Hi Ed,
I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity for Preston to travel with Stars N’ Stripes. Preston had been wanting to go with Stars N’ Stripes since he was a little kid. We keep putting him off until he was a little older so he can go in a group that was his own age. So finally we let him go this past summer (2018). It was an effort to raise the money and luckily we were able to get a little help from a sponsor as well. To say he had a good time would be a huge understatement.
Preston came back a different kid, less dependent on me to get his soccer stuff packed, a little more self-reliant, more focused. He played soccer with a different passion than before, a different style of play than before. He grew as a person and as a player those three weeks he was away.
If I could speak to the parents that may be on the fence. I would say “do it.” It was a wonderful experience of Preston. My only regret is that I waited and did not send him sooner.
By the way, Thank you for helping Roxanna and me with the hotel in Gothenburg. We had such a wonderful time that week. Taking the train to games and sight-seeing afterward was such a fun experience.
Hi Ed,
This is somewhat of an informal Thank You, and just wanted to say thanks for encouraging us to send Matthew on this trip. I can tell by the sound of his voice that it was the trip of a lifetime and he is already talking about next year.
It was hard to send him away for so long, but not once did we question his safety or guardianship. It's not often you can trust someone enough to send your 14 year old off to Europe alone, so consider yourself VERY trusted by Mike and I. We can't tell you enough how much we appreciate you and all you do for Matt. We realize we don't have many years left with him at home, and you continue to teach him lessons both on and off the field and it really means a lot to us. He respects you and often listens to you more than us! Anyway, thanks again for the amazing opportunity and for convincing us it was the right thing for him and the right time.
See you soon,
Coach Puskarich,
I doubt you remember me, but I certainly remember you well from your soccer camp that I used to attend every summer and always look forward to. My name is Nick Lusson and I'm from Marysville, Ohio. I was home recently and found my "Coaches Dream" award from your camp tucked away with some things from my childhood, so I got the idea to contact you. It's been a very long time but I just thought that I'd express my deep gratitude for what you did for me. To this day you remain one of the best coaches that I ever came across as a player and I believe that I wouldn't be where I'm at today if it wasn't for the coaching that I received from you. When I was 11, my older brother died in a car accident the week before your soccer camp. I was adamant that I wasn't going to miss camp that week, and I still remember how well I was treated by you in the aftermath of all that. More than teaching the technical skills of the sport, you taught me to love the game and it became something more than a sport to me through that experience. And that has stuck with me ever since.
I've ended up following soccer for quite a ways in my life. I went on to play collegiately at UC Santa Cruz where I gradually worked my way up from a redshirt freshman to a first-team starter. I then went to Rio de Janeiro for a year and after getting cut at a dozen clubs I finally managed a spot on the reserves for a second division team called Madueira. I didn't last too long there (a little out of my depth as a player), and I came back to the states and chased the dream a bit more until I suffered a bad leg injury that ended my main playing career. And that's when I made the transition to coaching which brings me to where I am today, a full-time youth coach in the northern California Bay Area for the past 6 years. I've worked my way up the coaching ladder a bit, doing the license/diploma thing and all that (currently a B, going for my A this spring). I'm currently the varsity girls coach at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek, one of the head staff members of the San Ramon Soccer Club, a northern california ODP coach, an instructor for CYSA coaching courses, and a trainer for the Positive Coaching Alliance. I'm also a year into my masters program in Sport Psychology at JFK University. Overall I'm made a pretty strong reputation for myself in the area and I hope to continue my coaching career well into the future.
Again, I feel that I owe a thanks to you for helping me get where I am today. Your style of coaching and guidance really left a lasting impression on me and to this day I try to model a lot of what I do from what I learned from you as a kid in your soccer camps. You passed on a real love of the sport to a kid from a small farm-town in Ohio where soccer was so foreign in those days. I hope this e-mail finds you doing well and I wish you the best of luck in your future as a coach. Perhaps we'll cross paths on the field one day, and if so, I'd love to buy you a beer.
Thank you,