Play Hard, Play Smart, and Play Together: Sports Philosophy at CCS

Our school sports motto is “Play hard, play smart, and play together.”  This motto has served us well over the years and has helped to direct coaches and players in the choices they make.  Living up to this motto is often a challenge as we seek to balance competition with participation, teamwork with personal achievement, humility with confidence.  We are far from perfect, but having a vision of teamwork, thoughtfulness, and effort is helpful at every game and practice.

While I am so grateful for all the parents and staff members who have contributed as coaches over the years, I want to highlight the effort of one special coach in particular.  Tara has been coaching soccer at CCS for many years.  First with her son, then with her daughter, and sometimes when neither of her kids were on a team, Tara has been a consistent and expert coach.  She is always uplifting and constructive.  She never settles for less than everyone’s best effort, but also never stops building up every player’s confidence and self-esteem.  She builds confidence not through shallow or false praise, but through building skills that also translate into real success on the field.  She celebrates every accomplishment, whether it be a championship goal or just being in the right position while the ball is downfield.  Tara is in every way the epitome of what I want in the CCS sports program.

Tara’s commitment to the athletes of CCS is something I will always be grateful for.  I have learned so much from her about what it means to have a team play hard, play smart, and play together and I aspire to be a coach more like her.  Go United!

Thanks for reading!