Student-athletes are often told they are students first and athletes second, but what about a third? How can a college athlete make the time to work in order to provide for themselves when their schedules are packed with games, practices, workouts and team appearances? What if athletes found a way to make a dime on their own time? At least two athletes from UTSA’s soccer team did.
Rylee Low and Michelle Polo are not your average college soccer players. In their spare time, if any, they are coaches with Top Tier Lessons here in San Antonio.
“I’m the director of the campus and Director for San Antonio,” Low said. “I like my job. I recruit my teammates and to be coaches, so they can do one-on one-lessons too.”
Polo is one of Low’s closest friends and teammates that she has recruited for the job. Together, Low and Polo work with young athletes who play at any skill level during their “drop-ins” every Thursday from 5-6 p.m. to teach basic soccer techniques.
“We start by seeing what their skill level is and then we go from there,” Low said. “You can’t expect the lower skill level kids to do what you have in mind sometimes. So you have to improvise and keep them excited about what they’re doing so they stay engaged.”
Two athletes should have no problem keeping fellow athletes engaged in a sport they all share passion for. Though, as women who play at a DI collegiate level, Polo and Low have faced their own share of struggles as they tackle their new role as coaches. That struggle is remembering to bring their coaching level back down to a basic level and learning how to teach it.
“It’s different than the team practice environment,” Polo stated. “It’s more individualized depending on who we are teaching but it’s overall different for us, because we’re obviously used to how we play so we have to take it back to the basics for them.”
Parents who showed up for drop-ins were delightfully surprised that soccer lessons were being offered so close to their homes, let alone in their community. It also doesn’t hurt to have two local college athletes for their kids to learn from.
“It might be exciting for them to get to hang out with us,” Low said. “They’ve probably not been around college athletes at all, so, hopefully they can look up to us and see that soccer is fun. It’s just like fun to be around them too.”
At the root of this, Top Tier Lessons has been a great outreach program for these UTSA athletes to earn wages as well as turn over a new leaf and transfer skills they’ve learned as athletes to coaching. It has been an overall great way for the women of UTSA’s soccer team to reach out to fellow soccer fans around them.
“It also helps us connect with the community,” Low said. “They’re excited about UTSA, and that was the whole reason for Top Tier, to get involved with the community. I’ve actually gotten to follow a bunch of kids that have soccer profiles in San Antonio and I get to message them and invite them to come out to UTSA soccer games because of this network. It just creates the culture in San Antonio that I’ve been trying to find. Hopefully the kids will keep showing up and we keep creating ties with the youth in San Antonio.”
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