Ohio Premier Update

 

 

It is with mixed emotions that I would like to announce to the club that one our family, Co-Director of Coaching, Willie Gage, has accepted a position on the staff at North Carolina – Charlotte as the assistant women’s soccer coach. He will be working with our old Director of Coaching, Jon Lipsitz. We are sad to see him leave our club, but at the same time very thrilled for him as he takes this next step in his chosen career path. North Carolina – Charlotte is a great college program and it is very exciting to see one our own be promoted to such a level. Please join me in congratulating Willie on this exciting opportunity. We wish him the very best and thank him so very much on the incredible contributions he has made to our club. We will truly miss Willie being part of our club. We would not be where we are today without his guidance and dedication!

 

While this leaves a void, it also creates an opportunity for us to move on and make Willie proud of our continued success in his absence. Chris King has been promoted from Assistant Director of Coaching to Director of Coaching, joining Kevin Dougherty in this role. Kevin will be the Director of Coaching for the U9 – U14 age groups and Chris will be the Director of Coaching for U-15 and up. We are looking forward to the club being in the very capable hands of these two incredible coaches. Chris has been working with the older age groups and assisting with college recruiting for the past few years. Congratulations to Chris, he will do a phenomenal job for the club!

 

We are also pleased to announce that Chris Baer will be coming back to coach the U13 Green team that Willie would have coached. Chris is eager to be returning to coach with this team and be back with the OP family. He had coached this team before he left the club to work with the US Club Soccer program.   He holds an USSF “A” coaching license, which maintains our club having four “A” licensed coaches training our children. This is more than any other club in Central Ohio and makes us proud of our club and the quality of coaches we maintain.

 

We would also like announce that we have added the following coaches for this year: Carrie Weigand, Melissa Henn, Fabyan Saxe, Keith Scarlett, Joe Bonvillain and Chad Prickett.

 

Changes bring about new opportunities and we are looking forward to a great year for our club and our girls!

 

Mike Zazon

President