SPORTS: NPC soccer faces challenges in inaugural season,
The National Park College men’s and women’s soccer teams recently kicked off their inaugural seasons, and head coach Kevin Tello has had to deal with the challenge of overseeing not one, but two totally new programs.
When Tello first took charge of both the men’s and women’s teams, he noted the challenge of making a personal connection with every one of his players.
Now a few weeks into training and with a few games behind his squads, Tello and his assistant coach Grant Gartner have started to build relationships with their players.
“I think a huge aspect that Grant and I do every day is that we make sure we take a couple of minutes before and after training to just talk to them, talk to them individually,” Tello said. “A lot of them are getting comfortable enough now where they’ll just come out to our office during the day and hang out for a little bit or just shoot us a text.”
Beyond making those connections with his players, Tello and NPC had to act quickly when the venue for his teams’ matches against Rose State had to be changed last Thursday.
Adding to the list of challenges, Tello has had to instill in his players the idea that junior college soccer is not glorified high school.
Some players capable of playing Division I, II or III soccer choose junior college because of the cost or the academics. This means junior college rosters are stocked with talent that could one day play in those higher divisions.
“I had a lot of guys afterwards just tell me like, ‘I didn’t realize like they were going to be at that level,’” Tello said. “But after our conversations after the game, everyone’s kind of settled in and they know the level that we’re going to be at and the level we need to be at to turn things around.”
After the program’s first few matches, Tello said on the men’s side, the Nighthawks have had to build chemistry together.
“First time ever, we’re kind of hitting bumps on the road, and we’re figuring it out as we go,” he said. “And they’re kind of again, settling into realizing we’re in a special spot to make history. And I think that’s what the guys are learning is like everything and everything we do every day is to, you know, make history, whether it’s the first person to pass an exam as a soccer player or the first person to score a goal.”
On the women’s side, Tello’s team has really had to wake up to the fact that the junior college level is a high level of soccer. Realizing that increase in level, players have approached Tello and Gartner for extra training sessions.
“They’re starting to realize this isn’t high school, and I think they’re one of the biggest ones that kind of had that mindset that they were the big fish in the small pond at their high schools and out here everyone’s just as good or better,” Tello said. “These two teams we played on the women’s side have great programs, great historic programs and the women that kind of got shocked about it, they thought they were going to be in a good spot when the season started.”
Both of Tello’s teams have promising leaders and players with plenty of potential.
Women’s goalkeeper Brooklyn Thormann has been busy between the sticks after games against two quality programs in Seminole State and Rose State.
“Brooklyn’s an incredible leader,” Tello said. “And she’s an incredible, incredible goalkeeper.”
On the men’s side, the Nighthawks have an extremely promising talent in Adrian Quintero. Quintero holds experience with the Little Rock Rangers, and he even spent time playing in Brazil.
“He knows what it takes to be a professional soccer player,” Tello said. “He hasn’t achieved that yet. But he’s trained with people at that level. So being able to have him for some of these players to lean on is huge.”
Looking at the bigger picture for the game of soccer as a whole in Hot Springs and Arkansas, Tello said NPC wants the state to know the Nighthawks are a premier junior college soccer program.
In the future, Tello said he hopes his players eventually decide to stay in Arkansas after finishing their degree and then become coaches to continue influencing the game in the Natural State.
“Being able to provide the state of Arkansas with a higher caliber of soccer, and I think Grant could attest like the soccer that we played (Thursday) on the men’s side is the highest level of soccer Hot Springs has seen ever,” Tello said. “So we definitely want to bring high caliber players here and not necessarily in Arkansas but just in the country, show them that Arkansas is a soccer state.”
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