As our fall sports have started there have been many good coaches in our sports programs but one coach that has really stood out is Ms. Amber Smith.
Smith is the girls’ soccer coach at Musselman High School and has been a guidance counselor for ten years. She has made quite a change for our Lady Applemen soccer program.
Coach Smith has played soccer since she was ten in third grade and continued to play soccer through the years. She continued to play at the collegiate level during her time at Wheeling University.
When asked what her goals were for the soccer program, Smith stated, ”Long term, because I plan to be in this role for a long time, is just to create a positive winning program and I want it to be different then it’s been in the past and I want it to be a program that not only our community but other schools around the state start to respect.”
Despite this being her second year coaching the Lady Applemen, this is her 11th year coaching soccer.
When asked what she has enjoyed the most about coaching through the years, Smith stated, “That’s a hard question to answer because there is so many things that I enjoy but obviously I love soccer. So coaching is kinda my way to continue to be involved in it but the most fulfilling thing so far to see with coaching isn’t necessarily what I’ve done specifically, but what I’ve seen [the team] all do for each other. So just kind of providing with the frame work of high expectations and how to work together as a team but seeing [the team] all implement ideas and staying consistent with the changes that we’ve made has been the most fulfilling thing.”
In addition to coaching high schoolers, she previously coached younger kids in Morgantown where she used to work. Recently, she started a program called Appleseeds that is for the younger generation of kids to start enjoying soccer.
When asked what she would like to see come out of doing Appleseeds she said “Just creating an interest early in soccer and I wanna do something that hasn’t really been done before like we don’t have a program for kids that young yet and I think the earlier we get kids interested in the sport the sooner they can fall in love with it and I think that will increase the numbers that we have in our recreational program which increases the probability that we are gonna have really good players by the time they get to high school.”
