Soccer Playing Girls Wanna Have Fun
Alison Foley 鈥�92, the woman at the helm of the powerhouse Boston College Eagles Division I women鈥檚 soccer team, is clear on where she stands on the topic of fun and games.
鈥淕ames are fun,鈥� she says 鈥� something she emphasizes in a just-released book she coauthored with Mia Wenjen, . The statistics are clear: girls鈥� participation in sports drops radically over the course of their youth. Of 100 girls who play a sport in elementary school, only two are still playing in college. Girls are six times more likely to drop out of sports than are boys.
The antidote to that dropout rate, says Foley, is 鈥渒eeping it fun.鈥� Girls are social beings by nature, and the way to keep them engaged is to celebrate not just the victories, but also other accomplishments like mastering skills 鈥� and even birthdays. If coaches can develop the right trust-based relationships with players, viewing them as whole human beings and not just athletes, and nurture the chemistry on their teams, the girls they work with will be more likely to continue playing sports as they grow up, Foley and Wenjen note in the book鈥檚 introduction.
is just one extension of Foley鈥檚 work with Boston College鈥檚 youth soccer camps and clinics. She鈥檚 also developed Soccer on the Mat, a program for 10- to 14-year-old girls that incorporates soccer moves into yoga techniques. It鈥檚 taught at a yoga studio in Watertown, Massachusetts.
鈥淚 noticed a lot of injuries in kids who play soccer. Knee injuries, strained groins, Achilles tendon issues. Injuries that typically happen much later in life,鈥� she says. That led to the pilot program that mashes up soccer and yoga, featuring core strength and stabilization, breathing techniques, stretching and holding poses, and meditation along with soccer movements. 鈥淚t鈥檚 also empowering to girls,鈥� she says, who struggle with confidence in middle school.
Foley parlayed her love of soccer into a career while she was in grad school at James Madison University. A psychology major and soccer standout at Keene State, she was working as a graduate assistant coach while attending a counseling master鈥檚 program. JMU Head Coach Dave Lombardo, who鈥檇 recruited her to play for the Owls and then moved down to the Virginia school, said 鈥淵ou know, you could coach for a living if you wanted to. You have a knack.鈥�
She switched into a kinesiology master鈥檚 program, went on to a full-time assistant coach job at JMU for three years, served as head coach at Angelo State University in Texas for a year, and then was hired as head coach for the Boston College Eagles women鈥檚 soccer team 鈥� a position she鈥檚 now held for 21 years.
Is she still having fun? You bet.
鈥淚鈥檓 still doing what I love,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 tell people that one day I鈥檒l get a real job. This job is really, really fun. My occupation is the game that I love and teaching the game that I love and recruiting for the game that I love. That鈥檚 been a blessing.鈥�