The university has recently chosen Corey Kirk as its new men’s soccer coach.
Kirk, a Pickerington resident, dabbled in many sports, though he says he was “very bad at most of them.” Soccer peaked his interest the most, leading him to play from the age of four to around 30.
Kirk attended Ohio Dominican University where he played soccer for all four years. He began to coach soccer around 2012.
“Quite frankly, [coaching] was just something that I kind of viewed as. . . a community service and just kind of a way to give back,” Kirk said. “I started. . . as a volunteer at high school and just felt an aptitude for it, felt an interest in it and just step by step further by further, it just progressed into a career.”
Although he has coached all levels of soccer, including high school and club, Kirk stuck to coaching college level athletes because of their age and maturity.
“Now, granted, it can go both ways,” he said. “Yes, they are old enough to do some really stupid things if you let them, but it’s at an age and maturity where you can really connect and really work with guys, both on a soccer level and on a personal level, and then it just gives you an opportunity to really. . . have an impact and guide guys through their lives and what they’re gonna do. . . 40 years from now.”
Before coming to the university, Kirk coached at Muskingum University for a year. He was drawn to the university for many reasons.
Kirk said, “The appeal of Capital is a lot of things: location being one, then just being very close to home. It’s about a 20 minute drive into work up 33 which is never a bad thing, and it gives me a chance to be a little bit more present in home life, but that’s all personal stuff.”
The Capital draw, too, is just knowing that there’s a tradition of success on the field and in the classroom and being part of the community. . . Just having that connection to be a part of something is really attractive.”
One of the aspects of coaching that Kirk is looking forward to the most is building relationships with the athletes on and off the field.
“We’ve gone through. . . a series of individual meetings where guys can come in and just openly share anything that they’ve had on their minds, or their perspective, or their experience of Capital and men’s soccer to that point,” Kirk said.
“It’s really nice to be able to see guys just walking around campus as I’m getting to know the place. . . and saying hi, and being able to match up personalities of those guys with some of the prospective student athletes coming in.”
Kirk also mentioned a belief he feels he shares with many other coaches. “It has nothing to do with soccer; it’s on graduation day. . . You see all of those guys that have gone through a program get their diploma and move on, and you see their families that have supported them through that. That culmination of everything they’ve done here. . . is really special.”
Kirk hopes to be able to blend “very strong” personalities together leading up to and throughout the soccer season.
Kirk said, “I think it’s a very strong soccer culture. I think it’s a very connected group. Personally, I think that we’ve got some opportunities to grow within some culture, some leadership, some roles, clarity, things like that, that can just really kind of separate us. It’s a very strong team right now. But I think there’s another level that we can unlock.”
Players for the 2024 season will move in on campus around the mid-August, and the first game will be around Labor Day weekend. For more information, visit https://athletics.capital.edu/ and follow @cap_athletics on Instagram.
