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Keem gets his dream soccer job

When the job of executive director of the Red Deer City Soccer Association came open earlier this year it was just what Chris Keem was looking for.

When the job of executive director of the Red Deer City Soccer Association came open earlier this year it was just what Chris Keem was looking for.

Keem had been involved on the coaching side of the game for close to 18 years and even owned a minor pro team in Buffalo, N.Y., but wanted to get into the front office.

“I ran the team in Buffalo, which was great experience, and worked a bit with the head office in the league we played in, and I wanted to get back into that. And when this opportunity came up, along with them wanting me to coach (the Red Deer City women’s team in the Alberta Major Soccer League) it was what I was looking for.

“It’s a chance for me to get my feet wet and to turn the program around . . . make it more successful on the business side. The last couple of years the (registration) numbers have been down, but this year they’re up. We have more kids playing than we had two years ago. I’ve only been here for five weeks, so that wasn’t me, but it’s something we’ve been working on.

“Our new technical director (Ado Sarcevic) has been running programs, which have helped. ”

The native of Pennsylvania grew up playing soccer and attended Buffalo State University of a scholarship. He even had a shot at playing professionally, but an injured killed that.

“I had my cup of tea, but it wasn’t even cold, it was still warm when I went down,” he said with a laugh.

Although his pro dreams were dashed he was ready to step into the coaching ranks.

“I’ve been fortunate to have several excellent coaching mentors over the years,” he explained. “I had a mentor who took me under his wing when I was 16. He coached at Manchester United for six years and is now a coach in the First Division in Norway. Then at university I had a mentor from the Netherlands, who played with the Dutch national team and I worked with him for six years.”

Keem later was an assistant coach at three U.S. universities and coached in the Canadian Soccer League at Milltown, Ont., before moving to Burlington, Ont., where he coached in the Youth Soccer Club.

“I’ve moved around a lot, this is the seventh city I’ve lived in, but to move up you need to change,” he said.

One of the stipulations for the 34-year-old, when he moved here, was that he’d also coach the AMSL team.

The team has a new look this year with only five players back.

“The last several years we’ve been the ‘Bad News Bears’, but we cleaned house and while we’ll be young we have a good outlook. If we finish fourth or fifth this year we’ll be happy. You always want to win, but it’s a process and it may take two or three years.”

Keeper Lauren Good, who played for the RDC Queens and will attend the University of Calgary next season, is a key player back along with Lauren Bowman, Megan Jevne, Kayla Keenan and striker Claire Wallace.

Keenan will anchor the midfield with Wallace expected to provide much of the offensive punch. Both played at RDC last year as did newcomer Kristi Lem.

A number of players have moved in from the U18 program including Sydney Daines, Paula Dedensky, Celine Jensen, Alex Moyer, Terra Salmon, Cori Van Der Voort and Natassia Wright.

Caleigh Wallace, who has been in Scotland, Olivia Sutter and Moiya Duley, who was also at RDC, are with the program.

“Overall we have 30 in our pool of players,” said Keem, who was disappointed to lose Amber Regnier.

“Amber was one of the team leaders and will be missed. But she could only practice and not play games and we have a policy that if you play you need to practice and if you practice you have to be available for games.”

The Red Deer City squad has been training two or three times a week and see their first league action Wednesday in Edmonton against the Angels. They face defending champion Victoria in Edmonton June 2. They play their first four games on the road before playing five at home, beginning July 4 against the Angels.

“Not a great schedule,” said Keem. “Some tough games right away, so hopefully we have our defence down and then we’ll work on the attack.”

drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com