by Ifrah Daber

With a new school year starting and seasons kicking off, many teams and coaches prepare for a year filled with hopeful achievements and golden medals. Through intense practice and hours of dedication that are put into these sports, student-athletes bring pride to JHS. 

However, one must remember the coaches who built these players into the athletes they are today. A spotlight on several fall sport coaches reveals their backgrounds, interests, and goals for their Red Devil teams.

Girls’ Soccer Coach Julie Deuser

Coach Deuser is a new addition to the JHS athletic team, taking over for former soccer coach Kallee  Thornton. With big shoes to fill, Deuser has come in with a strong sense of determination. She has a long history of coaching at many different schools and playing for several more herself. For example, she coached at New Albany and led her team to the IHSAA Sectional Championship in 2012. 

But now, she has big goals for the JHS girls’ soccer team. 

“My biggest goal for this team is to see the girls grow and learn the game. I want this team to be competitive and respected in the area. We want girls to want to come to Jeffersonville to play soccer. The program is going to be transforming over the next few years. Long term, we want to win games and championships.”

“I think she’s going to take the soccer program in a positive direction,” senior and varsity player Jovie Golko. She has been playing soccer for all four years of high school and has vocalized her faith in her new coach’s ability to lead her and the rest of the team. 

Head Co-ed Swim Coach Michael Pepa 

Pepa is a face many students recognize from his teaching College and Careers for many freshman classes, but he is also the head coach for the JHS award-winning swim team. 

Pepa had been a swimmer for many years before he was known for his coaching abilities. He started swimming in high school and he, like many, wasn’t the best when he first started. But after swimming through high school to college, he eventually became a record-holder in his sport.

With his 30 years of experience, Pepa passes wisdom onto his students. He pushes an idea of personal best, wanting each student to reach their potential. 

“I love Pepa; He’s an amazing coach who built me into the swimmer I am today,” stated Romier Hunter-Lawrence, a senior swim team member.

But even after 30 years Pepa has more plans and hopes for the new year, from strong talent new and old, and the addition of a new pool in the coming months. There is much to look forward to for the swim team in the coming years. 

Volleyball Coach Wesly Briscoe

Originally Briscoe had no plans for becoming the coach we all know him as today. He originally wanted to do more of a journalistic view of sports. He was the news and sports editor when he attended Floyd Central High School. He even did radio and TV. It was when he went off and became a student at UofL, sitting around one day, when his mother gave him an offer to coach volleyball. 

During the first few years of this new volleyball coaching career, Briscoe walked with a “chip on his shoulder.” He said he was coaching out of spite, but he learned to change his mentality. 

His new values as a coach are that coaches should lead by example. They should strive for personal growth and push the students to be the best they can be. 

“You could train like a tiger in the jungle or train like a tiger in the zoo” is one of Briscoe’s mantras about pushing himself and his students to train to be the best version. 

This mantra is one any student should remember if they want to join the volleyball team in the near future. As Briscoe also shared, volleyball is not an easy sport to just pick up – it will take time and practice but the results will lead the athlete to find improvement and self-pride.

Assistant Wrestling Coach Evan Myers

Myers has been coaching at JHS his entire coaching career and similar to a past coach on the list, Myers didn’t originally plan on being a coach. He was interested in journalism, which led him to become an English teacher. Since he wrestled while in high school, along with a strong love for teaching, he took an opportunity to be a JHS wrestling coach when he heard that the position was available.

Myers said that personal responsibility is a key part of wrestling.. Unlike many other sports where athletes are surrounded by teammates on a field or court, wrestling has only the athlete and the opponent on the mat. This means each wrestler must carry the win or loss on his or her shoulders. 

He added that the sport requires a lot of tough training from the strength that is required to pin another wrestler, which adds physical stress to the body. 

However, this training can pay off, for example, for JHS senior Ben Land, who competed at National Tournaments, as well as for other wrestlers on the team.

“Great pain comes with great reward,” Myers said, believing that the best way to succeed is to work for it, as  many of his students have done and have received the benefits.

Myers’s love for teaching, his students, and the sport drive him every year to push and grow the team. He has much hope for the upcoming year and for all the talent new and old that are in the team.