Aaron Tracey: admissions by day, athletics by night

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Aaron Tracey: admissions by day, athletics by night
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Aaron Tracey (right) poses with the Hillsdale High School Hornets soccer team. Tracey, a Hillsdale graduate and employee, is the Hornets’ head coach this year. (Photo: Aaron Tracey / Courtesy).

It’s Tuesday afternoon, and the Hillsdale high school men’s soccer team is lining up for some post-practice sprints. One runner doesn’t match the rest: he’s a Hillsdale College employee, and the Hornets’ head coach.

Aaron Tracy, Hillsdale College’s assistant director of special projects for admissions, is the Hornets’ new head coach. Tracey, a 2014 Hillsdale graduate, assisted former Hornets head coach Al Philipp for a season before moving into the job after Philipp stepped down.

While attending Hillsdale, Tracey was a founding member of Hillsdale College’s club soccer program, playing for three years until he graduated. In addition to his role at the high school, Tracey is coaching his former club team this season as well.

Tracey is passionate about soccer and jumped at the chance to expand his role with the Hornets when the head coaching position opened up.

“Last year I was helping them out on and off, but, of course, this year, I am fully committed to being their head coach,” Tracey said.

Coaching two soccer teams while fulfilling all his responsibilities in Hillsdale College’s admissions department is a challenge. Tracey balances daily soccer practice, coaching Hornets’ games during the week, and club games on the weekends with admissions recruiting trips to metro Detroit, hiring student ambassadors, and running the college’s high school study abroad program.

He credits the admissions department with allowing him a flexible schedule to accomplish everything.

“I’m gonna make it happen,” Tracey pledged. “It’ll be busy, but, just like being a Hillsdale student, I love being busy.”

Just three years removed from college, Tracey uses his youth to his advantage at practice. He scrimmages and runs drills alongside his team to motivate and lead by example while continuing to critique his players’ performance. He even lines up for post-practice conditioning, running up and down the field and challenging his athletes to push themselves.

Senior Daniel Miller is a co-captain entering his fourth year playing soccer for the Hornets. He says Tracey’s willingness to endure the physical part of soccer practice alongside his team is not lost on the players.

“The fact that he gets in there and gets his hands dirty, it’s an interesting aspect — one that we admire,” Miller said.

Tracey’s particular style of coaching isn’t the only change he brings to the Hornets. He says his team will be more strategic than previous years.

“I’d like to say we’re hopefully a little bit more tactical this year in terms of our strategy, in terms of our positioning.” He said.

Philipp, who coached the Hornets to a first place league finish in 2014, agrees that Tracey’s coaching style and experience will bring a new, positive quality to the team.

“I was concentrating a lot on defense and Aaron brings a new component into the strategy,” Philipp said. “Aaron knows a lot about soccer. He’s probably able to teach them more technique than I could.”

Philipp also praises Tracey’s overall ability as a coach.

“He has them in really good shape. He does everything the right way. He conditions them. He does the right stretching. He does the right drills with the balls, and he also talks tactics to them so, all around, he is a very good coach.”

Junior co-captain Nathan Gimenez has been on the team for three years said he is ready to see where Tracey’s coaching will take the team.

“I’m excited about him,” Gimenez said. “He is a hard worker and pushes us harder than we would ourselves.”

As head coach, Tracey says he will measure his team’s success on more than wins and losses at the end of the season.

“It’s going to be based on, certainly, how far everyone has advanced. Everyone’s got a record, but the important thing is how much everybody has improved, certainly how well we’ve worked as a team,” Tracey said. “You know, those are things that I think are most important.”