Bloomfield grad aims high in return as coach
By Shawn Mcfarland
Jacob Conde’s life in soccer has taken him across the world and back again.
His professional career allowed him to play in three different countries. He’s had the honor of suiting up for his national team, Puerto Rico.
But Conde doesn’t forget the moments that mattered the most to him as a young player. In 2009, he helped lead Bloomfield High to the state tournament for the first time in 30 years. He still thinks about the night that the Warhawks beat RHAM to clinch a postseason spot in front of an unusually packed crowd.
Fans flooded the pitch after the 1-0 victory. He hugged his father, Rafael, at midfield.
“I can’t lie, I shed a tear,” Conde said. “I’ll take that memory forever.”
Conde, 27, has put his professional career in the rear-view, and is in his first year as head coach of the Bloomfield High boys soccer team. He hopes to put his players in a position where they can experience the spoils of a magical victory as he did 10 years ago.
“I want them, especially this year, to just get that opportunity,” he said. “Just to experience that feeling of working hard and getting a reward. I would love to see them get some sort of payoff.”
After graduating from Bloomfield, Conde played at Medaille College in Buffalo, N.Y., and went on to play professionally in Spain, England and Croatia. Adefender, he’s appeared in six matches for the Puerto Rican national team, including a friendly the team played against Connecticut’s United Soccer League representative, Hartford Athletic, last summer.
He tried out for Hartford Athletic twice, in 2019 and 2020, and didn’t make the cut either time. His latest cut, just a month or so before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, felt like a natural time to walk away from professional soccer. He was burnt out, and while he had opportunities to play professionally in other parts of the country, he didn’t want to miss any more major life moments with his friends and family than he already had.
Coaching was always of interest to Conde, though he was unsure if he’d make the jump to the college or club level. He always knew, though, that he’d return home first.
A coaching vacancy this spring was his chance. Bloomfield athletic director TammySchondelmayer had long wanted Conde back in Bloomfield; two years after his senior season, the
Warhawks won their first ever state title. She credits he and his teammates for being a catalyst for the programs continued success.
“I knew whenever I was done playing, I’d at least come back to Bloomfield,” Conde said. “I kind of realized there’s more to life than just playing, and just because I stopped playing, doesn’t mean I’m out of the game.”
Conde wants to win. He joked that because he never got a championship ring while in high school, he’d like to get one now as a coach. But he knows it can’t be done without establishing a winning culture. So while he’ll do everything in his power to avoid a losing season, preaching morals and learning lessons matter more than on-field tactics and strategy.
So while the Warhawks are 0-3 through their first three games, he isn’t fixating on their early struggles. There were moments in those games, he said, that his players should have better capitalized on. He knows though that he can’t be too hard on them. While he’s played at high levels where winning is demanded, training is strenuous and mistakes are intolerable, his players haven’t.
The transition from the pros to the high school level isn’t easy, but Conde won’t treat his players like those who are paid to play the game.
“You still try to instill some of those morals on them,” he said. “They’re going to take, hopefully, what they do here and and apply it to life. ... You can’t take life too seriously, just laugh. You have the score, but you also have the life lessons. Yeah, you should have won, but you’re not going to win every game. So what can you take out of that game?”
Bloomfield’s players have immediately felt a connection to their new coach.
“It’s a blessing,” said senior Elijah French. “He’s been through it, he’s a Bloomfield alumni. The fact that he’s our age group, he just stopped playing soccer. He understands the era that we’re in, the problems that we deal with. We’re one big family. It’s not like, ‘Oh, he’s just my soccer coach.’ He’s a mentor to me, and he plays like a big brother role in a way.”
When he entered high school Conde felt there was a stigma surrounding his team, his school. Heworked to prove it wrong then, and he plans on continuing to do so now in his new role.
“When people hear ‘Warhawks,’ I don’t want them to think, ‘oh those guys are a bunch of undisciplined losers,’” Conde said. “When I heard that coming here as a player, I said let’s change it, because that’s not who I am. And now that I’m back as a coach, let’s start to change the culture, change the mentality and change the image.”