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PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID FALK / GOAL.TACOMA.COM

KEEPER OF THE GOAL. To opposing players, Tide goalie Jordan Jennings has a way of making the goal seem smaller than its eight yard width.

Tides’ Jennings: Soul in the Goal

By Rick Walter

When you are a student-athlete at Seattle University, being taught by Jesuits, it might not be uncommon to ponder: Where does the soul begin? You can even ponder the Soul of Sport in a class with that title. When you are the soccer goalkeeper at that school with the sport in your blood and a keen desire to improve every single day, you take that course.

“I’ve been playing soccer since I was really small,” said Jordan Jennings, goalkeeper for Seattle University and the Tacoma Tide, in a recent interview in a cafe, where he nursed a root beer – the only drink in the place without some caffeine.

“At this point, it’s all mental. It’s not about technique. It is about staying totally focused during the entire game.”

Here is focused: during a recent seven-game streak, Jennings went on a binge of stinginess, giving up one goal and posting six shutouts. He said, in the great tradition, it is not about the goalie, but about the entire defense.

“We have a good defense and we all work together really well,” Jennings said.

Goalies always say that. But soccer is a game in which the defense is organized, if not orchestrated, by the goalie. With the entire field in front of him, the goalie must be able to set his defenders and cut off crossing passes. He must direct the defense to keep its shape in order to control the box. All the more reason to suggest a shutout most often belongs to a good goalkeeper.

“You build from the back,” said Tide coach Fran O’Brien. “For the top teams, that’s going to be the difference.”

With the soccer goal measuring eight feet high and eight yards wide, the ideal goalkeeper should be more than six feet tall. Jennings is 6-foot-3, which is helpful for blocking shots. But it is not just size, or soft hands, or agility, or a certain controlled recklessness that ultimately separates the best goalies.

Rich Tobin, an analyst for World Cup soccer matches, contends a goalkeeper can be taught technique, but can never be taught to be a good goalie.

He said there is a reason really good goalkeepers are rare. “Goaltending is an instinctual thing,” he said. “The good goalies are really born.”

“It’s definitely instinctive,” Jennings said of the critical moment when he makes a save. “But a lot of it seems to come with just playing as much as you can. The more you see in-game situations, the better you can anticipate.”

Jennings’ father, Michael, played soccer, and the younger Jennings started kicking a soccer ball a few minutes after he could walk. By the time he was playing at Stadium High School, he had been goalkeeping for several years.

Physically, he knows he is ready to move from collegiate and pro-development teams like the Tide to the next level, and he keeps himself in condition year-round playing basketball, working out and coaching children, a great vehicle for a relentless amount of exercise.

So now to the mental part.

“The main idea of the class (Soul of Sport) was to teach you why people play sports and how it helps them both physically and spiritually with their lives. The main aspect I liked most and got most out of was when we talked about having a ‘flow’ experience, which basically means being in the ‘zone’ when you are playing – where you are playing and everything comes natural to you and it is very easy and you are relaxed and that is when you play your best,” he said.

Jennings crisply translates his grasp of the concept into how it works for him.

“A big part of being in the flow is being ego-less, or not thinking about yourself while you are playing and having the single-mindedness of just focusing on the sport you are playing. I like this because I really believe that and when I play and get the flow – and the ego-lessness and single-mindedness – that is definitely when I am on top of my game.”

Yet it is not ultimately this sense of inner peace that defines athletic achievement, but its proper application.

“You have to have confidence both in your own abilities and in making the right calls. Your teammates have to trust you are giving them good directions. You have to be able to step up and yell at them, so you have to know what you are doing. You have to be involved the whole game.”

Jennings’ compass points steadily to a future in professional soccer.

“I definitely hope to be talking to pro teams this time next year,” he said. “My main goal is to get better every day, and what I have improved on a lot is my communication with the other players. You have to be very loud. And I am getting better at that.”

So we are talking flow, with a little more volume.

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