As a popular soccer coach retires, he sits down with his family to reminisce about his love of the game.
By: Melissa Hayes
Sitting on their living room couch with their daughter, Meg, close by in a recliner, Joe Ferrara and his wife, Julie, recalled 15 years of soccer memories.
Showing off team photos of her children through the years, Ms. Ferrara remembered how soccer played an important role in her family.
"It was a way that our family bonded," she said. "I think it just put our family together in a really unique way."
Mr. Ferrara is retiring this year after coaching 15 recreation soccer seasons. He coached all of his children from age 6 through high school, and with his youngest son, Michael, entering high school next year and taking up football, Mr. Ferrara has decided to call it quits.
He remembers how he first got involved with coaching. His twin sons, Tony and Joey, now 21, began playing soccer in 1988 when they moved into their current home on Stillwell Avenue.
"I didn’t coach except for the last three games," he said. "One of the parents, whose husband was a coach, came up to me during a game and asked me to coach. I was basically shouting from the sidelines as it was," Mr. Ferrara said.
Mr. Ferrara thought last year would be his final year coaching. But despite his children’s involvement in other sporting events, they still wanted to play soccer, so he gave it one more year, he said.
Mr. Ferrara has always loved soccer.
"I played throughout high school and several years after high school we had what we called a sandlot team," he said.
His six children shared his love of the game and he’s been coaching ever since those three games in fall of 1988.
"Soccer just took off for our family," he said.
He said that it’s a sport that allows everyone to get involved and that’s why his family likes it so much.
"Sooner or later everybody gets to touch the ball," he said. "Everybody’s involved eventually."
Mr. Ferrara has many memories of his time as a coach. His children, who walked in an out of the room during a Monday night interview, had even more.
Family memories told stories of concussions, broken arms, freezing on the sidelines during late season night games, and winning a championship.
Mr. Ferrara remembers the year he was able to get four of his children on the same team, and his wife remembers the years when they weren’t as lucky and Mr. Ferrara had to coach two teams.
Although he can’t think of a favorite game he has fond memories of several that he played in himself his favorite team was in 1999.
"The league was highly competitive that year and Tony and Joey, being teammates, had so many friends and they all wanted to jump on Mr. Ferrara’s team," Ms. Ferrara said.
The team made it to the finals that year but lost to a team with two high school varsity soccer players and three college students on it, Mr. Ferrara said.
After that, he said stricter guidelines were put in place so that the seventh through 12th grade teams were on equal ground.
Mr. Ferrara and his son, Tony, remembered many games played on field two at Sondek Park.
"If we won the coin toss we wanted to defend the down hill goal first," Mr. Ferrara said.
Field two is on a hill, with one goal about four feet lower than the other. The team would be down points because they would be playing up hill during the first half of the game, but would recover in the second half because they were playing down hill while their opponents were struggling up the incline, he said.
Tony remembers when balls would go into the woods and the game would be put on hold for 10 minutes while someone went to recover them.
His daughter, Meg, a high school sophomore, remembers her father as the screaming coach who argued the ref’s calls.
Mimicking a referee, she pointed to a spot on her shirt where a referee would keep a yellow card. "Joe, don’t make me do it," she said the referee would tell him.
His wife said that if they ever named a field in his honor it would be "Screaming Joe Field," because that was what he had a reputation for.
"I never yelled at a kid," he said, explaining that his reputation was gained by screaming instructions and advice, or arguing with referees.
Despite his reputation, he was one of the most popular coaches around, his family said.
"He became a really popular coach because he got results and he always had fun at his practices," Ms. Ferrara said. "He had little games he played that he must of learned along the way."
It seems fitting though that Mr. Ferrara is remembered as a vocal coach, because yelling on the sidelines is how he was first asked to coach, his wife said.
His daughter, Liz, who just graduated from high school, played defense on the team last year, but she would help shout out instructions and advice also.
"She was my on field coach, next to me, she’d be the next one out (for arguing calls)," he said.
Although he is not throwing a retirement banquet, Mr. Ferrara plans on inviting past players to his home for pizza and dessert, an end of the season tradition.
"I would always bake the dessert," he said adding that the cupcakes would always be transformed into soccer balls and sheet cakes into soccer fields.
Even though he is done coaching, he plans to continue playing.
"I just played a sandlot game, my son (Steven) invited me down to play with him," he said.
"Maybe he’ll have more time to play now," Ms. Ferrara said. "Or maybe he’ll ref, I think he’d make a really good ref."
Mr. Ferrara looked at her smiling, shaking his head.
"There’s just been so many memories," he said.