Boys’ Soccer Team Kicking Down Barriers
By Heather Rule
John Peter had never played soccer. He still hasn’t. But he’s the only head boys’ soccer coach the Pelican Rapids High School team has known in its short history, and he’s helped lead them to early success.
“Honestly, it didn’t matter that I had never played,” Peter said. “It was… ‘how can we provide an opportunity for more students in our school to be involved in something and give them a voice that maybe they didn’t have before?’”
The Pelican Rapids boys’ soccer team in Class 1A is the smallest traditional public school in Minnesota to have its own soccer program, one that started in 2016 (partnering with Hillcrest Lutheran Academy in Fergus Falls). Participation grew from 11 to a current average of around 40 players since then, according to Peter.
The Pelican Rapids Vikings won only
three games that first season in 2016, but they’ve improved each year. The Vikings finished 2021 with an 11-5-1 record and have made it to the section champion-ship game two years in a row, still looking for their first trip to the state tournament.
For Peter, a Pelican Rapids graduate who ran cross country and is now an ESL teacher at the high school, he found a love for soccer because his students loved soccer. In fall 2014 while getting his classroom ready, Peter looked for a better way to connect with his students. So he wrote the Premier League soccer top-10 teams on the board and updated it weekly. Students started coming into his classroom every day to argue about which teams were better.
“And I just saw the passion of these kids and how much they loved it, and how this top-10 board made them to come in every morning for school, excited to be there,” Peter said.
From That led Peter to talk with the school’s athletic director about Pelican Rapids having its own soccer team. From there, Peter helped make that happen by transitioning from the cross country coach to becoming the head boys’ soccer coach.
Eight seniors graduated last year, but there are a lot of players returning next fall. “In general, we’re in a good spot,” Peter said. “Despite losing these really important guys, there’s a number of players who are just ready to step into that role.”
A couple of years ago, the
program also started a “One Team, One Family” campaign, using three languages
(English, Somali, Spanish) on its t-shirts with the campaign. They spent time in the community giving shirts to family members to let them know that they’re seen and their story matters, according to Peter.
“If I want to get kids to succeed, it’s not just about telling them, ‘hey, you need to work hard,’” Peter said. “It’s making people feel valued. That’s so important. Because when people feel valued, then there’s buy-in.
“That’s been the big driver, is this idea of love and relationships.”