Bellarmine soccer coach Joey Waters (and Student Center Supervisor) readies himself to begin his first and incoming season leading the Tacoma Stars, the local indoor soccer team. His coaching career at Bellermine began shortly after retiring from the Tacoma Stars as a player himself.
Waters says that his interest in soccer began when he was growing up in Limerick, Ireland. His family was very soccer-oriented as a few of his relatives were soccer players, his grandfather even founding a club for the sport.
His time as soccer coach at Bellarmine began in 1992, as the head of the boys soccer team. Waters added the girls’ soccer team in 2003, when their old coach retired.
The decision to coach both the boys and girls soccer team is a move that few soccer coaches make. Despite some differences, Waters says that coaching techniques between the teams do not vary substantially.
His first involvement with the revival of the Tacoma Stars, as they had retired as a team in 1992, began three to four years back. Much to his excitement, the team’s newest season with himself as coach will begin in mid-November. Reflecting on his past as a soccer player, Waters said, “It’ll be fun to see how much the game has changed since I played.”
With the revival of the Tacoma Stars, Waters feels that the popularity of indoor soccer will begin to escalate, perhaps someday reaching the same level as to which the sport was celebrated in Ireland.
“It’s definitely going to be a big thing here,” he says, “and it’ll be interesting to see how it goes.”