Each week during the summer months, the Valley News will profile a local high school coach. It’s a chance to better know some of the people guiding the area’s student-athletes. Today, we meet Hartford High girls soccer coach Jeff Acker, who attended the same high school as Grammy-winning singer and songwriter John Mayer, but who says he doesn’t possess an ounce of musical talent.
On the Go: Acker’s father, Al, was a certified public accountant, and his mother was a homemaker. They lived in Fairfield, Conn., a city of roughly 60,000 about 60 miles up Interstate 95 from New York City. “We had the typical suburban upbringing from those days where we were always playing in somebody’s backyard or driveway,” he said. “We played baseball, basketball, soccer, golf and tennis. I also played football for a year.”
Self-contained: “Until I went to (Warde High School), I never played a game outside of Fairfield. Even then, we didn’t go more than a half-hour away. We had 20 teams in our Little League at each level, 10 on each side of town. The winners played a championship series. You’d play a Saturday morning game, be home by noon and then spend all afternoon playing the same sport in the backyard with neighborhood kids.”
Firepower Formation: “My best sport was probably soccer, and I was a goalie my whole life. My mother says I became one because I didn’t like to run when I started playing in third grade. We used to play with five forwards and only two guys in the back. You only got past those two if you were willing to risk a broken leg. We got to high school and our coach said we would only play with four forwards, and the idea was revolutionary.”
Legacy: Acker’s father graduated from Dartmouth in 1952 after playing soccer there. Jeff’s brother, Bruce, graduated from Dartmouth in 1986. Jeff spent plenty of time on campus before matriculating himself, and he graduated in 1988. “I played soccer for a year, but it wasn’t like today, where everyone is recruited. You just called the coach up and said you were coming, and he said he’d see you when you got here.”
Off-Tune: “My dad played in the marching band and the orchestra at Dartmouth, and he’s an accomplished pianist. Bruce is a drummer. But the musical gene definitely skipped me. My original plan was to be a high school math teacher, but an hour into my first advanced-level math class at Dartmouth, I had no idea what was going on. A guy across the hall from me was a genius in it and he guided me through.”
Tyro Teacher: “I majored in history and student taught and coached junior varsity boys soccer at Woodstock High for a year. I had to be at first period at 7:45 a.m. I’d teach two classes, observe other classes and work on lesson plans and figure out what we were going to do for practices and games. The earliest I’d get back to Hanover was 6:30 p.m. and then I’d grade papers or homework and fall into bed.”
Frat Boy: Acker was a member of Dartmouth’s Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity. Others in it during their undergraduate days were future major leaguers Jim Beattie, Mike Remlinger and Ed Lucas and current Detroit Tigers manager Brad Ausmus. Another notable CGE is 1982 graduate John Donahue, the former CEO of eBay.
Adulting: Acker decided against teaching as a career and started a real estate investment business with two Dartmouth classmates. They purchased, managed and maintained local apartment buildings, and he returned to coaching in 1994 with Lebanon High’s JV boys soccer team. After six years in that role, he moved to the Raiders’ JV girls for a stretch and was hired to lead Hartford’s girls varsity in 2006.
Hurricane Ascension: Hartford reached the 2012 Vermont Division II state title game and the semifinals a year later. “My first couple of years, we were still in Division I and that was a struggle, because we were the smallest school and we didn’t have much of a soccer tradition. We switched to Division II, and we’ve had a good run. We haven’t won any state titles, but we’re consistently in the top half of our division.”
Ack on a Hot Tin Roof: Acker’s first business underwent changes after an economic downturn during the early 1990s. “In hindsight, we had no idea what we were doing and we had no business doing it and we got a cold dose of reality,” he said. “Part of our business became roofing and then I ended up in the roofing business.”
Pitching From Home: Acker is now known throughout the Upper Valley for reading his White River Junction company’s radio commercials, one of which refers to roofers spending the winter in Tahiti. However, he stays local with his wife of 13 years, Lara, and their family. Daughter Emily (20) is a junior and public health major at New Orleans’ Tulane University. Ben (18) is a sophomore at Denver University. Jake (17) is a Hanover High senior. Dennis (12) is a seventh-grader at the Richmond School, and Joe (10) is a fifth-grader at the Ray School.
Hobby Time: “People ask me all the time how I manage coaching, and my answer is that people play golf or go skiing, but my hobby is coaching soccer. Hartford’s a really neat town to coach in because we get a great diversity of kids. The toughest part is seeing a kid disappointed. Whether it’s not making a team or not getting enough playing time or having a game not go their way, that just tears you apart.”
One Last Shot: “Fortunately, there are way more positive moments, or no one would coach. I always think about the seniors. I can do this over again every year, but this is the only senior year these kids get, and I owe it to them to make it as good as it can be.”
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.