Boys soccer 2009

The boys soccer team is coached by Steve Barker, an English teacher at OHHS for 27 years. Originally from the Tacoma area, Coach Barker graduated from Bellarmine Prep and later the University of Washington. At that time, there was no interscholastic soccer competition, so Coach played when and where he could, totalling over 30 years of soccer experience. Coach Barker was also the coach of the girls soccer team at OHHS. As well as teaching at OHHS for all those years, he's also been involved with the OHHS soccer program. At various times he's been either the boys or girls head coach, head coach for both (as he is now), or an assistant. Coach Barker is truly in love with the game, and speaks of it with a passion. He likes to point out that soccer is a very fluid game, and is a sport not for really large or really fast people, but a game for athletic people.

The team last year did not see a lot of success on the field, but were always competitive and physically tough. The team had a good, solid defense, and this year Coach Barker wants to put more emphasis on the offense and score more goals. He’ll be helped on the field by team captains Kevin Flavin and David Moore, with additional leadership provided by the 6 other seniors on the team.Coach Barker is assisted by JV coach Brian Thompson, an OHHS PE teacher. Originally from Minnesota, where he attended both high school and college, Coach Thompson has been teaching for 20 years and has 17 years coaching experience, all in Oak Harbor. In high school, Coach Thompson didn’t play soccer as it wasn’t available, but he was a very good gymnast, earning several awards. As with most JV coaches, he won’t be concentrating so much on winning games, but providing instruction and guidance to the players, preparing them for varsity play. He’s looking forward to some great play and team leadership from James Miracle and Nick Jensen, both returning to the team, and his overall goal is to make sure that the boys have fun, while at the same time challenging them.

Some things you might not know about Coach Barker: He doesn’t play any video games and avoids all fast-food joints at all costs. He won’t do iPhone or Blackberry, preferring an old-school telephone instead. He can’t stand cats or dogs and had a fondness for root beer.

Things about Coach Thompson: Even after 17 years in Oak Harbor, he’s neither a Husky or Cougar fan, but a Gopher fan, he chose Army over Navy, as he did a stint in the Army as a parachute tester, he also just does old-school cell phones and doesn’t drink Coke or Pepsi, but plain old H2O. He did choose dogs over cats, blue over red, and likes to eat at El Cazador.

The soccer teams start their season at 5:30pm Tuesday the 17th in Wildcat Memorial Stadium with a league game against Arlington.