Former Keizer resident is California’s best prep soccer coach
Ex-McNary athlete Joel Williams wins state’s coach of year honors after NorCal Title Win
Joel Williams had a way with the soccer ball as a two-year varsity player with Keizer’s McNary High School in the 1990s. Now he has used his game knowledge to reach a new professional pinnacle—as the 2022 California Prep Boys Soccer Coach of the Year. Pretty good for a kid from Oregon.
The 44-year old Williams was presented with the award this past weekend in Redwood City, California. He earned the honor after his Whitney High School (Rocklin, CA) Hawks defeated Watsonville 3-1 in the CIF NorCal Division I Championship game on March 5th. Williams guided Whitney to a record of 21-2-2 this soccer season—which is a winter sport in California. His team was ranked sixth or seventh in the nation, depending on which national soccer organization you checked.
In a state with 40 million people, winning the state soccer coach of the year award is an extra-large deal. Well, it might be to most folks. Joel is a bit philosophical about it.
“It means you had a good year,” said Williams slightly sarcastically.
“Seriously, we have been riding a good wave for the last few years. There are other very good coaches around here who could also be honored.”
Williams has been coaching up his Wildcats on the soccer pitch for six years, a job he took after beginning at Whitney High as the girls basketball coach for six years. The longtime math teacher previously worked at California’s Woodcreek High School as a frosh and JV boys basketball coach.
“I started as a basketball coach, then realized my own boys were playing soccer, not basketball,” recalls Joel. “It made me think ‘what am I doing?’ and so I made the move to soccer.”
Joel credits a measure of his success to his former McNary coaches. Without revealing any secrets, he praises his former soccer coach Joel Stembridge, his former basketball coach Larry Gahr, and ex-baseball coach Vic Backlund for the insights they passed along to him.
“I had plenty to steal,” he admits somewhat covertly.
He also had plenty of life lessons he learned as the son of Terry Williams, the longtime women’s basketball coach at Corban University, the former girls coach at West Salem High School, and the current girls coach at Crosshill Christian School in Salem. He says the “culture” of a program is something both he and his dad believe is a key to success.
“It’s all about getting your players to do what is needed for the school and the local community—to play for each other, and not just for yourself.”
Williams’ Whitney squad had 14 seniors on the 23-member varsity squad, so he feels pretty good about the future—but Joel has made no long-range plans about his future as a coach.
“I have several coaching certifications, and had coached some club soccer on the side, but COVID made it harder to do it all, so I focused solely on the high school team, confesses Joel.
For now, I am just taking it from year-to-year as to my future.”
With a new role as a grandpa (his son Josiah, and daughter-in-law, Kendall welcomed a daughter, Lennon, this spring), Williams says there is still plenty of non-sports activities to focus on—with wife Jenice, two boys and a daughter still at home on top of it all.
And that’s what makes life worth living.
As they say, Good things happen to good people....both for Joel.