4 minute read
Introductions: New Coach to Kick Off Season
Anthony Tucker Takes Over as BHS Bruins Soccer Coach by Lori Just
Coaching a youth sport involves more than knowledge of tactical plays or creating team formations. It involves accepting a position of trust, as parents put their kids in your care, as well as earning respect from the student-athletes who play the game. The new Bartlesville Bruins soccer coach, Anthony Tucker, wears these hats and more as he motivates his students in the classroom and on the field.
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“The ability to come home and coach the Bruins soccer team is a childhood dream,” said Tucker who recently moved back to Bartlesville to accept the role as coach and Eastern Hemisphere teacher at Central Middle School.
“My mom was a pre-school assistant at Oak Park Elementary, where I and my three sisters attended,” he explained. “We were heavily involved in school. I always knew I’d be back in education.” After graduation from Bartlesville High School, Tucker went on to pursue his bachelor’s degree in business administration at Roger State University. He then went to play soccer at Delta State, an NCAA Division II school in Mississippi. After graduation, he earned a master’s in higher education at Northeastern State in Tahlequah by attending night classes and working during the day. He has ambitions to complete his PhD work at Oklahoma State University.
“I’m a first-generation soccer player and grew up playing,” he said. “At 11, my parents realized I was pretty good at it. We didn’t come from money, but my parents did everything they could to get to me on a nationally ranked soccer club in Tulsa.”
With the Tulsa Soccer Club, Tucker traveled the country playing in different tournaments. He said it was a great experience and he had a coach that played alongside the professional soccer player, Pele.
“I remember being in eighth grade and thinking to myself, how do I try out for varsity as a freshman?” he said. “I went to tryouts with confidence and earned the opportunity to play as a freshman.” After playing out his four-year career, he went to play in college until his body couldn’t keep up anymore. “With over 100 games a year, it adds up as you get older,” he jokingly explained. “I got hired by my former high school coach and hit the ground running since June.”
In the off season, Coach Tucker has hosted outside workouts and has his varsity boys soccer team focusing on rejuvenating the soccer community. “We are reconnecting with people who have supported soccer since the 80s with events like one we held last month,” he said. “We had a time of fellowship at the gym, where we were able to joke around and get excited about the upcoming season. It did a lot to empower my team. I was able to say ‘here’s all the people who are excited for you.’ Knowing they have that support motivates them in practice and in the game. That’s the most rewarding part.” Tucker looks forward to inducing his student-athletes to achieve his childhood dream of going to state. He knows that with competition like Broken Arrow and Union in the same District, it will take a hard work ethic that he believes is achievable.
“I bring an ability to be candid and upfront with my students,” he said. “If I made a mistake, let’s adjust what didn’t work. You need to be humble when you build up teenagers. For instance, when you implement disciple, you gotta learn from what worked and what didn’t work. All you can do is learn from your experiences.” Tucker brings a lot of passion to the game. He says he gets out there and plays on the field in practice. His enthusiasm is contagious. “When you put in a 12-hour day of teaching and running an after-school program, you gotta have raw passion to get this excited,” he stated.
In the classroom, he makes his seventh graders get the most out of his class by starting each day with CNN News. “The challenge for them is to be sympathetic to current events and how small they are in comparison to the whole world,” he said. “Students today get wrapped up in their technology, not realizing across the globe teenagers are walking from Syria to Libya hoping to get free passage.”
He shared that Eastern Hemisphere is not state tested, but it has state standards. This allows him more flexibility in teaching about what’s going on in the world.
When he takes off the teacher and coach hat at the end of the day, Tucker goes home to his energetic lab/aussie mix, Yona, and his high school sweetheart, Megan. Together, they are settling into their new home in Bartlesville and finding a routine as his wife establishes her optometry business.
“Now that we are back home, we are excited to be heading down that storybook ending where get to raise a family here in Bartlesville,” he said.
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