University Middle School Soccer
Middle School Girls Soccer
Coach: Matt Palmatier palmatier@etsu.edu
Assistant Coach: Hannah Mosely
Hello Students and Parents,
Next Fall will be the second season of Middle School Girls Soccer and I am writing to get a sense of interest from prospective and returning players. If you or your daughter are not sure about participating, I can give you a little insight on what the upcoming season will look like and some lessons we learned during our first season.
We have a new assistant coach (Hannah Mosely) and she’s very good and I think will add increase how much the girls learn during the season. More on her below. Additionally, I will return as coach for this season. My plan is to continue to teach the girls the game while they have fun and get to play with their school friends. Heather Poston has also agreed to continue as Team Manager. We learned a lot last season and will be more prepared this season.
More information about this season –
1) Our new Assistant Coach Hannah Mosely is a Junior at ETSU majoring in Physical Education and minoring in Coaching, so she’s on her way to being a professional coach. She has a ton of experience playing competitive and college-level soccer. She transferred to ETSU after playing D2 soccer at Tusculum. She is from Sevierville where she was an All-District and All-Region Varsity soccer player her entire 4 years, and was a leader on that team. She’s been coaching club soccer on a volunteer basis for the last 3 years and has been an Assistant Coach at Pigeon Forge High School the last two years. I am certain that the girls will learn a lot from Hannah this season and she will definitely help us structure training sessions to meet the girls at their current level of play.
2) For those of you who don’t know me, I am an Associate Professor in Psychology at ETSU. I was recruited to coach last fall after some last minute changes in staffing. I played competitive soccer for some really good clubs in San Diego in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. I have been coaching soccer for the last 8 years and I am Licensed with US Soccer for 7v7 and 11v11. I don’t have a child on the team but I am coming back for a second season because it’s a new program and I want it to be successful. More than that I loved coaching the girls last season. They are so tough and I had so much fun coaching that I wanted to come back. I am proud of what we accomplished and looking forward to another run. Heather Poston is also back as Team Manager and hopefully that will add more continuity to the program as we start our second year.
3) For returning players and parents - we will NOT be building the airplane while it is in the air this season. We learned a lot last Fall. Here are some changes you can expect if you are considering coming back to the squad. 1) We will start early and we will be fit before the start of the season. 2) We will be in the County Division. This means we will play opponents at a level that are more in-line with our enrollment and that should make things a lot more fun for the girls. 3) We will structure practices to benefit both new and advanced players so we can meet them at their level. Hannah will most likely take on advanced skills training and I will work on more basic features of gameplay and we will both be coaching tactics.
Please reach out to me with any concerns or questions, as well as letting me know of your daughter’s desire to participate. We will have a parent meeting next month to outline the next steps in summer condition/skill development as well as when the season will begin.
Thanks,
Coach Matt
*All home games & practices will be at the CPA on ETSU campus
*Postseason TBA
*University School Fall Break begins Sept. 26