Chris Hoeh Remembers Dean Conway

In this heartfelt episode, host Alf Gracombe honors the legacy of Dean Conway, a beloved mentor and coach who passed away earlier this year. Through conversations with Chris Hoeh, a long-time collaborator of Dean, the episode explores Dean's profound impact on youth sports, his coaching philosophy centered around fun and mastery, and the community he built through soccer. The discussion also delves into personal anecdotes that highlight Dean's character, his approach to coaching, and the lessons he imparted to those around him.

For more information about CoachCraft, visit https://coachcraft.info.

Transcript

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Alf Gracombe 

Hello and welcome to the CoachCraft Podcast. I'm Alf Gracombe On this podcast, we explore the art of coaching youth sports through conversations with exceptional coaches. But this episode and a number of others I'm recording are a little bit different than previous conversations. This is more personal and I'll explain why. Dean Conway, who was not just a mentor to me throughout my coaching journey, but was also a dear friend and just a wonderful human being. And he passed away in March of this year. Dean's passing was a big loss to the coaching community here in Boston and in Massachusetts and even more broadly. And I wanted to honor Dean and his legacy by capturing through conversations with some of the people that knew and worked with him and the times they shared with him and the influence he had on their lives and their journeys as coaches. Dean, as you'll hear in these conversations,

was an exceptional coach and uniquely an exceptional coach of coaches. He had the gift of being able to convey knowledge, whether you were a coach or just starting out or one with decades of experience. Regardless of who you were, you'd walk away from any conversation with Dean or any coach training session of his, not just smarter about coaching, but truly inspired and enthusiastic about getting out on the field with young players.

and making an impact in their lives. From the professional levels to the grassroots, Dean touched a lot of people, players, coaches, and others just involved in the sport. He wasn't just a coach, he was a loving family man, a loyal friend, a school teacher, a curious soul, and a true intellectual. He was community-minded, people-oriented, kind, and just a really cool guy. I consider myself very lucky to have known him

and spent so much time with him. And you'll hear a lot of the same sentiments in these conversations with some of the people who knew Dean and had the pleasure of working with him.

Alf Gracombe 

Today's conversation is with Chris Hoeh a long time grassroots soccer coach and elementary school educator. Chris has dedicated over 20 years to Jamaica playing youth soccer, where he worked closely with Dean to build the U8 and U10 Academy programs from the ground up. And beyond their partnership on the field,

Chris knew Dean as both a fellow coach and a neighbor, giving him a unique perspective on Dean's impact both within the soccer community and in their shared neighborhood in Boston. And like Dean, Chris brings a community-minded approach to his work, balancing his passion for youth development through soccer with his commitment to education and social activism. Their shared values and collaborative spirit made their partnership in developing young players both natural

and impactful. I hope you enjoy this conversation about Dean with Chris Hoeh

Alf Gracombe 

Chris Hoeh uh, welcome to the podcast and just, yeah, thrilled to have you here to talk about Dean Conway today.

Chris Hoeh 

That's an honor. I love the work that you're doing with this podcast. I see it as really continuing the work that Dean did. And it's great to see that DNA infusing so many of us.

Alf Gracombe 

Very much. yeah, Dean, Dean's imprint is very much on this, ⁓ this, this endeavor. And so yeah, actually, so let's talk about Dean. You know, actually, I met you and Dean at the exact same time. It was when my son was entering.

the Jamaica Plain Youth Soccer Academy And I think you and Dean had a pre-season meeting that you hosted. And I think I met you there. And then I really got to know you guys out on the field as you and Dean were the two coaches at the time. I think it was like a lot of kids registered that season and I think you had like 60 or so kids and just the two of you were coaching that. So immediately you guys earned and gained my respect just from the sheer

volume of kids that you were coaching and that's when I got involved and we got to start working together. So that's my introduction to both you and Dean at the exact same time, but you knew Dean, your history goes back much longer. Can you talk a little bit about when you met Dean and what

Chris Hoeh 

Yeah, sure.

I met Dean playing pickup hockey at a local rink and

we ended up carpooling. And I learned about the soccer camp that he was had at the Park School nearby and they were looking for coaches. And so I got to coach the youngest, the first and second grade kind of age with his guidance. And I had the index cards and I, and we were on the same wavelength from the beginning. And, and that was just, ⁓

great experience He's one of the kindest people I've ever met. That really is, I was thinking about, that's what infuses his whole approach. It was human-centered. And he loved this game, I loved this game, because it's a game where people can express themselves. And where it's...

from everywhere in the world. So I met him there and then he recruited me to be on the board of Jamaica Plain Youth Soccer As it was...

Alf Gracombe 

So

he recruited you. don't think I knew that.

Chris Hoeh 

Yeah,

because I did a season when my son was, I think, in second half of kindergarten, and it was a rec program at that point, where there were teams, and there were hockey-sized goals, and kids on the side with goalies first, six and seven-year-olds, and wrangling kids on the sideline.

maybe practicing once a week. I said, this doesn't make sense to me. And Dean said, we pulled together. And that summer, we worked together. And he was a quiet guide for bringing really what is the highest level of youth soccer development coaching.

Alf Gracombe 

And so prior to this time, it safe to say you'd never coached kids before? I know you're a teacher, but you hadn't.

Chris Hoeh 

Well, yeah,

professionally, I was a second grade teacher with a progressive school, very developmental approach. And I played soccer my whole life, and loved the game. Played a lot of pickup soccer, and I loved it. And then,

I had coached, I directed the program, for Jamaica Plain Children's Soccer and introduced the idea of just having kids, every kid having a ball and then all these just sort of fun activities where they, know, okay, kick the ball to that tree and dribble around me, give the ball.

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm.

Chris Hoeh 

pass the ball to me and I'll throw it over my shoulder, go get it, bring it back. I'd already coached at the Park School before my child was born. I had several summers where I worked with him.

Alf Gracombe 

Okay.

Chris Hoeh 

And so I had

a foundation in that. And then we would go carpool to hockey and we'd talk about soccer. We talked about the world also, and so he had such a way of being that was about humanity. And so we talked about what is going on. That was very troubling.

and what was bringing people together. And that overlap was, you that embrace of everyone was part

Alf Gracombe 

Yeah. Well, you said

a moment ago, Dean was really, even though we were talking about sports, you know, soccer specifically, and I know he was involved in other sports, know, squash and hockey and the like, but I think what you've said, I 100 % agree with, and that's been my experience with Dean as well. It's like this very kind of human centered orientation to, to sports. He was always looking at it through the lens of,

the experience that the kids were having, what's developmentally appropriate. yeah, he was just always a human being first and a coach second, or they were both part of the same person.

Chris Hoeh 

Yeah, and I went to, like, they brought the goalie coach for for Ajax and the Dutch national team, to do a weekend seminar where it was all done Socratic method, which has made sense to me. And so, and it was always about, you should always

cherish these children. Now they're children. That's the first thing. They're children. And the soccer is a perfect game. Because all you need is a ball.

You can do things with a ball before you can do things with your hands. And with repetition, you

develop these skills and then when you get together with other children you get to have it you're always challenged you have these natural challenges when done right it's also a game that's creative it's not a game where you're following directions so a child

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm.

Chris Hoeh 

when they get the ball and they get to run free, you know, with other kids.

they can be so joyful when adults stay out of the way.

Alf Gracombe 

Yeah, so let me come to then, okay, so I'm gonna tie this a little bit to my own narrative or story, but I met you and at the same time, roughly 11 years ago now. But between that time when you first met Dean and when my son entered the U8 Academy program,

What had you learned from Dean? You'd been working alongside him in building out this Academy model at Jamaica Plain Youth Soccer Can you kind of fill in some of the gaps for me, both in terms of what you were doing in JPYS specifically, but also what you were learning in your work alongside Dean?

Chris Hoeh 

Sure.

Well, I think that our approach safe, fun soccer was that's the first, everything should be safe, should be fun, because that's kids should have fun. There are many, he would say, soccer's not the only thing to do. There are so many things, ⁓ activities, and that's fine if kids want to do that, but when they're here, we're going to have an experience with the ball.

So there are a few, first of all, so first was that focus on technique, getting mastery of the ball using all surfaces of both feet. And then...

putting that into the context of 3v3 or 4v4 games.

That's the model. Activities that are fun, engaging, quick, switching between things with enthusiasm, no laps, no lines, no lectures. And then during the games, he said, know, what the coach controls with the leader, we call our activity.

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm.

Chris Hoeh 

our academy field volunteers, activity leaders, that was Dean's name, not coaches, because that brings into mind, like, so, and really to see themselves that way. ⁓ And so then after doing all this, every kid with a ball, then during the games, he would say, what do coaches have control of?

Alf Gracombe 

Not coaches, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Chris Hoeh 

time, space, ⁓ and problems that you can set for the players. Yeah, they can do it. Yeah, so, and I would say just stepping back to the technical side, all surfaces of both feet,

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm like the conditions that you're setting on the field. Yeah

Chris Hoeh 

We call those requests.

during the technical side, all surfaces of both feet are the different requests. We never have demands of right? That's also, yeah. Yeah, Dean was very specific about his words. Soccer practice, yeah, it is always an invitation for children to come to practice.

Alf Gracombe 

⁓ That's a very specific word.

Ooh, talk about that, yeah.

Chris Hoeh 

We wanna make it so much fun that they drag their parents out the door when it's raining or snowing, but they don't have to do this. It's not a commitment. there's no pressure associated with this. We think about this as play, work. Work is mediated by adults or someone else telling you, and for...

kids this age, there's a lot of that in school necessarily. There's work that gets done. But when they're on the field, it should be play. It should be in the imagination. They should dream about it. They should be so engaged. we're activity leaders. We make requests. And I worked with him on this language of

we try to teach, not talk. So instead of telling kids to like say spread out, you change the conditions. You put goals on the corners. Or instead of telling children not to kick it, just kick wildly, you say, well if you kick the ball out of bounds, it's a goal for the other team. ⁓

Alf Gracombe 

So

creating rules and conditions that will encourage or, to use your phrase earlier, invite players to play a different way or solve problems a different way, but to not explicitly directly be saying, this, do that.

Chris Hoeh 

Yang.

Yeah,

and those are the conditions. He really remarked

on the value of children solving these problems without any adult direction. So when the ball's in play, you don't talk. When it goes out of play, you might say something, but really brief. ideally, it's Socratic.

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm.

Chris Hoeh 

and another innovation that he initiated over 20 years ago was with our young kids, you can kick the ball in or dribble it in. We don't do throw-ins. The ball's on the ground. The FA just initiated that. And he would say, everything we do, ask us questions about. Because we're...

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Hoeh 

It's sort of like Gandhian approach, like it's a dialectic, it's an experiment.

Alf Gracombe 

Well, let me, let's actually spend a little time on this because you've talked about these, these things you're doing as a coach with the players and how to frame the experience, how to make it developmentally appropriate, how to make it developmentally effective and also how to empower kids and have them, you know, want to show up and play rather than say, be there at this time to do that. But Dean, and this is where I think you and I certainly very much value and felt.

know, Dean's influence in our own approach to coaching what we learned from him. But what did he do as a coach of coaches, right? As a trainer of coaches to help people both understand these things that I think, you know, we sit here and talk today and it's like, we're never going to argue these things. Like we, we, we've seen it. We've experienced it ourselves.

We kind of understand it and we're on board with it. know, these are practices or approaches, methodologies that are tried and true and have been used in Europe and other, you know, soccer crazy countries, more so than the U S for sure. But how did Dean, how did you understand or see what he did in his training of coaches to then impart

these approaches to them. Some of them, you know, brand new coaches, maybe they just want to help volunteer in this community grassroots program like Jamaica Plain Youth Soccer Not a lot of soccer experience, but how did he get them to understand this stuff?

Chris Hoeh 

Well, he kept it simple. He said, doesn't take a rocket scientist to do this. so in work, in sessions, kept it simple. He set things up really very clear directions for what he was doing and why. So he could...

calmly like lay this out and say this is the type of for beef this is why We're gonna try for me fight for see what happens And then we're changed when we change this What problem that we just added? ⁓ very much soft-spoken Writing and going in education we talk about

Alf Gracombe 

Hmm.

Chris Hoeh 

just be called backwards design or, you know, start with what is your ultimate big goal? And then how do these principles and then how does everything build toward that? Nothing should conflict with that and how it builds toward that. And he would help. He was a role model. That's where the great gift that we had was we got to see him on the field. And then what for me, I also got to

as I followed a group of kids through U14, I'd see something happening in a game. And he would, by the way, he would say, game is, the purpose of games is to figure out what you need to do in practice. At practice. You're quiet, you're, you know, you have every kid play every position, you kid, everyone plays.

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that that maxim. Yeah

Chris Hoeh 

is roughly about the same amount of time. then, and then you, you we saw that. And I can see it in your son's play. And I can see it in all of these children that even as early as second grade, they're starting to do these things, making these decisions.

He also had a very clear methodology or practice for creating a session where kids didn't have to wait.

Alf Gracombe 

Yes.

Chris Hoeh 

In

the point, like for instance, we will set up fields using one color cones outside and then drop cones in the middle if we're gonna do an activity called gates. We might have three fields next to each other, little fields where at the end of the second half of our practice they're gonna be playing 3v3. We've dropped pinnies

at each end. We've got the balls out there. They play. And then, okay, it's time to get a water break. We got a water break and then come back and we do, by the way, sorry, let me step back. So he would set, we set up the fields and we have different color cones and different shapes, often different shape cones and

and then it's all about removing. We're never waiting. We're never having kids say, okay, I gotta drop these cones down so that you will, we're gonna do this thing. So it's all, we move through it.

Alf Gracombe 

Right.

I think this is the one of the

First or most important things I learned from Dean was the importance of preparedness as a coach or an activity leader. And it starts before the practice begins. the field set up just that alone, like, you know, when, you know, back in the day, like Dean was out on the field and he would be the first one out there. First of all, he'd show up, I think about a half hour before practice starts and he's already out there on the field dropping.

cones. And you know, he taught me like instead of walking like little things, right? Like don't walk forward, drop the cones, look backwards so you can see what the previous cone is that you dropped so you can actually line it up. Dean would just drop these beautiful fields and like, I don't mean to geek out about it, but it like, you know, it looked like the runway at Logan Airport how precise the cone dropping was. And so this day I still do that. And it's so important. And not just, yeah, that, but then the idea of what you need, the moving parts during that, whatever it is, seven,

Chris Hoeh 

Yes.

Alf Gracombe 

75

minutes of practice you have.

minimizing transition times, using water breaks to reconfigure the field, but it's all mapped out ahead of time. And it's all in the service of getting the kids, you know, as much time on the ball as they can get and like preparedness like that. And he wasn't like, like necessarily like militant about it, but he was vigilant about it. And he would, you know, say how important it was that he was so right about that. And yeah, I know you

Chris Hoeh 

Absolutely.

Alf Gracombe 

experienced that similarly.

Chris Hoeh 

Yeah. I also

think that the way we drop the cones is flexible. So we don't use goals for the first and second graders like with nets. We use the pointy cones and we put four at each end, two on, know, a stack, two. So then, ⁓ then magically now they can become

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm.

guess, yeah.

Chris Hoeh 

for targets or for whatever. And we realized that you can't expect people to be.

Alf Gracombe 

two can be come four. Yeah. ⁓

Chris Hoeh 

create their own practice plans with the younger kids. And I would say almost throughout. So we provide, and back in the day, I would write these three pages on paper, I don't know if you remember that, and which referred to another document which you brilliantly put online, so we have a manual, but we have that.

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm.

yeah.

Chris Hoeh 

So in advance, they have its bullet points of activities. We do a training, a preseason training where we introduce all of the activities basically. then, so then, then, cause you're going to repetition, yes. And that was a big thing. Repetition, fun, but repetition. Another, I would say, principle we had in this,

related as a teacher was challenging children. Not around results, but with fast feet, know, moving the ball back and forth. How many can you do in 30 seconds or 20 seconds? How fast can you get to 20 touches? And celebrate. Keep track of it for yourself. And then...

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm.

Chris Hoeh 

It was very, at the youngest age, it's about what we call dribbling the ball, manipulating the ball with both feet. It's not passing so much. It's not playing, being a good team member, you should be ethical, but it's not pass the ball to Johnny because Johnny hasn't touched the ball. It's...

Alf Gracombe 

It's all mastery, yeah.

Chris Hoeh 

What challenges can you, appropriate challenges. In education we call it differentiation. So the activity leader can, when they do an activity, they can kind of give extra challenge or support. And when we play the game

we endeavor always to put kids of similar ability experience level together because we don't want the novice to be having folks run around them. And, or what you hear often is you scored enough goals. Now you have to play goalie or you have to pass, know, whatever. So that we're

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Hoeh 

always about challenge, not results. He was, anything, dogmatic about, and he was never dogmatic, was coaches, stop focusing on results. Focus on the kids,

Alf Gracombe 

Right. I think it's, yeah, the thing I learned from Dean is like, you do want to focus on results, but the result is not necessarily the score line, right? It's like, what are you seeing show up on the field? The importance of observation as a coach, watching where the kids are developmentally, like what are the things they need to work on? Where are they being successful? And then orienting your training, you know, from that point forward in the season around that, rather than, ⁓ we lost three, two this past weekend.

So we gave up two soft goals, like let's go work on defending. That's not the takeaway there.

Chris Hoeh 

Yeah, so

I remember it was a U-10 game and the kids were leading at halftime and then some child was in goal and another team scored and a couple goals and someone passed a ball across the front of their goal mouth and I said, and the other team scored and I was like, that was great because they probably learned not to do that.

And then if we were winning by, if we played a game where we were beating a team, and that is what ended up happening. Over time, the kids got, the program got very skillful. sometimes, instead of going out to the suburbs and coming back losing by double digits, we'd go out, the team would win.

What happened to win, everyone's still playing all positions. But if we might go out and be at halftime leading five nothing, and then I'd say, okay, you can't shoot, you can't shoot, can only shoot one touch. Like here's a challenge, we can, yeah, every time you get the ball, you play back to your keeper so that you bring it up. Just to add, out of,

still respect with the balancing you don't want to make the team. Yeah. Yeah.

Alf Gracombe 

Honoring the game, but yeah, giving the kids different challenges than just

scoring or winning the game. So Chris, I shift us just for a moment actually off the field? We've all had a lot of time and experience working with Dean on the field. We've learned a lot from him there, but.

Talk about Dean off the field and just, you you were friends. I know you lived nearby. You also spent time with him off the field some. So yeah, talk about that a little bit.

Chris Hoeh 

Um, well, just, I had such a great gift to be able to go to play, pick up hockey with him. You know, we drive at at night, Friday night and go head over to this rink and we'd have like a half an hour chatting in the car about soccer, about what's going on in the world. He was very concerned about the environment, about

racial justice and equity, about immigrants, you know, he was just wanting the world to be a place where everyone could thrive. And so we'd chat and we often would come back at one o'clock because we were the last hour and it let us play. So we had a lot and then we're sitting on the bench chatting.

By the way, silky hockey player. So smooth. Yeah, just like, and the most also he's incredibly ethical. Remember one time we were there and I was building something that could really use a piece of aluminum from a sign. said, Dean was driving. I said, do you mind if we, if I throw this in your trunk? And he said, no, that's not okay with me. That's.

Alf Gracombe 

I'm not surprised to hear that, yeah.

Chris Hoeh 

know, somebody's property of the state or something like that. And I said, okay, cool. And he was so well read and he was an educator. We could talk about authentic education. Soccer coaching and this whole, soccer to him, youth soccer is educational.

And in an educational environment, you're never yelling at anyone, right? You're also trying to create a community, have a culture where everyone learns and can test things, try things out.

My experience with him was sort of so global and if you can't tell for the audience, I'm in a wheelchair. I had a spinal cord injury eight years ago and I had to stop for being on the field for the spring season.

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm.

Chris Hoeh 

and he visited me and we watched soccer games and then I got back out there and supporting you and Elise were kind of stepped up to continue this and so we would continue those conversations. The board would have board meetings in the apartment complex where I was living at the time so everyone could be there.

And he was, he treated me like the same person. He was supportive, but he met people where they were and was never.

Alf Gracombe 

Yeah. And

that's what he did on the field with kids that, you know, he had, yeah, I, this, I, I'm sorry to cut you off. just, that was, I think one of his gifts was like meeting people where they were. He would really take the time to get to know you. He did this with me, you know, we get together for lunch, you know, we were neighbors and, and yeah, we.

Chris Hoeh 

Yes.

Alf Gracombe 

We both love soccer. talked about soccer a lot, of course, but there was so much else that we, there's like the one anecdote I'll share. He was soon after I met him and he was on this, ⁓ he had discovered that it was like a nonprofit organization that was had designed these soccer balls that were designed to be, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. So you could basically, the idea behind them was you could throw them out into any environment specifically, like more developing countries where they don't have, you know, ball pumps. This was a

Chris Hoeh 

Yes. ⁓

Alf Gracombe 

soccer ball you didn't have to inflate it was already like pre-inflated you could like run over it with a truck and it would still you know yeah you could stick a knife through it like these balls are incredible and he was telling me about this program and it was partly about soccer but it was partly about you know

Chris Hoeh 

an elephant could step on it.

Alf Gracombe 

something practical for the developing world to be able to play soccer. And then he said, I remember, and he's like, he said something like, you he like, do know Sting of The Police You know, he's behind this as well. like, do I know Sting? I love The Police right? So then all of a sudden we're talking about music, right? And just, he was always making those connections between the broader world and the world of football. And...

Chris Hoeh 

Yes.

Alf Gracombe 

Yeah. And I always loved that. Right. It was, it was again, like it kind of goes beyond just this game with a ball on a field. There was to your point earlier, right. This human dimension that was, was, was this soccer is part of something much, much, much, much bigger. And he was.

Chris Hoeh 

It's a beautiful game

and following my injury, I'm not able to kick a ball around. And then I feel like the world is really in a tough place. And it was, it's tough, you ⁓ know, dealing with living with a disability and an ableist society. And I do lots of advocacy for disability rights, which is really covering.

Alf Gracombe 

Yeah, your work is amazing what

you do.

Chris Hoeh 

It's also

about immigration, it's about racial justice and equity, it's about everything. And when I go to the soccer fields on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and Saturday, and Sunday, Saturday, Sunday when our kids are playing.

It's the way the world should be. It's so beautiful. And ⁓ I would say to Dean, you built this. This is this place where children from all backgrounds and parents from all backgrounds, and I really, when I say all, it's virtually all backgrounds, the kids are playing and they develop relationships and they make all these connections.

with all different levels of education and employment and they come together. Dean saw that as soccer as a way in, you he went to southern Africa with a program that was supporting indigenous soccer programs. And he went to Haiti and he wasn't telling people this is how you do it.

Alf Gracombe 

I'm going to hit it, yeah.

Chris Hoeh 

or disrespecting the soccer culture, he was building on it. I would say, thing about that, the One Ball I believe it's called the One Ball they say, of the, send this out to all our coaches and family, donating a soccer ball to another land.

Alf Gracombe 

Yeah.

Chris Hoeh 

First of all, soccer balls will generally pop. Like a standard ball will pop very quickly. It might also take away from soccer balls that are made locally. And he loved the research, UEFA's research, and what UEFA had served by looking closely at the best soccer players.

was they played with balls they made by hand. Because they're all different sizes and shapes, and you develop that nervous system, that touch. He loved talking about that, looking at different sports, tennis, skiing, you know, what is it? And it's about, it's all, you know, so much about developing that technique in a playful way.

And then, yeah.

Alf Gracombe 

I mean, you answered the question that I was going to ask is the last question, which is just, you know, what's one lesson or philosophy from Dean that you've carried forward in your own work with young people or other coaches. And just to, I think, summarize what you said, I'll let you answer more if you'd like, but I think it is very much that is Dean.

His lens was wide. feel like I keep using that term with him whenever I talk about him. And to your point, he was taking concepts from...

different cultures and, or when he was working within one culture, he was respecting and honoring that culture, but also bringing new ideas into it. He was working, you know, his ideas around, you know, motor skill development were very much like sports science as we call it today, but it's not like he was, had a, you know, higher education in sports science or anything, but all the stuff he was talking about in my conversations now, I have a sports scientist. It's like, yeah, that's exactly what Dean was saying. And he was just, again,

Chris Hoeh 

Yes.

Alf Gracombe 

and bringing so much into these little spaces, right? We talk about the 4v4 field with the group of first and second graders, you talk about a little space, right? It's a very specific context, but he was bringing all of this stuff into that little space.

Chris Hoeh 

So as a teacher, I taught second grade for over 30 years, and I loved working with young kids. What he taught me was that on the soccer field, that for a child who wanted to be there, it was,

the ideal space for the highest level of education. In that, you could set very fun, which is self-motivating activities. And you know, it's about humor and not giving long directions and all of that. Getting a child to love having the ball on their foot.

And then if you want them to learn something, you adjust your requests or the conditions. And it's in context. So the games, the 4v4, the 3v3, are in a context. As a teacher, the best teaching, highest level, is you've taught a technique like

so a child's able to hold a pencil and write. And then you give them something that's self-motivating. And for me, often that involved like a role play, or writing something that was meaningful beyond, it's not just for me.

Those are hard to come by in the classroom, but on the soccer pitch, always. what I will miss most were the conversations about wide range of, but as a coach, is I see this issue. You this thing's going on. For example, the kids aren't,

Alf Gracombe 

Mm-hmm.

Chris Hoeh 

12-year-olds aren't back when they could head the ball, were allowed to head the ball. They can't deal with these long punts, goal kicks. And he said, well, know, eye-head coordination, depth perception isn't there yet. But also remember, what is the goal? Oh, you want us to keep possession. So let the ball run, maybe you let it run over your head and then you touch it back to your keeper or

you use your chest and you bring it down. There's so many simple activities and nothing that's like...

just an arbitrary thing like dribbling a ball around cones. No, you never have that happen. You put kids together in a small space, but I really, you know.

Alf Gracombe 

Right, right.

Yeah, you would everything

with intention with Dean for sure. That was his way. well, Chris, first of all, thank you. know Dean meant a lot to you as a person. It's hard to, I mean, these conversations are wonderful and I'm so grateful for getting to have them. ⁓ and I'm really grateful in particular with you because you worked with Dean and knew him for so long. Like I said, I met both of you at the same time.

And I'm just really appreciative of getting to hear more of those stories that preceded my knowing him. We all knew the same guy, clearly, even though we all had a different relationship with him. But yeah, mean, remarkable guy.

We miss him, we love him, and I really, yeah, just appreciate getting to have this conversation with you. Any just last thoughts on Dean before we wrap it up?

Chris Hoeh 

Well, I really appreciated your podcast and hearing these folks who worked with him long before I met him, people who he would talk about and how he influenced them. And I think a last thought would be just that humor he had, that grin.

Alf Gracombe 

Thank you.

Yeah.

A little bit mischievous

even.

Chris Hoeh 

Yeah, it's a little bit mischievous.

And openness, right? But I think it's that...

He always met me where I was. After my injury, he always would ask, how's your son doing? How's your family? anecdote is we would watch games together and his house was a crock. You could walk from your house to his house. Yeah. For me, I would often be running late.

climb over a fence. Because if I went, yeah, going around, but I go over a fence, I'd get this door, I'd have brought, and it would be just before it kicked off. Okay, glad you made it. Here's some hummus, and then we'd watch. So, such a, yeah, I'm, I'm,

Alf Gracombe 

The shortest route.

You ⁓

Chris Hoeh 

Impressed with myself that I didn't start I've been crying talking about it. Yeah Yes, no you can huh? I showed a friend of mine the my comments at the Mass Youth Soccer which I'll have to eat there was a link to and reminded them because I'd seen Ted Lasso of

Alf Gracombe 

There's still time if you wish. Yeah, it's yeah, I

yeah, which were beautiful.

Chris Hoeh 

Roy Kent's, you know, announcement of his retirement where he's just like breaking up. I'm not, I'm not,

Alf Gracombe 

Yeah, that's

not out of character for you in the way that it was for Roy Kent.

Chris Hoeh 

Yeah.

Alf Gracombe 

Chris, thank you very much. This was great. definitely couldn't do this without having your voice as part of it. So, ⁓ really grateful for that. And, yeah, thank you so much.

Chris Hoeh 

Sure.

Sure.

Bye.