COVID was raging when I arrived at this school, so there was no soccer. When I finally went out to the field to start coaching, it was horrible. It was not really a field, just a bare plot of land about the size of a soccer field, covered in weeds and sandy patches. The goalposts tilted at angles that made the Tower of Pisa look ramrod straight.

Every year, we slowly invested in small improvements: one year we got corner flags, another year we got game balls, and one year we had a professional line painter come in to paint the field lines with a robot. We had great lines on a horrible field!

After a couple of injuries last year, the rector and the dean finally took the step of building a real soccer field. The landscapers removed a layer of soil, installed irrigation, and planted Bermuda grass. It is not a perfect field; it is not entirely level, and weeds are sprouting, but it is light-years better than what we had before.

The cherry on top was buying new goalposts—from England —bleachers, and team benches.

To inaugurate the new field, we hosted the Jesus Youth team from the Amoris Christi campus in Delray Beach, the town next to ours.

The game was great; we had a military color guard and a blessing before the game. The bleachers were put to good use, oh, and we won 5-1.

The moral of this story is to be patient, positive, and persistent. Make sure your needs are known to the higher-ups. They will hopefully notice and, little by little, make the necessary changes and investments. I am a firm believer in planting the seed and nourishing it until you get results, rather than resorting to more dramatic approaches to get things done. That is just my way. Hope it helps. You are welcome.