KANE — As the annual NY/PA Corporate Cup Soccer Showcase grows exponentially, this year’s NY Boys Gold Team coach Jason Deering is eager to see top talent put on display for the local communities.
So far, with a handful of practices now under his team’s belt, Deering, the current varsity soccer coach at Southwestern, noted that the experience has been special. To get to see what all of the best soccer talent in the area can produce when they are all on the same roster has been nothing short of a spectacle.
“It’s a pretty fun experience,” Deering said. “These kids are really good players. So, watching what we can do in practice has been just an absolute joy to watch. Some of these kids can do some amazing things with the ball and have such a great IQ of the game. It’s just amazing to watch these guys.”
To Deering, being named the head coach of this year’s Boys Gold Team is nothing short of an honor. On top of it all, he noted, his job could not be much easier considering the amount of skill, talent and leadership already instilled in his players.
“I do take it as an honor to the coach,” Deering said. “The job is really easy. When you have this kind of talent, there’s not much coaching that goes into it. I feel like I’m just there to make sure the substitutions happen and let the kids do their thing, because they are what everyone’s coming to see.”
The bond between the players, Deering noted, is important in a showcase game such as the Corporate Cup. Considering some players might not be on the same squad, for school or travel ball, throughout the year, the connections can be a little off.
However, not completely off. What Deering has found to be the best way to forge bonds between players is simply the love of the game.
“It’s made a lot easier because (the players are) so good talent wise,” Deering said. “I think it’s going to be important that we do have that chemistry and that bond, and we’re working well together … I think because they’re such good players, it kind of comes a little more natural. They trust that the others are going to be in the right positions, giving the effort and doing the things that they need to do at a high level.”
Set to captain the New York boys gold team are Olean senior Alex Linderman, Southwestern senior Jonas Gesing and Ellicottville senior Sam Edwards, the Big 30 Co-Player of the Year in 2023.
Having a high-caliber team is one thing, the process of picking which players would make the Gold or Silver teams and formulating the best possible lineup is far more difficult than it may seem according to Deering.
“There was probably a good starting 10 or 11 that we were pretty sure, coming in, were going to be starters,” Deering said. “But, as we’re getting to the (later picks for the team) then we’re trying to figure out, okay, what positions do we have … We made some compromises on a couple of those (later) selections based on some of the thoughts that we were going to try to do with this team during the game.”
Deering noted that this kind of event is something that a lot of players don’t get to experience during their careers. While some players may play on a travel team with other top talent those teams end up playing up in the Buffalo area. What makes these games just that much more special is the fact that they are now able to put on a show for their local communities.
“It’s an experience that a lot of these kids don’t get to only have during their career,” Deering said.
“A couple of these kids play with high-level travel teams, and they get some of this experience. But this is … kind of more localized for this area, so they know a lot of these kids and it’s almost like an All-Star game. So, I feel like I really want them to put in the effort and be prideful of what they’re putting forth for this event.”
Joining Deering on the sidelines are five of the area’s top coaches in Jon Luce (Allegany-Limestone), Mike Zilker (Bolivar-Richburg), Bonnie Schnars (Jamestown), T.J. Magro (Olean) and Nick Quattrone (Falconer). Zilker is head coach for the silver team.
