Spanish teacher Jose Mina has been hired to fill the head boys’ soccer coach spot at John Champe High school after a rigorous hiring process.
Last season, the Knights finished with a devastating 2-12 record, with their former head coach Travis Bishop quitting in the middle of the season, leaving the Knights with no leadership and with many games still ahead of them. They tried their best to close out the season with a couple of wins, but weren’t able to turn things around at all, finishing last in the district as well.
“He quit during the middle of practice,” soccer player Aiden Gales said. “Coach Johnson took over, who also coaches the swim team.”
The season was over, and now it was past them. Immediately after the season, the look for a new head coach was on. Athletic director Jim Harris needed one who would make a commitment to this team and provide results. After searching, they landed on Coach Mina.
“I’m a coach who thinks that if you play as a unit and work as a unit, you’re more successful,” Mina said. “My style of coaching is definitely more organized.”
(Aadi Sethuraman)
Coach Mina teaches Spanish at Champe, but he has a very impressive resume when it comes to coaching soccer. He has a lot of experience and has multiple championship rings in the state of Arkansas, both coaching high school and clubs. Mina has also led his teams to impressive wins in the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) Wide World of Sports tournament in Florida.
“I’ve been coaching for twenty five years, I have five state championship rings, and I’ve also won championship rings for coaching clubs as well,” Mina said. ”We also won tournaments down in Orlando.”
Soccer is a popular sport at Champe which many students participate in, either as a pastime or for a team. At most, out of the ninety or so of students trying out for the John Champe soccer team, half of those students actually get selected. Generally, two to three games are played a week and about twenty players are on each of the two teams, JV and Varsity. Mina has many goals for the future of the program. He says that he wants to build the program and always look at all the classes at champe, not just the older students.
“I want to start looking at the freshman and sophomore classes, and get practices started soon to train the kids,” Mina said. “That starts with building a good team this year and competing.”
(Aadi Sethuraman)
For this upcoming season, Mina has a positive outlook and wants to get things going as soon as possible. He says that after he gets his team assembled, he’ll go from there. He also wants to get practices and training going well before the season starts. The soccer season starts in March.
“My main goal is to make sure that team is together,” Mina said. “Just build the team, make sure they’re together, and work as a unit.”
