By Army Staff Sgt. Carmen Steinbach
Joint Task Force Guantanamo
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, July 7, 2014 – Several service members
here have taken to the soccer field to boost their fitness and relieve stress.
Their new coach, a fellow member of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, has the skills
to help the local female soccer team, Barcelona, to the next level.
Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Peter Bergum, with JTF
Engineering, has coached his children’s soccer teams for many years back home.
In fact, he has a U.S. soccer coaching certification, called an e-license, and
coaches in Iowa. When word of his experience reached a Barcelona player, he was
recruited to help bring them together and unite a team that includes both
experienced and inexperienced players.
“They’re great. They’re fun,” Bergum said. “It’s fun to
practice and see an improvement in the couple of games we’ve had together.”
Most recently, the team has been working on foot skills and
run drills to improve passing, shooting and ball-handling.
“We’re trying to get everybody a little bit better, because
we have all different experience levels on the team -- those that have played
for years and years, and those that have never played before getting here,”
Bergum said, “so that’s kind of a fun challenge.”
Army Sgt. Rebecca Rickrode, a soldier with the 420th
Military Police Company who plays forward for Barcelona, brings a lot of
experience to the table. She said training with those who have never played
before has been an interesting challenge, but she has seen a vast improvement
in the team as a whole since Bergum has come on board as coach.
“He is a very positive coach, and he’s very helpful,” she
said. “He’s encouraging, but he also teaches us a lot of good techniques and
helps out people who play at all different levels.”
While the female soccer league ends next week, the women of
team Barcelona will never forget the skills they learned and the feeling of
camaraderie they felt during the season, and for a brief moment enjoyed a
positive distraction from being away from their loved ones.
“[Playing] just brings a little bit of home back to
deployments,” Rickrode said. “You can do something that’s fun and not just do
PT all the time.”
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