GAME CHANGERS
Soccer program helps kids reach goals WORDS BY LINDSEY ADKISON
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It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when Shawn Williams didn’t even know what a soccer ball looked like. At least, that’s what he claims. “I knew nothing about it,” he says with a laugh. “Since I was 18 years old, I have coached football and basketball, but
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I was actually introduced to the sport by my oldest son, Sean Williams Jr., who started playing. That was my first introduction to the game.” But he quickly learned about the sport through his son. And Williams discovered that soccer provided both physical skills, as well as life lessons that are valuable and unique. “It combines a lot of things from other sports that I enjoy ... the running from basketball and football, but soccer is really the sport that’s most like life. The coach is not calling the plays for you to run. The coach doesn’t call the timeouts when there’s a problem. It’s really the children, the players, who are doing that. So in that sense, it’s truly an athletes’ game,” Williams says. “The coaches are really there to just observe and make subtle changes, but the game is the really in the hands of players. They have to step up when things are not
going right or there’s some adversity.” Those are powerful lessons that offer so much value off the field. And it’s why he wanted to help bring soccer to more children. So in 2004, Williams and his supporters founded Coastal Outreach Soccer in Brunswick. “At the time, the City of Brunswick didn’t have a soccer program. We wanted to be able to reach the children that live primarily in the city limits of Brunswick and also focus on helping to increase the high school graduation rate while serving these kids,” he said. Today, Coastal Outreach Soccer works with the Glynn County School System and the Brunswick Recreation Department. It offers an Academy Program for youngsters ages 4 to 10. This group meets at different locations, many of those being public housing complexes and public parks, to stage Saturday morning scrimmage games.
