Dalmeny soccer coach Cam Houle was recently named the Saskatchewan Soccer Association (SSA) Soccer For Life Coach of the Year.
Houle earned the award during the SSA Technical and Recognition Awards Celebration, which was conducted online because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To be nominated for that particular award a person has to be heavily involved with community soccer.
“It’s more about grass roots and involvement and volunteering and developing the sport, than it is about how many games you win,” Houle said.
Houle has been coaching minor soccer in Dalmeny for seven years and the past year he was coaching a couple of teams, while organizing other soccer activities for youth.
“It was six nights a week I was involved with soccer in the valley area for Dalmeny soccer,” Houle said.
It wasn’t until Houle was nominated for the award that he realized how much volunteering he did and how much time he put in to the sport.
“With my nomination, it kind of hit me how much coaching, volunteering and organizing, that I actually did,” he said.
Not only does Houle spend a lot of time coaching, he is also the Valley Soccer Association (VSA) president.
It takes dedication to coach minor soccer as it’s all done on volunteer time. Houle doesn’t get involved with youth soccer for the recognition but earning this award is still quite the achievement.
“When I’m coaching in the Valley Soccer Association, like with Dalmeny, it’s not for the recognition, but it is still wonderful to be recognized, and it’s something for me to look back on,” he said.
He coaches soccer because he wants to see the youth succeed and he wants to continue to see more youth be involved with the sport each year.
“When I found out I was nominated I was a little bit put off. I didn’t want people to think that (being nominated for an award) was what I was doing it for. I hope other people don’t do it for the recognition, I do it so that every kid gets to play soccer,” Houle said.
One of the main reasons why Houle can volunteer so much of his time to youth soccer is because his life partner does a lot in his home life, which allows him to coach soccer and he owes a lot of credit to her.
“She looks after the kids and the dairy farm when I’m out coaching. So if I want to go anywhere, then she has to be the one that steps up to make sure that I can coach,” Houle said. “Never once has she said ‘maybe you shouldn’t go coaching today, maybe you should stay at home,’ she has always said, ‘go we’ll take care of it, not a big deal’.”
Before Houle got nominated he didn’t know there was a Soccer For Life Coach of the Year award, but he is glad to have received it and he will continue to coach youth soccer and grow the sport in his community.