Coaching a college sports team is not an easy task, yet one man diligently managed four teams while overseeing the most success in his program’s history. Sean Carey took charge of the Lethbridge Polytechnic Kodiaks men’s and women’s soccer teams in 2009. He left the school in 2011, but returned again from 2017 and stayed until his recent retirement. During this tenure, Carey won 91 regular season soccer games and 37 regular season futsal games. His second go with the teams saw a rapid rise, as the women’s team won a bronze medal in 2018 after missing out on the playoffs the season before. “The goal that year was just to make the playoffs, but once we got there, there was a bit of a feeling amongst that team that we could do really well in that and to come away with the bronze medal,” Carey says, recalling the moment. “It almost felt like we’d won the banner that year.” Carey, however, reached the summit of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) in 2019 when the men’s team took home the gold medal. His accolades don’t stop there. Carey was named the ACAC women’s Coach of the Year on four occasions, the ACAC men’s Coach of the Year on two occasions and he was once declared the national men’s Coach of the Year by the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA). “We were competitive the whole time I was a coach here and do I take pride, yeah, absolutely I do, but it wasn’t the highlight of it for me,” Carey says. Despite the awards and acknowledgements, Carey says coaching a collegiate team is all about developing student athletes, not about the recognition. “It’s about the athletes, it’s about them becoming better versions of themselves. That’s the way I look at a lot of this. So, wins are a bonus and the medals and all the rest of it. At the end of the day, as a coach at this level, it’s all about your athletes.” This was a goal in which he was successful, evidenced by his teams averaging six student athletes per season recognized with All Conference and National Academic Honours. “Now, every year, you see our soccer teams are right in the lead. If not leading, right there close to it on their academic work,” says Todd Caughlin, athletics director for Kodiaks Athletics. “So, you do that and you show it like our teams have done, both our men’s and women’s, you know you’re leaving it in a good place. Sean’s promoted that and I’ve really appreciated it.” Caughlin goes on to say the academic standing for soccer players at Lethbridge College — as Lethbridge Polytechnic used to be known — was simply not good enough when Carey first arrived, a situation the coach soon corrected. “We couldn’t have asked for anything more,” Caughlin says, adding that Carey’s retirement is a loss for the school. It’s a sad day, but excited for him.” Beyond the awards, his own players say Carey had a profound impact on their lives. This includes Sammy Demchuk, a goalkeeper who says Carey helped her build confidence. “He’s always been good at helping me further myself and again the confidence, even off the field,” Demchuk says. “I grew up playing futsal a lot longer than he’s been coaching it and just the respect that he gave me for helping him with ideas for what we could do.” Megan Morrison, a midfielder, says she’s proud of what Carey managed and is sad to see him go. “It’s really nice for him, I’m really happy that he’s moving on and he’s got good things going, but it’s obviously very sad for us.” Both players were a part of the 2023-24 women’s soccer team that made a dream run, going 11-1 in the regular season. “I’ve won lots of medals with Sean, whether bronze or last year in futsal we won silver,” Morrison says. “Seeing how much he puts in and how much he tries to grow his athletes in and outside the sport is really nice.” Carey says retirement means he will hit the fairway more often and spend more time on his farm. However, he will never stop supporting the team that he dedicated over a decade of his life to. “I’ll always be a fan. Some of my players that I recruited four or five years ago are going into their fifth year, they’ll be playing this fall. So, I want to see where they go, I want to see what happens to them. It’s just an exciting chapter and I just couldn’t give the 100 per cent that I’ve given the last six or seven years moving forward. So, hence the reason I made the decision to step away so someone else can give it their 100 per cent, which is only fair for the athletes.” Other notable career accomplishments for Carey include managing 18 women’s and 17 men’s All-Conference players, coaching the XX men’s and XX women’s All-Canadians and competing at the CCAA national championships. The Kodiaks are expected to announce Carey’s replacement soon.