Buckley sharing her coaching values in Germany

For the second year in a row, Milligan College women's soccer head coach Lisa Buckley spent a portion of her summer coaching soccer in Europe. This summer she was able to continue working with the group she worked with last year, PROEM ministries, in Poland, before traveling to Oberursel, Germany, to be the head coach of a soccer camp there.

The camp in Germany was the result of a combined effort by International Christian Fellowship (ICF), and the City of Oberursel. Buckley served as the head coach of the camp, but she worked in part with three other core coaches including Milligan College women's assistant soccer coach, Thomas Suits. 

Buckley spent the first three days working alongside the other three core coaches carefully planning what the coaches training program would look like. The next three days were then spent walking the assistant coaches through what camp would look like, and the rolls that the coaches were expected to perform during camp. "There were 20 coaches in total working the camp," Buckley says. "Although this was the third year of Champions in Life, there were some changes to the structure of the program that everyone needed to grasp."

There were just under 100 campers that attended, ages ranging from 8 to 14, and the campers were divided into four groups based on age. The kids at the camp attended free of charge and consisted mainly of refugee children. Germany took in more refugees during the 2015 refugee crisis than any other country, resulting in the city of Oberursel partnering with Champions in Life in hopes of helping these families integrate into the community.

The Champions in Life camp not only focused on soccer, but also sought to teach campers the values required to be a champion in life. "Every day the kids received structured coaching, talks on the five champion values, lunch and competitions," Buckley says.

The biggest obstacle that Buckley seemed to run into was the language barrier. "A translator was used for drills and value talks, and even with a translator the language barrier was frustrating at times, but we always found a way to work around it, and when there is a ball usually you can find a way to communicate," Buckley says.

Buckley spent the majority of her time working soccer, but with the little bit of free time that she did have, she was able to go sightseeing in Frankfurt and visit some of the refugee shelters.

For Buckley, this trip had more of a meaning around it than just coaching soccer. The work that she and the other coaches did for the refugee community was something that she valued immensely. Looking back on the trip she says, "When working with the coaches who were immigrants, I felt like it was my job to pour into them, in hopes that they would then pour into their respective communities."