Time to get our update and what's going on at the sports plex of Matthews and environs surrounding. So that means as we try and figure out what's going on with the Division two Women's Championship in soccer, we catch up with Jay Jay. How is the sports plex at Matthews.
Oh gosh, it is absolutely immaculate. Just what a wonderful occasion we had with the girls showing up on day one and walking into the stadium, forty three hundred seat stadium, beautiful grass pitch, just almost like a dream.
That was awesome, so cool, so cool.
Has it sunk in? And how many different ways? I guess has it sunk in that you are in a final four, getting ready for a national semi final?
You know, you know, practice was practice.
Our kids don't think about practice any differently, you know, day before, it's it's our normal routine.
Uh.
But honestly, as strange as this sounds, when we got back to the hotel and we unloaded fifteen boxes of NCAA swag, uh, that's when the eyes.
Just started popping.
And uh, uh kudos the NCAA. They really really take care of the student athletes. And uh, you know, backpack and a lu lu lemon you know, fanny pack or whatever, and a hat and uh scarf and this little soccer ball.
And a brand new backpack.
Oh and the girls were just going create a speaker, brand new speaker, like one of the Bluetooth. I didn't listen. I'm a dinosaur. I don't even know how to use brother.
I get that completely.
Yeah, And I think that's when they're like, oh my gosh, coach, like this is amazing, and I go listen, this is you, guys, the ones that deserve it.
You, you are the winners, and see he wants to take care of you.
So I think that's when it kind of hit like, Wow, this is really special.
You mentioned how practice is practice, but because of all of the demands on your time, whether it's public appearances and itineraries and meals and coordinations, I mean, this is one of those high powered road trips. You have road trips in conference, but this has that extra meaning attached to it. How difficult is it to maintain your normal thought pattern, approach itinerary but it's a national semi final. How difficult is it to be yourself in a situation like this?
Yeah? I mean this you know, it sounds like it's tricky.
You just got to make sure you navigate and you get your bus driver or the itinerary.
You know. For example, on day one, we.
Went to an elementary school to have what's called a community engagement event. And it was interesting because we were prepped to read to children. So we were prepped to go into the classrooms two different you know, sets of two sets of three and you know, read some Christmas books, hand out some candy canes. And we got there and
they said, well, we're going to scratch that. We're going to do a clinic and we said, oh okay, So instead of reading, we quickly redirected to the gymnasium and we did a clinic with.
With kindergarteners and it was awesome. I mean, our girls are great with that. And so again.
You you are it's a lot of moving parts and you know, but yeah, honestly, John, practice, once we got out on the pitch, it was fine, normal practice.
You know, you got some people watching.
You know, you got six or seven NCAA reps and you know, one of the coolest things was they you only get an hour. Okay, so when you're at these these tournaments. Uh, they set the clock and the NCAA Reps it's okay, fox started, you start going, going, going, and you kind of not really ever stress about time, and all of a sudden, this person over on the sidelines like.
And I'm like, what is this a movie script or something? And uh. And it was interesting because we typically do a lot.
Of the same activities, and so we ended up playing the Red team versus the Blue team and a finishing activity and they ended up tying, and and I said, well, we can't leave on a tie. I mean, tying is awful. So we got to finish and I see this woman over on the side going and I'm like, that's somebuddy. We're gonna we're gonna get a winner here. We're going to figure this out.
But yeah, So it was really cool.
At the end end of the the session, Uh, the NCAA reps there were seven of them. They brought us in and they actually made a really cool special announcement to one of our players, naming her the Elite ninety Award winner, which goes to the young Lady.
And young Man.
There's a month's tournament as well. The young Lady that has the highest grade point average that's attending the Final four as a participant, but also has the highest amount of credits. So you know, we have several girls. I mean, honestly, John arm Or overall grade point hours I actually just got it today is a three point seventy eight. We've got like four or five kids that have four point zeros. But Avery Williams was named the Elite ninety award winner, and she had the most credit.
She has one hundred and fourteen credit.
She's actually graduating early, going to medical school, and actually.
Just got named she doesn't even know it yet.
It literally just came out, got named second team All American by United Soccer coaches. So really really special day for her for a kid that gosh, this is her first year playing. She's had three acls back to back to back, and what a special year for her to come back, start every game, long significant minutes. Named first Team All Region, second Team All American, Elite ninety. I mean, just a tribute to resilience and belief that you know,
don't let anything beat you down. You can come back from anything.
Studying biology, going to further her education, pursuing med school after graduation. With the four point zero and Avery getting the Elite ninety not the only award. And I know that you like to talk about the team as the whole and how successful they all are as a group. You had five student athletes get Soccer Coach All Region nods.
You had three get d two CCA Women's Soccer All Americans in Hungerford, Velis and Croft, And so the awards are going out to different folks in a bunch of different places, in a bunch of different ways, whether it's academic, athletic, or both. But that speaks to what you and I have been discussing all season long. That's a part of the DNA at Columbus State. It's about everyone contributing in a bunch of different ways and you end up getting what we had in the last couple of days.
Yeah, and the other awards that just came out today, obviously mentioning Avery Williams with second Team All American. Sarah Hungerford and Emma Badeaux were named First Team All American by United Soccer Coaches and so, you know, honestly, John, something like that, you're talking about those two being recognized as one of the best eleven players in the country and top eleven and that's pretty special. And what's even more special a big shout out to young man named
coach David Schuman. I met David probably about eight years ago. I was teaching a coaching course for US Soccer down at IMG Academy and he came up to me and he said, he said, Jay, I hope you remember me, you know, because I got some young kids. I'm coaching young kids now, but I got these two kids that I think are special and in a couple of years, I sure hope you recruit them. And one of them's name Emma Bideaux and one's name Sarah hunger For.
And I have that happened to me all the time. It's kind of a regular thing.
I worked for US Soccer, and you know, I always got these coaches that say they got these studs.
And a lot of time it kind of goes in one ear out the other.
And it was interesting because I followed up on these two because they were both Georgia kids, and I was amazed that this guy was actually right. And I literally John literally about thirty minutes ago when the announcement came, I sent him a text and I said, David, I'll never doubt you again, and it was cute. He sent me a picture of his newborn and he said, here's the next Savannah kid coming your way.
So you know, great stories and super proud of this team.
But I texted him, I texted Avery and texted Sarah and I said, listen, regardless, I'm super proud of your individual accomplishment, but ultimately, please remember it's team first. That's our mantra. And you wouldn't be where you are today without your teammates. So make sure tonight at dinner you thank your teammates and you let them know that this individual award is not going to change your behavior, change who you are. And we got to go out tomorrow and get a result.
You know, So that would be the class of twenty forty six.
If I'm still coaching that, I'll probably be in a wheelchair.
You know, you can see with the megaphone and just like you know the way that you're on the sidelines and have another folks to it. But yeah, Emma with her time coming out of Saint Vincent's and Hungerford coming out of the hill, and we've seen both of those
programs grow in their different classifications. But once again It speaks to where you find folks and where the sport grows and where it's growing from here in the state of Georgia and in the southeast, because as much as it could be Saint Vincent's or the Hill, it could be Vidalia, could be Northwest Georgia with what's going on up there the mountain region and how they're growing, and folks are reaching out to you because I venture to say that you know, what kind of a mentor you
can be, how they can continue to get better and they're in an environment where they can learn, they can grow, and you can learn and grow just as much as well with this next generation and this next class that's coming through. In that case, yeah.
John, I tell every recruit that sits in my office, you know, but please don't come to Columbus State unless you're willing to be coached. And I think that's just what we do. We want to coach kids, we want
to develop and and we want to give information. And we hope that if you're coming to our university, you're open minded, you're you're willing to accept the information and and a lot of times I say it like this, you know, accept the information disregard the tone, because again, sometimes coaches have a very very sharp tone and they kind of sound like they're mad. But oftentimes we try and project our voice because we've got to get it
all the way across the field. Yes, but but no, we we tell kids all the time, like, if you're not interested in receiving feedback, please don't come here, because feedback is a major component of what we do. We're very solution based. We're very uh, you know, we want we want kids to not only you know, grow every day, but they are going to get better if they put in the extra work.
When it comes to the extra work involving a national semi final, how much when did studying start for you and the staff and when did studying start for the players from the information that you guys took from the top level and wanted to bring to the rest of the rest of the group.
Yeah, so as soon as we won the game last week against West Florida, it started pretty much that minute, and we were able to watch the Minnesota State versus Grand Valley fixture and we were able to go back and do all of our scouting early on in the week. One of the trickiest components and again the modern nature as a crazy way of getting in the way of some things. We did have a considerable amount of rain this week, so we weren't able to be out on the field as much as.
Maybe we wanted. But we're hoping that that could be a good thing in the end.
Our last practice on Tuesday out on the pitch and uh, it was a soaking, soppy, wet just mush. But but you know, long story short, you know, we are who we are at this point. We would prefer to dictate play. We'd prefer to have teams kind of adjust to us, so to speak. And and I think ultimately that's the message is.
You know. I was telling one of the site.
Reps, a good buddy of mine today, you know, Gary at wind Gate, and and I just said, you know, Gary, we are who we are. We're going to play the same way we've always played.
We we we.
Want to dictate things. We want to keep the ball, we want to open players up, and we want to find little half spaces and scenes and and we want to go at you. And heck, if if we lose six to five, I'm happy we scored five goals, you know. And again we might give up a lot of goals, but I love scoring goals, and uh, you know, I think the challenge to our group was, you know, last game against West Florida John was the first time all year we had been shut out, and so the message all.
Week has been, hey, that's not good enough.
You know, that's that's unlike us, who right now is the leading team in the country with cold scored in Division one or Division two, And we got to get back to that.
What are you the most confident about going into this matchup at three o'clock against Minnesota man Cato And what are you the most concerned about going into this matchup with Minnesota man Cato.
You know, I think confidence is built around a belief, and I do believe in this group.
I think kind of since day one.
I've talked to the seniors and I had dinner with them last night with the team, and I got to sit with all the seniors and I said, when when did.
You realize we are who we are?
And they said, in the very first game And when we be Carson Newman six nothing, we realized we had something special.
And so I think, honestly the confidence.
Stemmed from that very first game and just the simple belief that we are pretty darn good and we're pretty darn special. I think, obviously, if you talk about any sort of concerns, you know, this is the first time in the history that we've ever played Minnesota State Mencatta, and so we don't have any sort of history with them, we don't have any sort of rivalry that there's nothing to kind of go off of versus in previous final fours or previous competitions. We kind of knew a lot
about our opponents. We have played those opponents before, and so it's kind of nothing new for us. So I think there's that kind of sense of Wow, we really don't know this group, and we don't know the other semi final group either. We don't know Franklin Pierce, we've never played them, we don't know cow poly Pomona. So I think it's kind of a fun experience that we're not coming here going, oh boy, it's the same team that we've already played, played them last year.
Like that's kind of cool. John, I'm taking it.
As as a positive, you know, and we will be looking at it and we'll be seeing what's going on three o'clock as CSU takes on Minnesota man Cato National Semifinals D two up there at the Sportsplex of Matthews. We will find our servers and find ways to watch and have it on as many screens as possible and in as many rooms as possible and office HD and keep an eye on you. As always, it's great to
catch up with you. Thanks for dropping by. I know that there are a lot of demands on your time and the fact that you get to carve out some time with us. It's always tremendously cool to see how things have gone this season. National Semifinal three o'clock. Looking forward to seeing it, Looking forward to catching up with you on the flip side. Thanks for dropping byes. You always do all right.
Thank you, John, appreciate you.