For years, the Anderson High School girls soccer team was known more for its losses than its wins. They are a team that is overlooked, undercoached, and missing the drive to compete and win. Under their coach, Jacob Boggs, the girls are beginning to learn what it means to be a team and push themselves to be better players overall this 2025-26 season. For Coach Boggs, he has history at Anderson High School. He wants to see the girls succeed and lift their spirits, but the question still stands, is he a good enough coach for it?
Anderson has always struggled in having a winning mentality, especially in girls soccer. Coach Boggs has coached in many different places but he saw that Anderson High School didn’t lack good players, but good coaching. Since he graduated from Anderson, he states “Once an Indian, you’re always an Indian and I needed to come back because I wanted to see this school be successful”. He began coaching there, along with teaching history at the school. His drive comes from seeing the girls push themselves to become both better players and make them set higher standards. Coach Boggs knows that winning is very important to the team but that improvement, not just winning, is what really matters.“They say new season, new standards. My goal for the girls this year is to continue improvement.” he said.
The goals a coach has for a team affect them by the long run. It can either make or break the team. Things like skill development, growth, tactics, and performance all depend on how much a coach has the players on the field. Negative impacts that result in a team falling apart could be bad communication, favoritism, inconsistency, and unclear expectations from the coach. Coach Boggs’s goal for the girls this year is to continue improving their skills on the field. He tries to motivate the girls to do better by separating them into different groups to work with people in their skill level.
Coach Boggs teaches both on and off the field. It is a challenge as a male coach teaching an all female soccer team. “I don’t have a lady brain,” Coach Boggs said, “Guys are just more competitive by nature. Some of these girls weren’t athletes before. They’re learning that sore muscles and hard practices are part of the deal.”. He also has a hard time making sure everything is ready for the girls and doesn’t ask much in return. “I’m the one scheduling buses, setting up the field, managing equipment, organizing concession stands, all while teaching during the day,” he said. “We don’t even have a proper practice field. Sometimes we’re out on the baseball field making it work.”.
According to Coach Boggs, the girls soccer team was first introduced in 2002. The team rarely had enough players, much less wins. Now, over two decades later, the team is still fighting to change that reputation. A freshman starter, Carsyn Spoylar, stated “I do think we have potential. It’s just we’re really young this year, and it’s a lot of new players, so I’m really hoping in the next few years, we are able to win a lot more.” Like a lot of her teammates, she sees potential in both the coach and the team.
With the current coach being Boggs, the girls might be able to finally change the losing history and start winning as the Anderson girls soccer team.
As Coach Boggs continues to coach, it’s clear that his ways of teaching are starting to show results. With the right instruction, mindset, and motivation, the Anderson girls soccer team might finally be on the path to building a good season.
