At the high school level, athletic programs usually endure some degree of inconsistency. How do you keep a perennially successful high school program from falling into complacency? With high school sports, seniors graduate, and new players join each year, so consistency can be difficult when you have half a team leaving and new players getting used to training norms, team expectations, and formations.
Despite most programs going through highs and lows, the Lakeside soccer program has near the top of the league for about a decade now. To be consistently good for ten years begs the question: What keeps the Lions going? The Lakeside Lions have carried out victory after victory, but how?
According to Lakeside coach Derrek Falor, the key to the Lions’ success is more about the structure of the program as opposed to the personnel.
Coach Falor has been coaching the Lakeside Girls soccer team since 2014. Last year, the Lions kept a record of 16-3-2, and the year before, 19-1-2.
“Really, we do what we can to figure out how each year we can maximize each player and student’s positive potential. We’re not the same every year; we can’t be. Our school is too small; we don’t play the same each year systematically. We don’t choose the same system, but we take a look at our player pool, and we go ‘What’s the best possible outcome with this group?’”
Coach Falor also works full-time as a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, where he meets with teams and players for mental training. He worked with the Women’s Soccer program at Washington State University for six years and even started the Women’s soccer program at Cleveland State University. Outside of Lakeside, Falor works with two Division 1 soccer teams and one D1 women’s basketball team. In his 10th year coaching the varsity girls’ soccer at Lakeside and coaching at a collegiate level, Coach Falor knows how to make his players use their fullest potential.
“In my work as a coach at the collegiate level, I think I learned drive, and motivation, and how working at something and persevering would pay off because again, coaching at the D1 level is a whole bunch of really excellent athletes, but how a person learns to execute really is the difference.”
There is so much more than just training that goes into a winning team, and for the Lions, leading from the from the front has a lot to do with their continued success.
“It’s leadership by example. We really talk about servant leadership. The old ‘carry water’ approach. So the whole program is really driven in that way. And then when it’s the right time to transition a leadership moment or something else, at least we’ve shown everybody the way.”
Falor also works to mitigate pressure on his players and instead spotlighting positives from training and games.
“We work hard to catch people being good, and we minimize when we have to point out or choose to point out if something didn’t go well,” says Falor. By doing this, players know where they succeed the most without feeling the pressure of comparison.
Falor doubles down on minimizing the pressure on his players and tries to focus on creating a cohesive team rather than, maybe ironically, one that’s only focused on winning.
“We don’t even really talk about winning.” Says Falor, “It’s about ‘are we executing it to the best of our ability’. That’s what we’re competing against. We’re not ever aimed at ‘win this title’ or ‘beat that team’. That becomes a distraction.”
All in all, the Lakeside coaches work hard to keep players in their best mindset to keep them playing their best.
Many factors go into the success of the Lions, but Falor’s method of leaning on servant leadership and mitigating pressure have kept the Lions successful for many years. One of the most important takeaways from this is how players become more successful by focusing on their own strengths, rather than focusing on just winning or comparisons.
Every year, talented high school players come and go, but thanks to the program culture, the lessons the girls soccer players learn over their time playing at Lakeside stick.
