Coaches do more than just teach sports; they impact lives and prepare students for their future. Head coach Daniel Browning (F) does just that. He took over the girls’ soccer team this year, after previously being the assistant coach. He played soccer from first grade all the way to his first year in college. He started coaching little leagues and teams like AYSO before becoming a teacher, and that is when he started to get more serious with coaching.
“I played soccer from first grade through the first year of college, but I coached a little for my younger siblings. I helped assist dads who were coaching. The first time I actually coached a team was the summer after my senior year in high school. I coached a local… AYSO all-star team in a state tournament, and we won it. And it really wasn’t any amazing coaching by me, I just sort of put them in the right position. I started teaching six years ago. And I was just like, ‘what I’m doing is not working out’. So then I went and checked out with Dr. Johnson. And so the coaching is actually what led me into teaching as far as a really competitive level,” Browning said.
Browning defines success as something more than just wins and losses; success to him is if his players can become resilient and support each other.
“If my players develop resiliency, I want them to support each other. So [if I have a] really supportive team and a resilient team, we can lose. I had one team that was really bad. We scored one goal the entire season, but that team never quit. And for me, that’s a huge thing because in the end, a sport is about developing things that are useful in life,” Browning said.
Even coaches have an inspiration. Browning was inspired by two college boys who coached his team and gave him a higher level of coaching than he had previously experienced.
“I had a couple of college guys that coached me when I was 10 and 11; they really gave us a high level of coaching that we would not normally get, and they taught us teamwork…and to strive for excellence. I think that it’s kind of cool because in my high school, kids in my grade, we had some down years and we would be eight-nothing, nine-nothing, by a lot of teams. But they made us see that we could be better than we are. And so I think that made a lot of us work harder. And we ended up being pretty good on my high school team. And I think…excellence begins with people like that. There’s just these little ripple effects that the kids who are two or three years younger than me saw us working hard. And the kids who are two or three years younger than them saw them working hard. And just slowly develop that idea of we can do this,” Browning said.
Browning has short and long-term goals for the team, including focusing on improving in the next game, and having a winning season or even going to district championships.
“Short term is always going to be the next game. Hopefully improve. I mean, yes, obviously, I want to always win the next game. But really, what I’m always looking for is improvement. How can I help the team improve? How can we improve? Long term, I want a winning season. I would love to advance in the district tournament.” Browning said.
Browning has a legacy he would like to leave with this team. He wants the team to be able to look back and remember their experience and how it changed them as people.
“I would like the legacy to be that every one of y’all look back 20 or 30 years from now and remember it is a good experience that helped you become the good parts of what you are. I don’t care about getting on the Sports Hall of Fame wall, or I don’t care about my winning-loss record. If I coach for four years or five years or 10 years or 15 years and all of my players look back and say, ‘I got something good from that’, that’s the life.” Browning said.
Coach Browning has not coached the team for long, but the legacy he is creating and the relationships and teamwork he is building will be evident in all the players throughout their lives.
