He has won regionals and is a strict man, almost more strict then some NFL coaches. This man coaches his players like they are professionals at only high school level. Coach Mark Valintis, a high school coach who coaches at West Leyden High School comes from a family deep in athletics and with teaching. Mark Valintis starts us off with telling us some of his past and how he got to the point he is at now and how his past influenced all the things that have helped in while being in this position: “My parents were teachers, and from a young age, I kind of saw the impact that they were able to have on young kids growing up, and I wanted to be able to help do the same thing.”
He wanted to be just like his family, seeing that they were his role models and how growing up he would want to do the same to other kids: “influential people I’ve ever had were coaches and playing sports. “You learn a lot about yourself. You learn a lot about life, and, you know, having gone through a pretty extensive athletic career, from high school club to college, figure that like to share some of that experiences and create some kind of the same environments for kids here” Valintis explains that with his portal looking eyes, he sees potential in people and who you are when you play a sport and how he wishes to show some of those things to young athletes to build their athletic careers in the future and doing these act could lead and take all the way he did when he played in college soccer: It was my sophomore year, we made it to the plane of the NCAA tournament. “We went up to Buffalo, and fortunately, we lost, but that was our best season. He continues to say more about his college ranking “We were ranked in the top 25 minutes in the country for a little bit that year. So good memories from that”
Vlanitis twirling his finger, exhaling almost like a bull ready to attack, he gets deep about how the things you do in highschool could really affect you to set up your life:
“everything that you do in high school you should be learning about what you need to do to be successful.” “And in high school, you have a lot of help and support with the teachers in the school kind of guiding you.” “And then when you get to college,” “ it’s everything that you’ve learned trying to figure out how to put it together on your own without a lot of that support.”“So you kind of learn how to grow up to be a young man or a young woman, and what it takes you to be successful, and hopefully find that work ethic and that internal motivation to become successful.”
This powerful statement could really affect young students, Valintis explains how some students even remind him of when he was in high school at some point: “Nah, none of them. Just kidding. You know, I see myself in a lot of students here, not just athletes, but a lot of students. And you know, in some way, shape or form, whether it’s through athletics or academics or other hobbies that we may share, find a way to connect with a lot of kids in a lot of different ways, whether it’s music, video games, other things that we like to do, food, whatever it is that’s just kind of cool to see how we can share the same interests.” So
He talked about how he could see himself in some students and how he knows when the student really acts like him or shows him how he used to be but throughout, he talks about how time management could really be important especially for younger students growing up:
“No, because I manage my time well. I think when I was younger and teaching, it was a lot of struggle, because there was so much that you had to do as a teacher to prepare every day for class.” “But since I’ve done it for so long, both of them now, I don’t really have to create as much. I just have to fine tune. This really shows how kids need to focus on their time more and really learn how to use it so they could go farther in their futures.”
But he doesn’t end there. He talks about how his favorite season almost comes every year: “Every season is my favorite because I get a new group of kids, and even though some of the kids around the team previous years, the dynamic of every team is different and it’s unique.” “And we have so many good kids in here, I tell everybody you know around we don’t we don’t have knuckleheads in our program.” “We have a lot of good kids.” “And every team has been a blast to coach, and it’s always fun to see them go from coming in as freshmen to leaving as seniors, all the kind of growth” In conclusion there are a lot of things you could really do to impact your life at such a young age whether it’s in high school or collage or sports all these things could really set you up as a person and be who you want to be when you grow up and keep becoming better as you learn and as you develop on previous things you have made mistakes in.
