Seneca High School’s Matt Abate stresses positivity and hard work in his first season as girls’ varsity head soccer coach.
In his first year as Seneca High School’s girls varsity head soccer coach, Matt Abate had three simple messages: Work hard, be energetic and, most importantly, stay positive.
“I just read a book [called] ‘The Power of Positive Leadership,’” said the coach, who doubles as a business teacher at Seneca. “You don’t get anything out of being negative. The goal is that some people aren’t happy with playing time or this, that. You have to find the real root of the issue and be positive about it. It’s OK to be unhappy. But how do we change it. What’s our plan? How are we going to fix it as a team? I preach positivity and energy.”
Has it rubbed off on his players? You bet.
“We just want to make this year as positive as it can be,” said defender Hannah Packard, one of Seneca’s three co-captains. “The past couple of years there’s been some negativity going around and we really don’t want any of that. We just want positive energy and having everyone working as hard as they can.”
Before his promotion to varsity girls head soccer coach, Abate was the junior varsity girls head soccer coach for three years. For the three years before that, he coached on the boys team. He also has assistant coaching stints at Widener and Villanova universities on his resume. He played college soccer at Arcadia.
Because Abate previously coached the girls JV team, he’s not exactly a new face to many of the girls on the team. They like that.
“It was nice not having someone brand new to the program,” said another co-captain, Alexis Brown, who’s a midfielder. “It’s nice having someone that worked with us and stuff. But yeah, he really took it head on with getting everyone involved and talking to everyone and letting them know where he stands and he really blends well with all of us.”
Positive energy can make or break a team, according to Abate.
“My sophomore year [at Cherokee] we won the state championship, and it wasn’t because we were the [most] talented team, it was just because we all clicked together. My freshman year they had six D1 players that were seniors, but they didn’t win because they didn’t gel right,” he said.
Abate doesn’t want that happening to his team, so he tries to maintain enthusiasm for coaching and keep things fun. Remember the days of the hard-nosed coaches such as Jon Gruden and Mike Keenan? According to Abate, those days are over.
“I never got the hard-nosed coach,” he said. “I get being tough, and I’m tough, but being negative is completely different. You’re allowed to demand a lot from your players and we demand a ton from these girls. I mean, they committed over 20 something days of their summer to be here. We’re demanding and we’re working with them, but to yell and scream and get up in their face is just not how I coach or motivate. I don’t see it. And players don’t react to it anymore like that.”
Abate’s biggest key to going deep into the postseason is maintaining a tough regular season schedule. He likes for his team, which is a Group III team, to play bigger and more challenging Group IV teams during the regular season. This happens a lot anyway because many of Seneca’s sister schools and inter-division schools are Group IV schools. But it’s a challenge he feels prepares his team better for the playoffs.
“So our record at the end of the day might [just] be a little over .500 or whatever, but once we hit the playoffs, we’re playing all Group III schools,” he said.
For this reason, Abate feels Seneca was looked at as an underdog in years past.
“We’re ready for that kind of competition because of the difficult schedule we play during the regular season,” he said. “So I think when we go into the playoffs, other teams see us as an underdog.”
But can the team still be looked at as an underdog after being in the South Jersey championship two years in a row? Abate says the answer is a solid no.
“I think being in the South Jersey championship two years in a row, we’re not the underdog anymore. People know who we are,” he said.
“We’re not looking to share the conference this year either,” said Packard, referring to being tied at the top of the conference standings last year with Timber Creek Regional. “We want it outright.”
