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WHAT SOCCER TEACHES ME Don’t call him ‘Coach’ The winningest coach in NCAA soccer says game belongs to the players

By Jay Martin | AS TOLD TO AMY WIMMER SCHWARB ROLE: The men’s soccer coach at Ohio Wesleyan University for 38 years, Jay Martin started out coaching men’s lacrosse, too, and tackled student hazing issues on both teams when he first arrived. This year Martin, also a kinesiology professor, won an NCAA Innovations in Research Grant to OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PHOTO develop tools that help coaches assess hazing on their teams. HIS STORY: With a career record of 657-124-61 and two Division III national cham- BASKETBALL WAS PROBABLY MY BEST SPORT. After I left Springfield, I moved to Munich, Germany, and played pionships, Martin is the winningest men’s soccer coach in the NCAA. professional basketball for about four seasons. When LESSONS LEARNED: His team plays home games at the Jay Martin Soccer I moved to Munich, I was in a soccer culture. Basket- ball in Europe in those days was not a big sport at all. Complex, but in soccer, he says, the coach’s job is to stay out of the way. In preseason we played soccer for fitness.

I’M NOT A GOOD SOCCER PLAYER. I never was, I never I KNOW I’M GOING TO SOUND LIKE A COMMUNIST, but WHILE I WAS IN MUNICH I got to know Helmut have been, and, at this point in my life, I never I’ve never played football in my life. I played soc- Schoen, coach of the German national team will be. I tell that to my team and everybody who cer and basketball and baseball in high school, when they won the World Cup in 1974. He and cares to listen. I think I started twice in college -- and then when I went to college I played soccer, I did nothing but talk about sports -- not always there was an epidemic on the team, and I had to basketball and lacrosse at Springfield College in specifically soccer, but about sports. He was a great get on the field. Springfield, Massachusetts. sportsman and obviously a great soccer coach.

Ohio Wesleyan celebrates its victory over Calvin College during the Division III Men’s Soccer Championship in San Antonio in 2011. It was the second national championship for Jay Martin, above. NCAA PHOTOS ARCHIVE

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THOSE WERE THE DAYS OF WOODY HAYES and all LIFE AFTER THE GAME those guys -- ‘My way or the highway.’ Helmut Schoen was way ahead of his time in terms of how he coached the best players at the time. He was so the opposite of those guys.

I’M NOT A ‘MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY’ COACH either. To a It’s the players’ team. I’m there to help them get better. One of my philosophies -- and a lot of coaches get mad at me when I say this at clinics -- but I don’t feel coaches develop players. Only degree players develop players. Thirty-six years after ALL OF OUR YOUNG COACHES THINK the answer to leaving Morehead State, coaching success is the X’s and O’s. I can’t tell you how far down the list those are. Phil Simms returns for

I’M GOING INTO MY 39TH YEAR IN AUGUST, and something he left behind every year I see coaches who don’t have a good relationship with their teams. If the players aren’t confident and they aren’t having fun, it isn’t going to happen. That’s just how it is. As a coach, if you take fun away, you’re not going to do any good.

DON’T CALL ME “COACH.” When I was young my fa- ther, like many fathers, was my coach in Little this and Little that. And when I went to high school I had a coach named John Barker. Their influence, along with Helmut Schoen’s, was very important to me. And until I get to be in their league, I don’t deserve to be called “Coach.”

THE THING I LIKE ABOUT SOCCER is once the game starts, it’s all about the team. My job is training and practice, and then I might as well go sit in the stand once the game starts. The decisions Simms, seen above with Morehead State in the game are made by the players, and the Board of Regents chair Paul Goodpaster and consequences of those decisions happen im- President Wayne Andrews, finished his college mediately. They get this great feedback, this career with 5,545 passing yards and 32 understanding about consequences. touchdowns. MOREHEAD STATE UNIVERSITY PHOTOS

I’M NOT A SOCIAL SCIENTIST, but I think that’s a Few can match the achievements that former “It’s something I just wanted to get done,” really good lesson for our students: When you New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms can Simms said. “It’s been hanging out there.” make a decision, and we lose the ball, and we check off from his football career. He owns a For Simms, who grew up in a family of eight lose the game, it teaches you to be accountable Super Bowl ring. He appeared in two Pro Bowls children, Morehead State provided an opportuni- for your actions in life. during his 14-year NFL career. He holds the re- ty no other university offered: an athletics schol- cord for highest percentage of completed passes arship that allowed him to attend college and SOCCER IS DIFFERENT than a lot of sports, where in the championship game. And after he retired – play football. Simms says he was serious about players are told exactly what to do. The decision- and the Giants retired his jersey – Simms moved pursuing a professional career from his early days making in those games is more geared toward on to a successful second career in broadcasting. at Morehead State, and if he had not pursued that the coach and not the players. I want our game But even after all those career highs, Simms path, he likely would have wanted to remain close to be more geared toward the players. was still missing one thing: a college degree. to the game as a teacher and football coach. This weekend, 36 years after leaving More- “Going to college gave me the chance to WE WON A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in 2011 in San head State University – located two hours east lead a different life away from home,” Simms Antonio, and over 140 of my former players of Simms’ hometown in Springfield, Kentucky said. “I’ll never forget the fact that they gave came down on their own dime to cheer us on. – he returned to campus to receive his bach- me a football scholarship. I’ll never get over They had a really good experience – an experi- elor’s degree. He was just two classes shy of his that. That was the only way that I could go to ence that complemented their academic mission diploma, and Morehead State worked with him college. It was the perfect school and the right at Ohio Wesleyan. to complete his requirements. situation.” – Amy Wimmer Schwarb

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