Rockvale Seniors Use Antics to Coach Elementary Soccer Team

#RCSAthletics: Two Rockvale senior JROTC students volunteered to coach a team of Buchanan Elementary soccer players. And now, the two are known for their antics on the sidelines, including wearing construction gear and doing chest bumps to celebrate their players.

The Country Recreation league launched elementary school soccer at several Rutherford County schools in August.

And if you’ve been to any of the games this season, you may have noticed two energetic and animated teenage coaches leading a team of first and second graders from Buchanan Elementary.

The dynamic duo are Juddson Jones and Ryan Prettyman, two seniors who are also JROTC cadets at Rockvale High School.

They often sport 80s-style headbands or bring friends along who dress in construction gear.

They’re loud and they laugh often with their young players. When one of the kids does a good job, Ryan and Judd sometimes make a chest bump and have the full team cheer.

So you may be wondering, as many other spectators have done, who are these guys? And how did these young men find themselves the coaches of a youth soccer on the other side of Murfreesboro?

They sat down for an interview this week to explain the situation.

Q: Buchanan Elementary needed additional coaches for youth soccer teams and so you two volunteered. How did that happen?

Ryan: Well, our first sergeant sent out a message asking if anybody needed volunteer hours because Buchanan Elementary was looking for soccer coaches. So I called Judd and said, “Have you ever played soccer before?” And he’s like, “We should do it.”

Judd: I was looking at it, and I’m like, “I have all this free time on my hands and this could be really fun to do.”

Q: Did you know the rules of soccer or anything, or did you have to learn along the way?

Judd: Well, we knew the rules, like as it pertains to what you can and cannot do. But we didn’t really know super good strategies, but it turned out fine because like, there’s no throw-ins in our league, they kick in …

Ryan: And there’s no goalie …

Judd: So it’s a little different from standard soccer, and it worked out.

Q: So here you are, there are nine kids on your team — first and second graders — and you had never played soccer competitively or coached. What was your first practice like? What was your strategy?

Ryan: Well, there were only three kids at the first practice, and the others didn’t show up. And I said, “Do we have a three-person soccer team?” But we’re thinking like, “What are we going to do?” So we just taught them dribbling and how to move the ball across the field. There were 10 kids at the second practice. (One eventually left the team).

Q: What do the parents think of your antics?

Ryan: Oh, the parents love us, right? The kids like us too. We joke around with them during practice. At the end of practice, we do six versus two. It’s just us playing against the kids.

Q: Talk about the record on your soccer team. I know we’re not supposed to keep score or whatever, but we know we all do, right? What’s your record?

Judd: Two and two. We lost our first game. We won our second and fourth. We think it’s got something to do with the hard hat. We brought the hard hats to the second and fourth games and (the kids) hit them.

Ryan: We have Randy, one of our friends, that comes to our games. We have him wearing the construction suit, and he goes over and the kids just slapped him (on the helmet) hard before they went out.

Q: What do your parents think?

Judd: My mom was really scared about it because she was like she was like, “Are you going take it seriously?” And I was like, “Yeah, I’m going take it seriously.” But she didn’t believe me. And then she got to the first game and she was fine with it.

Ryan: My parents haven’t gone to any of the games yet, but when I told them about it, they were like, “You’ve never played on a soccer team before, do you know what you’re doing? And they’re like, you know, you’re too deep in now. You can’t quit, but you got to do it.” And I did it. I’m having a blast, and my parents are proud.

For the last game of the season, scheduled for Sept. 30 at Rockvale Elementary, Ryan and Judd have something special planned. They have convinced the JROTC instructor to let them have a Saber Guard ceremony before the game begins.