CHS goalie Brian Roberts hauls in a shot. (John Fisken photo)
“I love everything about soccer!”
Coupeville High School freshman Brian Roberts grew up playing baseball, but a season on the pitch sent his life in a different direction.
After swinging a bat from T-ball on up, he played a year of junior soccer with best friend Shane Losey on a squad sponsored by Toppins Frozen Yogurt.
From that moment on, it’s the pitch life for him.
“My family have always been into baseball, but the one year I played soccer I fell in love with the sport,” Roberts said. “Plus my fellow goalie, Jose Marcos Castro, kept telling me to play.”
Roberts enjoys the quick pace and ever-changing action that drives soccer.
“I love the adrenaline you get when you get the ball; you can’t even tell you’re running,” Roberts said. “I love rolling in the mud.
“But honestly, it wouldn’t be the same with a bunch of strangers,” he added.
“I’d still play, but our team is more than that; we’re all a big family; we got each others backs and that’s what I love the most, they are not just my teammates, they’re my family.”
Roberts would like to get a taste of varsity action this season, and is working towards earning that honor full-time.
To do so, he’s hard at work figuring out the strong parts of his game and the areas he needs to continue to fine-tune.
“My strengths are stopping the play and getting the ball to my teammates,” he said. “I need to work on my goal kicks and ball handling, for sure.”
Roberts, who plans to play football for CHS as a sophomore, is a big part of his school’s pep and jazz bands and spends a fair amount of time on his guitar.
He is also quite active with the M-Bar-C Ranch in Freeland, which is run by the Forgotten Children’s Fund.
It offers a western-style adventure for children with a variety of special needs, and has been a huge success since the ’70s.
“They have influenced my life majorly,” Roberts said. “They have given me the skills to work with special needs kids/adults and have helped me achieve the Presidential Volunteer Service Award and the American Legion Outstanding Citizenship Award.”
He credits his mother, Heidi, with being the guiding light in his life, and has taken her lessons in to his heart.
“She has always taught me to be caring and respectful to everyone, even strangers,” Roberts said. “I’ll always be a person to stop a play/game to make sure someone is OK.”
Two CHS/CMS teachers who double as coaches have also had a huge impact on shaping his growth.
“I never had a real good father figure in my life and so Mr. (Ron) Bagby and Mr. (Brett) Smedly have been great role models,” Roberts said. “They have both equally taken the time to make sure that I was OK.
“They both make sure that I’m not hanging with the wrong crowd, that I’m doing my best in school and that I’m being the best person I can be, and I thank them so much.”
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