Student leaders

Creston won’t be among the teams participating in the Boys State Soccer Tournament this week, but in many ways the 2018 season was remarkable, nonetheless.

As late as three days before the first official practice day, the program lacked a head coach. Former head coach Lucian Diaconu worked for the Ames school district this year after his shared Lenox/Creston teaching position was cut in last year’s budget action.

Just before practices began, longtime wrestling coach and assistant football coach Darrell Frain agreed to take the soccer position this year, assisted by Palmer Scott.

While Frain’s son Trevor had played soccer for the Panthers as a defender, he was up front with the three senior team members that he would need their help this season. Evan Jacobson, Cole Higgins and Kelby Luther instantly took on roles greater than co-captain. They became de facto assistant coaches.

“From the get-go, I let them know my knowledge and ability to coach the sport was not what it should be,” said Frain, who will soon begin duties soon as athletic director and head football coach at Oakland Riverside. “On the Friday before our first practice we talked in my room. We discussed having a meeting before each practice to talk about the drills we were going to do and what to do in organizing the practice schedule.”

Frain and Scott helped provide the structure of conditioning drills and leadership in moving from one activity to another. The seniors who were also participating in a given drill would not be able to observe others as much as the two adult coaches, so it became a team effort in leadership.

“Coach Frain brought us in during seminar to talk about how we can, as seniors, run the practices,” said Jacbson, the team’s leading scorer with 12 goals and six assists. “It helped us become stronger leaders. In the first couple of practices we did what had done for drills in the past for coaches Lucian and Jesus (Rodriguez). We worked on the stuff they had taught us.”

.500 season

The results were solid, considering the circumstances. The 1-0 district loss to Osceola, Clarke was the fourth defeat by one goal or overtime shootout in an 8-8 season. (Des Moines Christian, 15-1, emerged as the substate representative from the substate and is seeded third in the 1A field, facing Iowa Mennonite on Thursday.)

“I’m very proud of the year,” Jacobson said. “At the beginning we didn’t even have a coach. It could have been an awful season. We brought everyone together, and decided we would prove people wrong. We figured out that we could be a good team.”

Luther said Frain’s knowledge of the sport advanced as the season progressed, but he remained steadfast in allowing his seniors to have a strong voice in practices and in competition.

“It was different than coaching wrestling, but he picked it up pretty quick,” said Luther, also a member of Frain’s wrestling squad. “He’s good with motivation and stuff like that. He was able to decide more of the game stuff throughout the season, but whenever he had an idea he’d take it to us first. I enjoyed (coaching) quite a bit, after getting a look at it.”

Higgins is looking to major in sports administration in college, so getting a taste of coaching proved to be valuable.

“Coach Frain is a great coach to work with and I’m sure he’ll be a great AD,” Higgins said. “He’s been around athletes for a long time and he knew how to prepare us going into games. We (seniors) had a good idea what we should work on in practices. I did enjoy it.”

Frain’s goal from the start was to work together to create something they could take pride in.

“I didn’t want it to become a joke,” Frain said. “I wanted to make sure the kids understood that it wasn’t a peer getting after them, it was more as a coach. We gave them that voice before and during competition.”

Early background

All three seniors said they could not have served in such a responsible role without the vast background in the sport they gained in their younger years as members of the Wildfire Soccer Club. They began as teammates in third grade, and were the last three still together as high school seniors.

“I remember being coached by people who knew a lot about the game on the Wildfire teams,” Jacobson said. “Making that change to high school soccer is a big jump, and we try to preach that to the freshmen each year. But it (club soccer) does prepare you with a good background in soccer.”

“I’d say it definitely helped all three of us,” Luther said. “We have had great coaches with good soccer backgrounds. We were prepared coming into high school.”

Paula Jacobson, Evan’s mother and a teacher at Creston Elementary School, was grateful for the availability of the club that had been formed a few years before her family moved to Creston in 2004.

“When we moved here my sister (Roxanne Carroll) and her husband Jon said we should get our kids into soccer,” Jacobson said. “We got started with the YMCA for a couple of years and then the Wildfire club. Evan, Cole and Kelby were together on that team and stuck with it through the years.”

Jacobson said she was impressed with the community’s generous effort to launch competitive soccer in Creston. Through volunteers and fundraising, it began as a coed club status in high school in 1999. Around that time the local traveling club was formed. Eventually, it became a sanctioned sport in the high school with separate girls and boys teams.

“So many people came together to buy uniforms, equipment, goals and hire officials,” Jacobson said. “All of that expense came through their club and the fundraising they did. I think it really helped our kids’ understanding of the game before they got to high school. They learned the different formations they might face, or be set up in, and gained a lot from just the pace of the competitive game.”

Terri Higgins, Cole’s mother, said the seniors got a good foundation in the sport when they were young, and it paid off when they had the unique experience of “coaching” their peers this year.

“All three of them starting playing soccer at about age 5 or younger,” Terri Higgins said. “Prior to the season, I was not sure of Cole’s complete knowledge of the sport. But thinking back, different coaches had taught them different things, and this was their time to bond when coach Frain had faith in them. It’s been such a good life lesson for them. Looking back, it was one of Cole’s best high school sports experiences. Someday he would like to coach and be an AD. He got hands-on experience, and it was completely accidental!”