Sarah Ducich, the 2009 John A. Koskinen Volunteer of the Year, with husband and co-coach, Don Blanchon, and daughters Ella (left) and Josie
Mike McNamee, DC Stoddert Soccer’s 2007 Volunteer of the Year, introduced this year’s winner, Sarah Ducich, at the Annual General Meeting and Awards Ceremony December 9, 2009. Read his remarks below. Click HERE for a full report on the 2009 winners:
It’s a real honor to be asked to present this award to one of the most dedicated of Stoddert’s many dedicated volunteers, someone who believes deeply in the value of youth soccer and works like crazy to bring youth soccer to hundreds of kids – my co-commissioner, friend, and role model, Sarah Ducich.
Now, this is called the “Volunteer of the Year” award – but the fact is, no one ever earns this award in just one year. The Volunteer of the Year is usually someone who started out tying shoelaces and handing out orange slices long ago, and has spent many years patrolling the sidelines, pushing a paint wand, and sending out 1 a.m. emails. That pretty much describes Sarah’s history.
Sarah and her husband, Don Blanchon, were soccer players in their youth, and they brought their love of the beautiful game to Stoddert in the spring of 2000, when their older daughter, Ella, was a kindergartner and joined the Coed Space Aliens. In the fall of 2003, there were just two girls left on the Space Aliens, so Ella and her friend insisted that Sarah and Don form a girls-only team. But here’s the twist – even as they rounded up girls for the Eagles, Sarah and Don kept coaching the Space Aliens.
Younger daughter Josie joined the Blue Dragons in 2004. The Blue Dragons were a rare beast – a real coed team, with 7 girls and 7 boys as late as U-10. Then Sarah and Don split them into two teams. And, of course, kept coaching both teams. So – two daughters, four teams.
When you have that many teams, your Saturdays can be a scheduling nightmare. Sarah came up with a simple strategy to get the time slots she wanted – just bribe the commissioners by taking on all the nasty jobs that they needed done. So she ended up laying out fields in the dark or making the 6 a.m. run to check on field conditions. Eventually she realized that she could get the same result with less mud by simply volunteering to do the schedules herself, which she started with Josie’s division.
My first encounter with Sarah was in the spring of 2007, when I was GU-14 commissioner and Sarah had just taken on scheduling GU-13. We were sharing Hearst, and so we started shooting emails back and forth, juggling time slots and trading favors. (I checked the other day, and I have more than 5,000 emails to or from Sarah in the last two years.) I couldn’t believe the energy and the organization of this person, whom I had never met, but who seemed to work at all hours and to pour incredible attention into getting all of her match-ups and schedules just right. As it turned out, we needed every ounce of that energy, because that was the season when Stoddert experimented with the DC Scores middle school program, which brought in several teams with lots of athletic skill but very little soccer experience. We basically were scheduling week-by-week, with about four divisions in play, as we struggled to get fair games for all those teams. Sarah was there all the way.
Clearly, when Ella became a freshman in the fall of 2008, it was a no-brainer to recruit Sarah as a co-commissioner for Girls High School. And, clearly, giving Sarah a title would just spur her on. Just one season later – last spring – she stepped up to help Ed Barber with rosters in a Coed High School division that was, quite frankly, in chaos. She whipped those teams into shape, made sure they had all their paperwork, and got their uniforms – all, let me remind you, while managing her own four teams and handling rosters and uniforms for Girls High School.
I called Sarah my role model, and that’s because I want to emulate some of the wonderful qualities she brings to the job. She has great soccer knowledge. She seems to know every girl in Ella’s age group, and all their strengths as players. She has a great sense of fair play and dedication to arranging good match-ups. And Sarah has solid judgment, sharp reasoning, and a real understanding of how people act and respond to every situation. She has undoubtedly kept me from killing two or three coaches … but, in fairness, I’ve done the same for her.
Sarah, you know I’m a former journalist, so I don’t hesitate to turn other people’s words against them. I’m going to share with everyone something you wrote to me recently:
“You should know that I always feel like quitting right before the season starts, with getting everyone registered for our teams AND getting the divisions’ rosters together AND fretting about our schedules AND fetching the uniforms and equipment. Every season, Don and I look at each other right before it starts and ask, ‘Is this worth it?’ And, then, we have the first day of the season and we are so fortunate to be part of these kid’s lives, if only for a few hours every week. This is a great sport and we are teaching kids to love it. Every week, they get better and I can see the fun that everyone is having. It is the favorite thing I do every week. That is my reward!”
Sarah, part of our reward is that we get to work with people as dedicated and selfless as you. Thank you for giving us this chance to recognize your great contributions.
posted by MCL 12/10/09
