SPONSORED BY McDONALD’S
After goalposts, the thing you’ll see the most on the sidelines of Campbell River soccer fields is coach John Jepson.
Between coaching highschool soccer and coaching and playing adult soccer, Jepson has put unaccountable hours into the sport in Campbell River. His dedication to the game is unmatched but it’s not the sport itself that drives Jepson. Soccer is as much a vehicle for Jepson as it is for the athletes that play the game under his tutelage.
“It’s always nice to be able to win but for me, (when)coaching, you’re put in a position when, at times, you are more powerful than a parent. So you are in a very privileged position and, thereby, I use soccer, like, in teaching, as a vehicle to teach values and I always go back to early teaching college (where) there’s a quote: ‘sport is a microcosm of society,’” Jepson says. “I am given this privileged position where I am teaching how to play soccer. Equally important is teaching how to be a good person and that’s ultimately the goal.”
He often sees the fruits of his labour when he bumps into former students and they talk about the wonderful times they had and how hard they were pushed to be the best they could be.
And while his students have become the quality individuals his coach hopes them to be, his teams have also reached a level of excellence. His senior boys teams have been to the provincial championships five times and the senior girls teams have been to 10.
Jepson is proud of the “wonderful culture” of high quality soccer and fair play that has been instilled in the local soccer community, particularly at the high school level and what would make him proud is to see that continue after he’s no longer around.
Meanwhile, one of the signature initiatives that Jepson has launched is taking his soccer teams on the road back to his native England and to Honolulu, Hawaii.
Jepson has done 10 overseas tours of England and Honolulu. This past spring break being the most recent England tour. The first tour was in 1994 and went to Manchester, Jepson’s hometown.
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