This year, Wilde Lake teachers and siblings Trevor and Megan Shea filled the varsity coaching vacancies on the boys and girls varsity soccer fields.
Mr. Shea, a special educator at this school, coached JV soccer at Oakland Mills from 2008 to 2015. Ms. Shea, a Technology teacher, is moving up from coaching JV girls soccer last year, replacing Coach Procida as the varsity coach. Getting the opportunity to coach together as varsity coaches has been a positive experience, said Ms. Shea.
Mr. Shea and Ms. Shea grew up surrounded by soccer, with their parents coaching at Oakland Mills.
“Everything we’ve done has revolved around soccer. We grew up on the soccer field, being at different practices,” said Mr. Shea.
The people involved in their lives were all connected to soccer. “The people that were our babysitters, the people that took care of us, and the people we grew up with were our parents’ players, so it was a whole family-type thing,” said Mr. Shea.
Both Shea’s are experienced soccer players.
Mr. Shea participated in winning three state championships and made all-state in high school, and played Division 1 at James Madison University. Ms. Shea also played high school soccer.
“I never would have expected to coach at the same school as my brother,” said Ms. Shea. “It’s kind of fun. After games, he calls me and talk to me for about 25 minutes to talk about about what went wrong, and on Sunday nights we put film up on the family TV and look at things that went right or wrong. It’s a fun experience to be able to share that with your sibling,” said Ms. Shea.
Teaching at the same school they coach at allows them to be involved with their athletes lives. “To be able to know each other’s players, and to have them in class, gives a slightly outside-the-box perspective in the school,” said Mr. Shea. “I know them not just as players, but as people as well,” said Ms. Shea.
Last year, the Wilde Lake girls soccer team were the county champions, regional champions, and state finalists. This season so far, both coaches’ main goals are progress and improvement.
“We lost a lot of starters and girls that played a lot last year. Our goal for this year is just to improve every game,” said Ms. Shea.
“My ultimate goal this year is just to continue making progress and to make the players believe they can be a top level team,” said Mr. Shea.
“We started the season with four wins and a tie, and our last three games have been in double overtime, and we were down a goal and came back a goal to tie. Even though we lost, we gave ourselves a chance to win. I can’t ask for anything more than that,” said Mr. Shea.
With so much experience, the Shea’s understand the difficulty of the sport.
“Soccer is different than other sports, which is what we’re noticing now with some of our overtime games,” said Mr. Shea.
“The most aggravating part of soccer is that it can reward you or it can be cruel as well. You never know what’s gonna happen,” said Ms. Shea. “The worst part is not having soccer reward you for all the hard work. Seeing players put so much effort in and then it not being rewarded back to them.”
Mr. Shea and Ms. Shea are both excited to be in charge of the program and to make it a cohesive program together. “Working with the kids, a lot of players here have a lot of talent and ambition, so it’s great to take the young players and mold them into better players,” said Ms. Shea.
“Soccer is part of our life. It’s what we know,” said Mr. Shea.
