Thinking of childhood often yields memories of playing in the park or hanging out with friends on the playground. For Women’s Soccer Coach Juan Vargas, a junior, nearly all his free time from youth until the present has been filled with playing soccer.
“It’s a cultural thing. You are born and raised playing soccer,” Vargas said. “One of the first toys that you are given in Colombia is a soccer ball.”
When he wasn’t playing soccer with his friends during recess, they were seeking out games on the weekends. If they couldn’t play themselves, they devoted many hours to watching the Colombian National Team play either in the local stadiums or on TV.
“When the national team plays it’s just like, almost a national holiday,” Vargas said. “Everyone is wearing the jersey and you find a place to go watch the game with your family and your friends.”
A victory for the national team meant a grand celebration for the people of Colombia. Sometimes these parties would spill into the streets making it impossible to drive, according to Vargas.
In the third grade, Vargas joined his first team and was selected to play goalkeeper and defender. From that time on, he would always play the position of goalkeeper.
His prowess as a goalkeeper served him well during his time on club soccer teams throughout the rest of his early education and eventually earned him a spot on the varsity team for his last three years of high school.
Besides learning defensive tactics, he would spend time observing his friends who played other positions.
“During my time in soccer clubs I would watch my friends who were midfielders and strikers,” Vargas said. “I would watch how they would position themselves and how they would try to trick the goalkeeper.”
These keen observations would play an important role in how he trained his future teams, especially the Hillsdale club team.
Coaching has been a part of Vargas’ soccer life, almost since the beginning. What began as an informal role for his younger brother and his friends eventually led to him assisting the coach during his sophomore year of high school.
Over the past summer the Women’s Club Soccer Captain, Mikayla Dove, contacted him, and he accepted the coaching role.
“He had some really good ideas and he seemed super stoked about coaching,” Dove said.
She said that when he first met the team he came out with a plan and was prepared. Dove recognized that his efforts have made a difference.
“He puts us to work, and, as much as we complain, I think it’s really good for us,” Dove said. “It teaches us the kind of endurance that we need to play soccer.”
As a coach, Vargas emphasizes physical conditioning among other skills that are fundamental to playing good soccer. For Vargas, training the team to be good in numerous positions makes the team more well-rounded and makes better players.
“I trained my strikers to play from a goalkeeper’s perspective,” Vargas said. “This helps them trick a lot of goalkeepers when shooting.”
“We all respect him as a coach because he has some good input,” freshman Lydia Barrows said. “He’s pretty open to suggestions from the team so he listens to our opinions which is nice.”
This fall season was his first season coaching a college team, and the team not only won its first game in nine years, but also won two more games this season.
“This season was the result of the hard work and discipline of the girls this semester,” Vargas said. “This is their win, their victory, and they proved to me they wanted to get better. Everyone improved on an individual level as much as the team got better.”
The team will go on to compete in the first round of playoffs against Mott Community College.
