SCASA proudly presents 2022 WSASA Male Player of the Year
SCASA is very proud to present Mark Helpenstell as the 2022 Washington State Adult Soccer Association (WSASA) Male Player of the year.
Summary:
Mark is a:
· Soccer Coach
· Soccer Player
· Soccer Referee
· Soccer Team Manager
· Soccer Volunteer
· Soccer Board Member (multiple boards)
And after decades of service across the soccer community Mark continues to participate across a broad variety of roles. Read the sections below for details.
Coaching Soccer:
My family and I moved to Whidbey Island in 1986 where I began coaching my daughter with South Whidbey Youth Soccer Club. I had played a season of college ball and I am a teacher by nature (and by degree), so coaching soccer was a good fit. A few years later my oldest son began playing and I coached his team as well.
It wasn’t long before I became involved with the SWYSC’s board, and over a span of 30 years, I think I held every Board position off and on except Treasurer.
I continued coaching two of my older sons for many years at the club level and around the mid-nineties I was the assistant coach for the initial year of South Whidbey High School Soccer, and then took over as Varsity Coach for about 15 years.
During that time, we grew from a small Varsity squad to full Varsity, JV, and C Teams... in a school of 400 students. My coaching philosophy has always been "everybody is welcome, and we work to develop everybody forward from where they are today."
In 2000 our squad made it to the State Final, and lost on an extra time corner kick... one in which the player taking the kick moved the corner flag first! We were screaming from the sidelines, but the kick was taken and scored...game over. That event was reviewed at every NCRefs meeting I attended for about 6 years!
I stepped away from coaching for 4 or 5 years after my middle son stopped playing...but remained involved in local island soccer at the Club, Association, and even District/State level. When I remarried, I started coaching my younger stepson, and did that for about 6 more years.
Refereeing Soccer:
I’ve just relicensed for my 26th year as a referee. I mostly did youth Rec level games early on, worked my way up in confidence and age levels, as well as to competition levels. At this point I try to "fill in" where needed and find myself mostly working HS matches and older youth matches... the large majority on Whidbey Island.
I have organized/hosted and participated in multiple referee clinics on Whidbey and helped to train and recruit new talent to the pool.
Playing & Managing SCASA Adult Soccer:
I joined SCASA shortly after moving to Whidbey, I believe in 1987. I played with a Men's Open Team and a Co-Ed Open Team that were both made up almost totally of Whidbey players. I began managing the Men's Team around 1990, and I managed the Co-Ed Team for 3 or 4 years later on. Over the years our team moved up to O30, than 040.
The Men's Team is still playing O40, and at 64, I'm the only remaining member of the first crew... although I do now have some of my original High School players on the team today! I also play with the Monday night MO48 game on a regular basis.
Other island soccer enthusiasts and I started a local pickup game on South Whidbey in the late '80s... that game still plays at the SWP&R soccer fields every Saturday at 2PM, and M&W eves during the summer. I think we've missed about two-dozen Saturdays over the years due to weather... EVERYBODY is welcome, and typical age-range runs from about 14 on up... Sometimes we are a 4v4 game, and sometimes we split into two games during the summer! Over the years the relationship with South Whidbey Parks has required skilled negotiating, compromise, and advocating for field time and use of park goals. I simultaneously served as a SWP&R Board member for 8 years and helped to strengthen the working relationship between the two entities.
Volunteering in Soccer:
I have no idea how many hours I've put in over the years... many thousands!
In or around 1989, South Whidbey Parks & Rec decided to build our first soccer field - up until then everything had happened in the outfields of 3 baseball diamonds. Myself and a couple of other guys spent hundreds of hours that summer with wheelbarrows, shovels and rakes picking roots and rocks and moving dirt around. I was the only one with heavy equipment experience, and thus spent many a long evening over a couple of weeks pushing trees out of the way, and cutting a flat field out of the hillside. I am often told it is the prettiest place to play in all of Puget Sound!
At the beginning of boy’s high school soccer, I started mowing the playground at the Intermediate School so that the HS boys had a place to play - the football group was averse to sharing the HS field with us back then.
Over the years it's been all the activities above, plus hours and hours driving between meetings, hauling lime, paint, flags to fields, repairing or replacing nets, "finding" boots for kids that couldn't afford them... even quietly sending a few kids to Cliff McCrath's Northwest Soccer Camp at Fort Casey over the years... Oh, and attending that same camp as an adult several times.
Currently:
- Referee for local clubs as needed.
- Play in pickup games on Saturdays and Mondays
- Manager/player in the SCASA MO40, FC Whidbey
- Currently serving on SCASA Board of Directors as Judicial Chair
Congratulations Mark!
Also see Mark's story as published in the South Whidbey Record on March 7, 2023
(https://www.southwhidbeyrecord.com/sports/mr-soccer-recognized-for-volunteer-contributions/?fbclid=IwAR3sIU2gNaqaU2F3SZj0eK5VaP-BixKOACGfThC-1OXUdd640glPwLIQ3sM)