After two years of playing boys and girls club soccer, often against UIL teams, Argyle will start UIL boys and girls soccer programs next season and will play in District 5-4A, which includes the Denton schools and Lake Dallas.

The Eagles compete in 3A in other sports, but Texas does not have 3A soccer. So they will join Gainesville and Decatur among area 3A schools competing in 4A soccer districts.

“There’s been a little push for it,” said Argyle head football coach and athletic director Todd Rodgers. “There’s a segment of kids that aren’t getting to play anything because we don’t have soccer. We thought with field turf [being installed at the football stadium] we could accommodate their needs and add that program.”

The most important step to starting the new program was finding a head coach, and Rodgers hired Wylie boys soccer assistant Mark Koke to head up both the boys and girls programs at Argyle.

Koke will also coach football, which he played at North Texas from 1995-97 as a defensive lineman, and the 10^th-year coach said coaching football and getting to know those athletes will help him recruit players for soccer.

“I’ve been working summer conditioning camp when the kids come in and run, and other coaches have been pointing out kids who might be soccer players,” Koke said. “At the 3A level, [a challenge is] just having to recruit good athletes, and being a football coach definitely makes it easier seeing the kids whose skill can translate to the soccer field.”

Koke has experience in these types of situations. His first soccer coaching job was in Jasper, which at the time was a third-year program. In his second season, he led Jasper to the playoffs.

But what really attracted Rodgers to Koke was what he did at 3A Lorena, near Waco. Koke took over Lorena after it had played with club teams, and he received District 17-4A coach of the year honors in 2002.

Rodgers also liked the fact that Koke will also contribute to the football coaching staff and promote multi-sport athletes.

“I interviewed lots of applicants,” Rodgers said. “I still wanted him to be connected with other programs to help attract kids to soccer. I’m trying to promote the multisport mentality.”

Koke is aware of the challenges that come with starting programs from the ground up, including not fielding a junior varsity team, but he does meet one with this job that he hasn’t had to deal with – heading up both boys and girls programs and the scheduling nightmares that will inevitably come with it.

“The hardest deal is trying to get a district schedule and having both teams play at the same site,” Koke said. “We’re just going to have a varsity and most teams want to play varsity and JV. I have to talk teams into playing both the boys and girls games at the same site, or on different nights where they usually play on Tuesdays and Fridays. The biggest headache is trying to get quality nondistrict games and getting put in tournaments and stuff.”

More challenges at the 3A level include fielding a team with soccer players, although at Argyle he does have a few kids who play select soccer and will be soccer-only athletes – something he didn’t have at Lorena. In fact, at Lorena, Koke didn’t even have enough girls to field a team, so the girls that wanted to play soccer had to play on the boys team.

“You just don’t have as many kids to pick from and you won’t have as many club players,” Koke said. “Some of them are just going to be athletes off the football team, and I’ll be a football coach, too, so you just try to find athletes and make them soccer players. At bigger levels [classifications] those kids are usually soccer players year-around.

“You just have to develop their skill and make athletes into soccer players, and I think that’s the biggest challenge.”

Though Koke never played soccer and made his name in the trenches as a North Texas football player, he said he still has what it takes to build a quality soccer program.

“Before I started coaching, you’d never find me watching a game, and now I’m watching Euro 2008 and have become a fan of the game,” Koke said. “My opinion is, if you’re a good coach, you’re a good coach. I know a lot of guys that are soccer knowledgeable but aren’t the best coaches. Coaching is just a universal thing.”

What makes Koke so excited about becoming part of the Argyle athletic program is the success of all of Argyle’s teams.

“Part of what drew me there [Argyle] was the success of all the teams,” Koke said. “You could make an argument that they’re the best athletic school in 3A in Texas. They have success in every sport and I don’t see why soccer can’t be any different. Eventually I’d probably step aside and hopefully hire another [girls] coach, but it’s definitely exciting to start from ground level.”

ADAM BOEDEKER can be reached at 940-566-6872. His e-mail address is aboedeker@dentonrc.com.