Eric Guyer resigns as Chambersburg girls soccer coach

Eric Guyer has a hard time understanding how somebody can be a coach for years and years and years.

"I was the coach for 4 1/2 years at Chambersburg, and I see these coaches who have been doing it for a really, really long time and I find that amazing," said Guyer, who resigned as the Chambersburg girls soccer coach in January.

The main reason Guyer gave up his position was the time involved.

"I can't coach only during the season," Guyer said. "In our division you at least have to make the effort - you have to have open gyms and have other things going on. It boiled down to the fact that I wanted to have the time and freedom to pursue other interests.

"Especially in the offseason, everything was scheduled around soccer. I'd find myself on the beach working on practice schedules, and I'd end up taking a lot of leave time from work for soccer-related things. I'd like to take a deep breath and not lie awake at night thinking about soccer things."

Chambersburg athletic director Jeremy Flores has received seven or eight applications for the position. He hopes to schedule interviews this week and be in position to make a selection next week.

"We will miss Eric," Flores said. "He was very committed to the program and professional throughout, interacting with the kids, the parents and the administration. Even though we've struggled, I think he's set up the program so it can be taken to the next level. We want to compete in the division and the district and have a winning team."

The Trojans were 7-10-1 last fall, including a respectable 6-8 in the Mid Penn Commonwealth Division, and six of the 10 losses were by one goal. Three straight defeats to end the season kept Chambersburg out of the District 3 playoffs. In four years, Guyer's teams had an overall record of 22-47-3 (.326).

Guyer said, "We will lose 10 seniors from that team, but there was a big group of freshmen, and there are some good pieces there. I also think there are some good players in the lower grades that will help eventually. We tried to do outreach programs to get the young girls excited about playing and I hope that works out."

Every year, Guyer directed the Trojans to several outreach initiatives, working with youth clubs and doing community service.

"Eric spent a lot of time with the girls off the field with those programs," Flores said. "He gets it that its not just about playing the game. He gave them a lot of life lessons."

Guyer believes that Chambersburg's biggest challenge is to increase the numbers in the program and the number of dedicated soccer players.

"Our school seems to share a lot of female athletes with different sports," Guyer said, "and there is nothing wrong with that. Multi-sport athletes are great. But a lot of the players we face in our division are not multi-sport - they play soccer year round. The challenge is for our girls to find time to work on their technical skills even when they're playing another sport.

"We don't get the number of pure athletes that some of our opponents get, so we need to be really good technically."