New London is a football town, and by “football,” read: soccer.
Of course, American football, the sport with shoulder pads, helmets, and an oblong ball, has long held court in the minds of New Londoners, particularly under the Jack Cochran regime.
But soccer at New London High School closely resembles the city and its struggle, the attempt to rebound after years of losing seasons and neglect. The boys’ and girls’ teams at the high school both feature new coaches with new attitudes who are dedicated to resuscitating the long-dormant soccer program in New London.
Tom Poblete, a basketball star for the Whalers in the 1990s, moved over from the girls’ ranks to helm the boys, while Pam Stark, who comes to New London after coaching in Virginia and South Carolina will oversee the girls’ program.
Poblete takes over a team that didn’t win a game last year, and Stark’s girls managed only one positive result, but both are encouraged by the unrelenting spirit and energy of their teams.
“We have a good population of players,” Poblete said. “It is going to take two or three years of rebuilding.”
Stark, who was hired in August as a Humanities teacher, was similarly impressed by the esprit de corps on the girls’ side.
“They really are an amazing group of girls,” she said. “The team really wants to represent the school and the city.”
But there are several challenges for soccer in the city, foremost being the lack of facilities on the New London High School grounds.
The boys practice and play their matches at Calkins Park, nearly two miles away from the NLHS campus. Plans floated last year to have the team play on the Cannamela Field gridiron have fallen through, mostly because the football field is too small to accommodate a regulation soccer pitch.
NLHS has another unresolved problem—the location does not make it convenient for players to attend practices. Sometimes the school provides for a bus between the Jefferson Avenue school and the park on Riverview Avenue. But, as the coaching staff notes, if the bus is unavailable the players have to either catch rides with coaches or with other players.
Also, sometimes players have to bring along nieces and nephews to the practices, who can be seen at the playground at Calkins Park.
“It’s hard to focus on soccer practice when you have to baby-sit as well,” said James Hanrahan, an assistant coach. “New London has to deal with things the other towns do not—some of these kids have to work jobs after practice just to eat.”
Also, the team’s uniforms are hardly uniform. Poblete had to tape over numbers to avoid duplications.
Hanrahan, a former New London High soccer player in the 1980s, has been involved in youth soccer in the city and sees plenty of promise, particularly because many of the same kids have been playing together for a while.
“We have a strong youth and under-14 program,” he said. “They’ve been playing in lots of tournaments and they have become a good team.”
“That’s essential,” Poblete added. “They have to play together.”
But New London suffers from a bit of talent drain at the high school level, as some of the city’s top players attend school outside of the city.
“We are playing catch-up,” Hanrahan said.
Hanrahan said the school made a good decision in offering Poblete the boys’ job, after Stark was brought in to coach the girls.
“Tom is a teacher at the school,” he said. “He can keep an eye on them academically.”
Poblete, whose father was a baseball great at NLHS, also brings the city’s indigenous intangible: Whaler Pride. Poblete told The Day in 2004, it was “a life-long dream” to come back to New London to teach and coach.
“We want to bring the pride back,” he said last week. “This time it is for real.”
Add to the mix Pam Stark, a history teacher who has a notable soccer pedigree, as she has played on select teams in New York state and even suited up for the United States in international competition.
Stark, like so many of the people who have added to New London’s vitality in recent years, moved here and is taken with the place.
“This is an amazing community,” she said. “I feel like I was in the right place at the right time.”
The girls also hold their practices in less-than-ideal conditions, in the outfield of the high school baseball park, with non-regulation goals.
The team is, according to Stark, a mix of players who have been playing since they were 4 years old and those who never touched a soccer ball before this year.
But she credits the coaching staff and volunteers such as Amanda Illinger for their dedication to the girls’ team.
“She’s been here for a while and she dedicates herself to these girls,” she said.
Both teams dropped their opening matches, as the boys fell to Montville 4-0 and the girls lost to Wheeler 10-5.
Odds are it won’t get the teams down.
“We are going to take our lumps,” Poblete said.
Hanrahan said fans and supporters should come see the Whalers this year, then come back next year.
“You’ll see a difference,” he said.
Stark’s team is also optimistic.
Senior Crystal Garcia, a cheerleader who wanted to try something different in her bell lap at the school, perhaps stated the case for this fall’s New London soccer program: “I may not be the best,” she said, “but I’m going to try my best.”