Having played college soccer at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, Oniqueky Samuels understands the passion for the sport in the St. John Valley community.
Samuels, who helped lead the Bengals to a national championship in 2010, now has a chance to pass his wisdom down to the high school players in town as Fort Kent High School’s boys soccer coach.
Samuels, an Academic Skills Specialist at UMFK who has also been an assistant coach with the Bengals, replaces Tim Desjardins, who spent 13 seasons at the school before resigning to take a job in southern Maine, according to Fort Kent athletic administrator Eric Werntgen.
This will mark Samuels’ second high school coaching job in Maine, as he mentored the boys at nearby Wisdom of St. Agatha in the fall of 2015.
“It’s a great opportunity to give back to the future, to the younger boys,” Samuels said. “I’ve been here for 10 years now, so I see the passion for sure.”
Samuels, a native of Jamaica, holds soccer coaching licenses for the National Soccer Coaches Association of America for Junior Level V, along with Goalkeeper Levels 1 and 2.
He also possesses a United States Soccer Federation D license.
Samuels, a defender on UMFK’s 2010 national championship team, is hoping to implement a defensive, counterattacking style in Fort Kent.
“The two things I want to work on [are] obviously defending, perfect defensive structure and then try to work on possessing the ball, how to move, and lastly how to counterattack effectively,” Samuels said.
“There’s more to counterattacking [soccer] than just moving the ball forward. It’s about the strikers being on alert, opening up properly, it’s about the midfielders having the right weight on the ball, the defenders being in the right possession just in case the counterattack is turned over.”
Fort Kent was young last fall, graduating just one senior and posting a 9-4-1 record and losing to Houlton in a Class C quarterfinal.
“I’m quite happy, I’m excited, I think this year we’re going to do some really good things,” Samuels said.
In 2014, Samuels served as a graduate assistant at Union (Kentucky) College while earning his master’s in educational leadership.
He garnered NAIA All-Academic honors in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and USCAA All-Academic honors in 2011.
