Log in & Sign up
You are not logged in.
Most Commented
With The Coach:
Love of game passed to next generation
John Meagher
The Gazette
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Oscar Tellechea
With the Coach is a weekly series featuring a conversation with
a local coach.
Coach: Oscar Tellechea, a 40-year-old Pierrefonds resident and director of sales for Shaw Tracking
Playing experience: Played youth soccer for Vasco de Gama in Montreal and later in Beaconsfield, Pointe Claire and at John Abbott College
Years coached: Over two decades at various age levels
Best coaching tip: You’re not just a “coach.” We influence kids and who they will be as adults ... much more than we realize. Use that opportunity to be a role model. Use it wisely.
Injuries forced Oscar Tellechea to give up playing competitive soccer at John Abbott College more than two decades ago.
But his passion for the sport never waned and he is now in his fourth season as head coach of the 1997-born Pierrefonds Cobras intercity girls’ team.
Tellechea is also back on the pitch playing senior metro soccer alongside his two sons, Justin, 20, and Jeremy, 18.
What’s the biggest difference between coaching boys and girls?
Tellechea: Girls are so much smarter. They’re able to translate information and take it to a physical level better than boys. If you have a good conversation with a girl and she grasps what you’re saying, she’ll go on the field and actually do it. Whereas a boy, it has to be repetition.
Your daughter Nikki’s U-11 girls team is undefeated.
Tellechea: It’s an easy team to coach. I do things with this team that I didn’t do with a boys team till they were 16 or 17 year old.
The key to effective coaching?
Tellechea: More analyzing, less talking. We tend to fill the field with all kinds of information and the kids can’t process it. When I started, I was quite a screamer. I learned to communicate properly and let the players execute. Some of the higher quality coaches are on the sidelines not saying much. If you’ve played, you know that someone always yelling “Go, go, go!” doesn’t help.
Are they asking a lot of volunteer soccer coaches?
Tellechea: It’s ridiculous. My tutor is John Limniatis (head coach of the Montreal Impact). If you’re a hockey coach and you want to coach your 11-year-old daughter, Guy Carbonneau would come and teach you. It doesn’t make sense. It’s too much, too soon. Only 40 per cent of coaches eventually pass the DEP (provincial certification) course. If I was going to coach for a living, I’d understand. But I’m a volunteer and I’ve got a full-time job. This DEP thing is also $500 out of my pocket.
How would Pierrefonds benefit from having an indoor soccer complex?
Tellechea: Oh my gosh. How much time do you got? We’re the second largest club after Lakeshore, and we’re homeless. We don’t have our own arena, either, because it’s private. We don’t have our own pool; we borrow from Pointe Claire and Dollard. As a community, we’re in dire straits. How would we benefit? It would be tremendous. We’ve got a good core of competent volunteers. We just need to find a home for them.
What’s it like playing adult soccer with your sons?
Tellechea: “It’s fun. But I’m getting old, man.” (Laughing).