccer fields are flat.
Through regulation time, the teams were tied 0-0. The league rules are then to play two 5 minute overtimes and U-High scored in the first period of overtime. Overtime is not sudden death -- or as they say in the soccer world "golden goal." So the full two period overtime had to be played out. There was less than a minute to go in the final overtime period. It looked like, U-High would seal victory and the conference championship. But then we got one more corner kick. To me it is still unclear exactly what happened on that corner, but Ben Potter '16 took the corner and Braden Adamson Tate '18 headed it. Andrew Conlon '17 may have been next involved somehow. The U-High goalie moved one way, a U-High defender moved another. The ball was about to be blocked and then it rolled across the goal line. Pandemonium ensued on the Raider sideline as a tie meant conference victory.
I was working a Field Hockey game with Barbara Castilla and Kristen Allen at school. And Chris Charnas '81 was texting me updates. We jumped for joy when Chris's text came through and read "Goal NS" and shortly after "Tie" confirming we had won our first ever ISL Soccer title. That was a moment that I will always remember.
As former North Shore coach, John Schneiter used to say, players win games and the players on that field won that game and won that ISL title. They deserve the credit. But what I think sometimes is lost in a moment like this is the effort among many people -- administrators, coaches, parents and alums -- over many years that helped put these players in that position on that day.
I am going to single out some of the folks today who were part of this journey. I am sorry if I missed a few. The purpose of singling those out that I do is that there was always a plan. The plan may have taken a while to execute. But there was always a plan to get those kids in that position on that day this October and here is the story from my perspective.
In Jim Collins book Good to Great, he has a concept called the flywheel and the doom loop. This concept states that good to great transformations look dramatic and revolutionary on the outside but are actually organic and a cumulative processes on the inside.
Having seen many of our teams make transformations over the last 20 years, I believe the major accomplishments are really built on a series of little ones that often happen over a number of years, that gradually build momentum and confidence or change team cultures. This the the flywheel and the doom loop concept.
So that brings me back to my first fall at North Shore in 1994.
That fall, Tim Cronister was our Head Soccer Coach. Although Tim had started at the school the year before as an english teacher, I believe that fall of 1994 was his first as head coach.
Tim, then Head of School Julie Hall, and then Upper School Principal Paul Perkinson and I all had a common bond. We all had professional and personal roots in the Philadelphia area and its independent schools -- specifically Quaker schools. Tim had grown up on the campus of and attended Westtown School then matriculated to Haverford College. Julie had grown up and attended Swarthmore College. And Paul and I had worked at Friends Central School. All of these schools had strong soccer traditions, and we were convinced that soccer could be a much stronger sport at North Shore than it was in 1994. We felt Tim was the perfect person to lead our team as he had played soccer at Westtown and Haverford and was -- and I think still is -- one of the most graceful and powerful athletes I have ever met.
As new people in schools sometimes do, we vastly underestimated the work it would take.
Soccer in the Independent School League had been dominated for years by Latin, U-High, Lake Forest Academy, and Francis Parker. Although there may have been a time when we competed and possibly beat Parker or LFA -- when I got here, no one could remember it happening. Also in 1994, we had never beaten or tied Latin or U-High in the schools history in this sport.
When I looked at the varsity soccer schedule which at the time was a double round robin -- meaning we would play every team in the conference twice once on our field and once on theres -- I had to assume that we would lose 8 times: twice each to Latin, U-High, LFA and Parker. I then had to hope we could beat Morgan Park Academy and Elgin Academy twice and find room for 4 other weak non-conference opponents for us to have a shot at a .500 record.
That never seemed to work out, though. The year before I arrived, I think our record was 3-12 or 3-13.
But Tim brought a lot of optimism to the program, and we had some very good athletes on the team.
In those days we allowed students to play two sports at the same time. And in the fall of 1994, John Whittlesey' 96 and Sean Butler '96 played football and soccer. During my time as Athletic Director both John and Sean remain among the most skilled athletes who have attended North Shore.
Also starting at North Shore at the same time I did was Peter Wentz '97. Although it says on his Wikipedia page that Peter was an all state soccer player it was not for playing High School Soccer at North Shore. Peter played Soccer his sophomore through senior year for us and to my knowledge, as I had to research this for an ESPN reporter a few years ago, Peter was never selected all-conference in the Independent School League. But that should not take anything away from Peter's athleticism which was outstanding. And Peter loved soccer.
With that nucleus of players and a few others as well as a knowledgeable coach in Tim Cronister, we made some headway. We had our first win ever in the state tournament -- when it was only one class that fall of 1994. I am not sure which year it was -- my first, second or third, we tied Latin and then later beat them. These little steps, started people believing we could compete in soccer.
Some time around my fourth or fifth year, though, Tim left North Shore for the The Latin School. Tim lived in the city and married a Latin Teacher/ Coach. Tim has flourished professionally at Latin as a teacher and administrator as well as the father of two outstanding athletes. And has helped their long time Latin soccer coach, Tom Bower, coach girls and boys teams to multiple League and State Series Championships.
It was very hard to replace Tim.
The next soccer coach was Scott Becker who was able to maintain Tim's advances in the program. But it was not really until we hired a Middle School Science teacher named Marc Small that we took the next step forward.
Marc had played at Colby College in the mid-90's. Colby in the mid-90's was one of the most accomplished teams in New England. Marc had been a 3-time all New England player, and he had been influenced by that College's legendary soccer coach. He had also coached in New England. Marc was a tremendous role model as an athlete and had a vision for the program. He began the first attempts at out of season training with Sunday Soccer and a some summer meetings. Somewhere during Marc's tenure, we defeated Parker, U-High and even LFA. The big powers in the league could not over look us now. But our wins over these teams were not consistent.
Marc's wife was in a PHd program at the University of Chicago and when that ended they left Chicago and the program was turned over to Kyle Jones.
As a young coach, Kyle inherited a program that had some basics in place but still needed a lot of work. Kyle believes in hard work and sacrifice. Kyle had moved from his native England to New England to attend a boarding school and play soccer while in high school. He then matriculated to Cornell. I have always admired this part of Kyle's story as how many people would want to leave their home country at a young age.
But what I have admired most about Kyle is his growth as a coach. Kyle brought with him essential values of hard work and consistent practice, but he has refined his approach and been unafraid to try new training techniques. He has attended our summer GAIN seminar twice and each time taken information he has gained from that and applied it to impressive ends.
Kyle has led his North Shore teams to many key wins as Head Coach -- wins over every league opponent as well as the first Regional Championship in School Soccer history. But he also introduced us to others in the larger soccer community.
Jim Collins second principle of Good to Great is First Who, Then What. Get the right people on your team first -- team comes before vision. With Kyle, we had the right leader, and Kyle began collecting great support for soccer around him. Shortly after Kyle became Head Coach, he brought on board Jeff Richy as an assistant coach. Jeff was instrumental in keeping our program trending upwards when Kyle had to return to England for two years.
Dave Potter came on board as our Upper School principal 10 years ago and his influence on sports and particularly soccer has been invaluable. Dave had coached at both some top eastern independent schools and collegiately and although has not been able to coach every year. Having another administrator involved in coaching has been helpful to me.
With the right leadership in place all we needed were the right players on the team to execute the vision and that is where many soccer parents have contributed.
Symbolic of all of them is Chris Charnas '81. Chris is symbolic of a lot of parents at North Shore because players have to be nurtured and in the soccer world, parents do the early nurturing.
Chris is special for a couple other reasons too. There is a no more dedicated soccer alum than Chris. Chris loves his family and then after that loves this school. This combination of parent, alum and former North Shore athlete makes him especially adept at supporting the soccer program.
When his son CJ '16 was in lower school, Chris started talking to me about how good boys soccer would be once CJ's class and those in the classes around that class got into high school and began to mature. Chris was nurturing this group of Raiders by coaching youth teams and organizing car pools to places like Rockford and St. Louis for club soccer tournaments. Grooming high school soccer players even at North Shore these days takes tremendous parent involvement at young ages. That grooming and those hours in the car were essential to getting the players on the field with a championship in reach at U-High on October 8th 2014.
With momentum created and leadership in place, this years players then executed the plan and the school has their first ever ISL Boys Soccer Championship. This league is a strong soccer league so it will be hard to repeat again, but it will never be as hard as doing it the first time.
Coaches, parents and administrators were responsible for the many steps along the way to accomplishing this championship this year. This post probably over-simplifies the hard work that went into getting our players in the position to make that goal in the last seconds of the the game on October 8th. Other steps along the way included access to the turf fields at the Skokie Playfields. Our Regional title two years ago and likely our loss in the Regional semi-finals last year. Nothing stokes the fire like coming close but coming up short. Then there was the summer league we now participate in and our trip to England that helped inspire our players this year. These were just a few of the most obvious little steps that contributed to the flywheel and the doom loop that gradually accumulated momentum to push our team over the edge. .
If you took me back twenty-one falls ago, I would have told you I think it would've taken a little less time. But the wait has been worth it. And like lots of other initial team achievements, the standard set by this years team will inspire forever.
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