It was a moment that every athlete dreams of, and Josephine Coiro was taking it all in. She had just given her 
acceptance speech as the newest member of the Adelphi University Hall of Fame. Now a Panther for the ages, she remembers so many coaches and teammates, including those on her original Panthers team – the West Babylon Panthers – when she was 10 years old.
“The whole night was just an awesome experience,” Coiro said of the event. “It was great to be able to share that honor with my family, my teammates, and my coaches. There were just so many familiar faces, and I started thinking about how many people I had played with and how much soccer had been a part of my life.”
LIJSoccer.com caught up with Coiro this week and reminisced with her over her long, successful soccer career, which didn’t play out the way it does for most girls.
“My dad and my uncle Pete used to pass the ball with me in the backyard when I was really young,” Coiro remembered. “Then I started playing organized soccer, and I was actually a goalie. But I jammed my finger making a save, and that was the end of my goalie career. I think I was seven years old and I was already looking for a new position!”
Coiro took to the field and began to dominate, which got Uncle Pete thinking.
“It was my uncle’s idea for me to play on a boys’ team,” Coiro said. “So at 10 years old, in 5th grade, I started playing for the West Babylon Panthers, and it was probably the most fun I had playing soccer.”
A two-time All-American, three-time All-Northeast Region selection, and a four-time all-conference choice, Coiro was also the East Coast Conference Player of the Year and a member of the NCAA All-Tournament team as a senior at Adelphi. She accomplished a lot. But she credits her time with the boys as having a huge impact on her career.
“That Panthers team really made me the player I became and brought me to where I am today,” she explained. “The boys were quicker, faster, and more aggressive. You had to know where to go with the ball and make faster decisions. All of those things made me a better player.”
It was immediately clear to everyone, including her coach Joan Czach, who is now the Executive Director of the LIJSL that Josephine was developing into a great player.
“Josephine played center midfield for us. She had great vision, exceptional skills, and was strong on the ball,” Czach remembers. “She was a great communicator on the field and a real team player. She was a great kid, too – very dependable, very coachable, and really respected by all her teammates.”
“I loved that style of play we used with the Panthers,” Coiro says. “I used to love when the other team would say stuff like, ‘They have a girl!’ They were always surprised when I was just as physical and aggressive as they were.
Coiro immediately saw the benefits of playing with that Panthers team when she eventually moved on to a girls team.
“Once I turned 13 and started to develop, the shirts and skins games weren’t working out,” Coiro joked. “So I played on a competitive girls team in Northport and I could tell right away that the pace of the game was different for me. I was always one step ahead. I was playing faster and knew where to go with the ball.”
In addition to playing youth and travel soccer, Coiro spent four years as a varsity player at West Babylon HS and then played at Adelphi where she led the Panthers to the NCAA Tournament for just the second time in their history. They advanced to the championship game against Metro State, where Coiro scored both of Adelphi’s goals, but lost with :39 seconds remaining.
“The transition to college wasn’t hard for me, because again, I had that experience with the boys,” Coiro explained. “The speed of the game was not an issue for me. It was more about learning the style of play; learning how to make runs, when and where to make them, how to find space and move my defender. Those were the things I had to learn.
Coiro is now coaching girls high school soccer in Hauppauge, where she is a teacher, and there are two important things she wants her players to learn.
“The first thing players need to do is realize that they are soccer players. You aren’t just a striker, or a midfielder, or a defender. You can’t play on just one side of the field,” she explains. “I played stopper with the boys, center mid or forward with the girls, I was moved to forward in college, but played sweeper as well when we got hit by injuries. I played wherever they needed me. That’s part of being a good teammate, but it also helps you to become a better player by being in different situations and developing different skills. It helps you create vision. You see the field better when you know what your teammate is seeing.”
“The other thing that’s so important is to just have fun playing the game,” Coiro concluded. “Enjoy it, love it, and take it one day at a time. I watch my eight year old sister now and it brings back memories of me. When I finished college I wanted to try out for the US National team, or play in one of the women’s pro leagues, but I was just drained. I was burned out. I tell my players now, ‘Calm down. The game shouldn’t be work.’”
That’s great advice from someone who has taken in a lot more soccer than any of us will ever know.