Tristan Rowell was born to play the game of soccer. He began playing the sport at the age of four and was instantly hooked. Nominated by Kristy Clement, secretary of the Meridian Youth Soccer Organization, Rowell was notified that he had been named the Coach of the Year for the state of Mississippi and named the Regional Coach of the Year as well for the Southeast Region of Youth Soccer in mid-January. The region goes from Texas to South Carolina and down to Florida.

    Today, Rowell boards a plane for Boston, Mass., where he is one of four coaches in the running for National Coach of the Year in youth soccer.  When other children were playing little league baseball during the summer, Rowell was on the pitch playing the game he loved and honing his skills.

    “I played it for recreation only,” Rowell recalled. “It was the only sport that I was interested in playing growing up.”

    Rowell played the sport of soccer from age 4 until age 16. Rowell, who attended West Lauderdale High School, felt high school soccer was not for him and quit the game he loved.

    “I felt it was time to start using my brain instead of my foot to make a living,” he said. “So I went to Mississippi State University-Meridian and graduated with a degree in accounting.”

    However, the itch of being on a soccer field got to Rowell so he began refereeing games and eventually got into coaching. During his coaching tenure, Rowell coached teams in the U-10 (under age 10) and U-12 (under age 12) leagues.  The coach said he finds satisfaction in teaching the game to the kids who play under him.

    “We’ve had a lot of success over the years,” Rowell said. “But it’s about the kids. On the recreational level, the children want to learn the game. I love teaching the game to them.

    “If you can teach a kid to play the right way, they will keep playing the right way,” Rowell added.

    Rowell’s teachings have provided immediate dividends as two of his teams,  in U-10 and the other in U-12, have gone undefeated in both the fall and spring campaigns. His U-12 team took up a name of a team that is respected in the world of professional soccer, Manchester United.

    “That is my one of my favorite teams,” Rowell said. “The kids found out about it and started calling themselves Manchester United.”

    Rowell said the Manchester name helped him bring soccer to the kids.

    “It was a neat way to get them to relate to the game on the professional level,” he said. “(Cristiano) Ronaldo is who I watched growing up. The kids would come up and ask me how Ronaldo would play this shot or what would he do in this situation.”

    Rowell said all of the awards are nice, however, he has found over the years that he has been more than coach to some of the children. He’s been a father figure to them.

    When you coach recreational teams, you play the hand you are dealt with,” Rowell said. “I have coached kids who didn’t have a lot or didn’t have both parents in their lives. So I became a father figure by default. They became better people because someone took the extra time to work with them and it made them feel appreciated.”

    If Rowell wins the national award, he would become the first recipient of the award from the Magnolia state. He said it would put Mississippi on the map.

    “We’ve got a lot of good coaches in this state. Guys that have played upper levels of professional soccer,” Rowell said. “This award would bring the focus to Mississippi and the great job we are doing down in here in youth soccer.”