High School Boys

For the 2011 Men’s Soccer Schedule, please click here.

About Men’s Soccer:

Men’s soccer at Heritage Christian is different than any other team I have been a part of. My teammates and Coach Salehi truly feel like family to me. Maybe the strength of the bond between the guys on the team is due to the fact that we survived many intense conditioning sessions together, running laps, doing pushups, sweating, and some even throwing up. Last season, we studied John 15:13 where Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” We applied that to our team, concluding that each player must put aside his discomforts, fears, or whatever holds the team back, effectively sacrificing his own desires for those of the team. In other instances, Coach Salehi read through passages of Scripture as devotions before games and practices, asking tough questions about them, explaining them, and applying them to our daily lives. Three years ago, it was these team devotions and discussions that acted as a catalyst to my faith, causing me to take my relationship with God seriously and to desire a more intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Similar spiritual transformations occurred last season as well. One player specifically told Coach that, through the soccer season, his life had totally changed direction, and he was now interested in pursuing God and living a life devoted to Him. Although we work as hard as we can to be the best team possible on the field, those types of life transformations are ultimately the goal for Heritage soccer. If we didn’t win a single game last year, but just one young man made the decision to live for Christ because of his time on the team, the season would still have been a resounding success. However, though winning on the field is not the foremost goal, it is a primary objective for Heritage soccer, and we train and play in order to win. If you ask any Heritage player about Coach Salehi’s conditioning weeks at the beginning of the year, you will most likely receive groans and grimaces, as well as smiles. Our conditioning practices are designed to push the players to their limits, making them stronger physically and mentally. Though, compared to many teams that we play, we possess less technical skill, we are trained to work harder than they do, and in many cases, we win because of that. One of our team mottos is “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” We practice to be as skilled as possible, but we know that in many games, we must play harder than the other team in order to win. Since Coach Salehi has been at Heritage, we have never had a losing season and have made it to the state playoffs several times even though Heritage is usually anywhere from one half to one fifth the size of the schools it plays. The players have a blast during the season, making new friendships and accomplishing things they didn’t think they were capable of. Every player will most likely receive a nickname from Coach for one reason or another, and they will learn the pain of “Nancy’s” and the fun of “Flankenschpeil.” If that makes you curious, come out and play soccer this year, and I promise you won’t regret it.

Nathan Eagan, HCA Athlete