Ryan Willard has been the Streetsboro girls soccer head coach since 2011.

By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

The “Getting to Know” series is designed to help the community learn more about the coaches and administrators that are guiding today’s Portage County student-athletes to be tomorrow’s leaders.

Today, we get to know Streetsboro High School girls soccer coach Ryan Willard, who is in his 12th season leading the Rockets.

Q: What high school did you attend?

A: I grew up in Carlisle, Pa. I went to Crestview Elementary, Wilson Middle School and Carlisle High School (Class of 1997). Our mascot was the Thundering Herd. I played soccer, golf and tennis.

Q: College and graduation year? Play sports?

A: I went to Dickinson College in central Pennsylvania, and I graduated in 2001. It is a small Division III school. Despite my love for soccer, I was a better tennis player and played at Dickinson.

Q: What is your college degree in?

A: My undergraduate degree is in Biology. I continued to get my Master’s in Education from The Johns Hopkins University and another Master’s in Kinesiology from the University of Texas Pan American.

Q: Current occupation?

A: My wife Kelly and I own two veterinary hospitals in Hudson. She is a veterinarian, and I run the business side of things.

Q: What inspired you to be a coach?

A: For high school, I needed to get volunteer hours to graduate. I also had a bad coach in high school (see story below). I didn’t want kids to have coaches like him. I thought that if I could coach for my volunteer hours, I would do something I enjoy while also providing kids with a positive role model. So I went to the local YMCA to see if they would let me coach one of their teams. They put me and two of my friends with an 8- and 9-year-old team. I loved it. I never thought that experience would turn into me coaching the rest of my life to this point.

Q: What makes being a coach at Streetsboro special to you?

A: I love the families and the kids I’ve been able to work with. It is, honestly, what has brought me back year after year. Coaching is tough. It is a rare job where everyone has an opinion of how you’re doing and, of course, it also ties into family dynamics because every parent wants to see their kid play so there are lots of assumptions when a kid doesn’t get playing time. Of course, I have had some issues along the way, like all coaches do, but Streetsboro just has so many great families, and I’ve been privileged to coach some wonderful kids.

Q: Who is your biggest influence/mentor?

A: Jess Engle was my first assistant coach at Streetsboro. I had been coaching for about 10 years before Streetsboro, but not at the high-school level. I had coached all youth soccer, where everyone got playing time, or at the national level, where nothing was guaranteed. Jess was the perfect fit for me to start my high-school coaching career. He handled a lot of the situations with parents and really helped guide and ease me into that part of the job.

Q: Funny story nobody would believe from your coaching days?

A: I have two:

1. As I mentioned in an earlier question, my wife is a veterinarian. She went to Vet School in the Caribbean on the island of St. Kitts. I moved down with her. After about 4 months of living there I realized I was missing coaching, but I didn’t know how to get into it there. There was a St. Kitts Men’s National team game and because it is such a small country just about everyone goes. We went to the game and someone pointed out the President of the National association. I went up and talked to him about coaching. He first tried to put me with a men’s club team, but I was probably younger than all of them and they didn’t want to listen to a young American kid. I went back to the President to see if there was another option. He said there were a bunch of girls (mostly high school aged) that got together a couple times a week to play that just needed some direction. I started getting together with them a couple times a week to run through some drills. About the same time FIFA mandated that every country that received money from them had to put 10% of that money towards women’s soccer. St. Kitts did not have women’s soccer at the time, but they had this group of girls getting together a couple times a week so they decided that that was their National Team. All of a sudden I was a coach of a National Team. I started running camps all around the country to identify talent to recruit players into the program. I ended up coaching the St. Kitts and Nevis women for 2.5 years and even coached in World Cup Qualifying. We won a game vs. Antigua-Barbuda in the group stage for their first ever FIFA win.

2. I was never supposed to be Streetsboro’s coach. I never applied to Streetsboro. My wife and I were living in Virginia when she took a job in Stow. I did phone interviews with Woodridge for their boys position and Ravenna for their girls position. After talking with both ADs it sounded like they both basically had someone in mind for their jobs. I guess at an AD meeting they were talking to Gary Huber, Streetsboro’s AD at the time, who mentioned that he was looking for a girls soccer coach. Both of the other ADs told him that they had interviewed me and both liked me as a candidate, but had other people for the position. Gary ended up calling me and offering me an interview. I came up to interview in person and when he heard my background coming off coaching a National Team he tried to talk me out of taking the job because Streetsboro had not won a game in at least 6 years at that point. He didn’t think the job was for me. Despite that I still took the job and 16 years later I’m still here. When we won our first league title in 2017, Gary was the first phone call I received. I don’t think either of us ever expected the program to grow the way it did.

Q: Favorite TV show?

A: Seinfeld, Game of Thrones.

Q: Favorite movie?

A: Man on Fire.

Q: Favorite musical artist?

A: Rage Against the Machine.

Q: Favorite food/meal?

A: I love French fries. My restaurant choices often revolve around where I like the fries.

Q: Best vacation?

A: My wife and I went to Alaska for our 10th anniversary. We did some hiking, fishing, kayaking and a tour that included flying on a float plane to an island, where we walked around with a group of people watching grizzly bears in the wild. The scenery there is stunning. It was also during the summer solstice so the sun never set while were were there, which was a wild experience.

Q: Favorite restaurant?

A: Fishers in Peninsula (great fries!).

Q: Favorite motto or quote?

A: My current one is by (NBA player) Marreese Speights: “Bad players don’t take much seriously. Average players take games seriously. Good players take practice and games seriously. Great players take academics, nutrition, warmups, individual work, weight room, conditioning, film, practice and games seriously.

Q: Describe your coaching philosophy?

A: This has certainly evolved in my career. I think this is broken down into two parts. First is managing the team. Establishing a culture based on respect, hard work, joy and fun is the most important thing. If the kids know that you care about them, and you model/set the standard of how to treat each other, opponents and referees, they will follow the lead. If growth and improvement are more important than wins/losses, kids tend to work harder for you. When you have fun and bring joy to training sessions, while also working hard, you tend to get more learning and kids play better together.

The second part is the Xs and Os. Flexibility is the most important thing at a small high school. You’re not always going to have elite talent or depth. A coach needs to be flexible to put athletes in the right spots to make them feel success and maximize what you have on your roster each given year. That said, part one is always more important than part two.

Q: Favorite teacher from high school?

A: Mr. Fries, freshman social studies.

Q: Advice you would give the younger version of you?

A: It took me a long time to realize that the results aren’t always the most important thing and often not the best way to measure success. I wish I would have focused on growth and process more earlier in my life instead of just focusing on the results.

Q: Favorite coach from your playing days?

A: Will Stonebreaker. He was my high school tennis coach, but the way he would breakdown and teach different skills was well above any coach I ever had in any sport.

Q: Coaching resume?

A: Carlisle Area Youth Soccer head coach between U7 and U14 (1996-2003); St. Kitts and Nevis Football Association women’s national team assistant coach (2004-06); Streetsboro High School girls head coach (2007-09), Lincoln Charter School boys and girls head coach (2010-11); Streetsboro girls head coach (2011-present).

Q: Shoutout to former teammates?

A: I know this asks for former teammates, but I want to give a shoutout to my current teammate: Assistant Alyssa Hendrix. Since she has come on, our program has become so much stronger. She is the perfect compliment to me for our coaching staff, but we share a lot of the same ideals at the same time.