Team chemistry is credited as a large reason for Normal West boys soccer maintaining a top-ten ranking in the state of Illinois all season.
Dr. Valentine Walker, head coach for the team, is proud of his team’s success and buy-in, but notes that it is important they realize that the better they get, the higher the bar.
This mindset forces Normal West Soccer to push themselves beyond their abilities to grow as a team.
Walker grew up participating in soccer, which has given him the perfect opportunity to coach both girls and boys Normal West soccer teams.
“Ever since I could remember, I was playing soccer locally,” Walker, who has been coaching for 25 years, remembers.
His coaching career started in Miami, Florida in 1997, where he coached a junior high team. He moved to Normal in 2002.
Coming specifically to Normal West in 2004, Walker remembers hanging out with the team and showing off his skills and tricks. He did not coach at first.
When Walker did take over shortly after, he recalls helping to lead a very talented Wildcat girls team to State in 2008.
Throughout his career as head coach, he has tried various things get the most out of his athletes, such as conditioning and weight-training, but in the more recent years, the team has also invested thousands of dollars into a GPS tracker called Catapult, which tracks the daily athletes’ performance at practices.
“When everyone goes home for the summer, we are here 3 days a week, 6:30 to 8:30 a.m., and this has been something that we’ve done for 15-20 years,” Walker noted.
He stressed, however, that with the addition of a specialized “strength” coach, more focused conditioning, as well as the GPS devices, that the buy-in from the kids is now the difference.
Overall, he noted that this group is a good group of guys who have embraced that culture. The foundation of this current team has been built over the years with the upperclassmen starting as freshmen and sophomores and coming full circle to the success they’re seeing as juniors and seniors.
Their hard work and buy-in showcases their clear dedication and how it is visible in their demanding summer schedule, yet Walker still notes that there is a key difference in this season’s players’ enthusiasm.
“They have bought into the culture and what we want to do,” Walker added. “The more you win, the higher the bar gets.”
This acceptance of this demanding culture has fostered another essential trait for the team: chemistry.
Team chemistry has been a key factor in soccer success. It has developed over their time playing together in the past years.
The harmony of this group didn’t start this past season; it has been unfolding since their freshman and sophomore years.
“We have all been playing together since freshman year, so now it is finally showing once we have grown together,” Junior forward and defender Bryson Edwards said of his teammates.
The team’s success is a result of growth, as the players were “very average,” at the start of their freshmen and sophomore years, according to Walker.
“They were thrown into the fire,” Walker noted of the reason for their growth.
In addition to their chemistry, the team is very balanced across all positions on the field.
“I feel like the guys have great chemistry amongst themselves, they by far love each other, love competing for each other, and they’re close. They hang out together outside of the field, and this perhaps started years ago,” Walker said.
The program’s values are nothing new. Over the years, they have fostered a culture of togetherness, which has made an immediate impact on the team’s chemistry.
“I would say an example of togetherness and how we build chemistry is having team dinners before big games. We always eat together in the summer and after games,” Junior defender Charlie Hanks noted.
The Wildcats will play their biggest rival, Normal Community, on Tuesday, October 14 at 4:30 p.m. at Normal Community.
The winner of Intercity will come down to this matchup and will affect the Big 12 Conference title.
“Beyond that, Washington is a 2A school that we will see in sectionals…Dunlap is ahead of us (in 2A rankings), and … Southern Illinois’ teams are going to be challenging for us,” Walker noted about the future competition.
However, just as they have all season, the Wildcats are ready to work hard and work together towards their goal of making a deep run in the postseason.
