After never having a desire to coach, Timmy McCormack is now on his 18th year of being a soccer coach. 

  “I was a player in college and the high school I graduated from needed coaches and so I went back and coached for them a bit and I just enjoyed it,” he said. “As a young kid I realized it could be a career moving forward.” 

            McCormack is a 2008 graduate of Huntingdon College with a bachelor of arts in history. He also received a master of arts in teaching from Piedmont College in 2010. McCormack says it was “fairly easy” when deciding to come to Piedmont. McCormack’s college coach was asked to come to Piedmont, and with the experience he had coaching his high school team, his coach asked him if he would follow him to Piedmont to help coach alongside him. “It was an easy place to land,” says McCormack. 

            McCormack is currently in his fourth season as the head women’s soccer coach at Piedmont College. McCormack was quite familiar with the green and gold as before he became the head coach, he served as the assistant coach for eight seasons, seven of them were with the Lady Lions. McCormack’s coaching credentials are legit, as he holds a National Goalkeeping Diploma, Advanced National Diploma as well as a National ‘B’ License from the United States Soccer Federation. 

            McCormack has taught all ages and groups. He has coached men’s teams, women’s teams, girls’ teams and boys’ teams. He’s also coached youth soccer teams. McCormack said he can’t choose which group was his favorite to coach. With all this experience from coaching, McCormack has gained knowledge not only of soccer, but of some important life lessons, which has shaped his core values: “relentlessness, resilience and integrity.” Having integrity while you do it all, usually things end up the right way.” 

            McCormack said he wasn’t the best student growing up. He believed that he could be a great athlete and slack off in the classroom. Not giving his full effort in the classroom began to affect his athletic side. He thought he could separate the two and be a good player and not have to worry about being a good student. McCormack quickly realized that how you are academically reflected how you are athletically, so he began to clean up his act. 

            “It’s made me a better person, it’s made me a better husband, it’s made me a better family member,” he said. 

            Not only does McCormack care about how his players are on the field, but he also cares about how they are off the field as well. McCormack says that he enjoys hearing from players he’s coached in the past. He mentions how he likes to see the young players he has coached, graduate from high school and go off to play at the colligate level. 

            “I think if you can have a positive effect on people, that all starts to put you in the right spot to have success.