Get To Know Your Coach - Andrew Agyare-Tabbi

Andrew Agyare-Tabbi is committed to teaching young people. Whether it’s guiding kids in the classroom or coaching them on a pitch, Agyare-Tabbi has a fundamental understanding of how to get his students and players to maximize their specific potential.

Agyare-Tabbi is both a French teacher at local Waverley Public School and Guelph Soccer’s U14 Boys Academy coach for the 2024/25 season. They are two distinct roles, though there are similar concepts he employs to get the best out of kids.

Agyare-Tabbi had an eye-opening moment when he walked into a school to do a placement for a psychology course he was taking while at Laurier University.

“I remember thinking this feels really safe,” he says. “I know exactly what happens in this building between 8:30 and 3:30.”

“The big thing for me was that I had to meet the kids at what they’re able to do. The classroom doesn’t have to be linear. When I started teaching, I thought, ‘How am I going to teach math?’ I hadn’t done multiplication in years. My colleagues explained that there were resources to help, and that I would learn where each of them was at. If someone couldn’t do 5x5, I didn’t have to worry about 7x7.

“I realized that I had to meet them at where most of them were going to be, and then adjust as needed.”

This epiphany translated to the soccer pitch, where Agyare-Tabbi has been at home since his childhood. He first began to watch the game with his father Akwasi, who emigrated from Ghana. Agyare-Tabbi had never really seen his Dad play, though he vividly remembers a U12 kids versus parents’ game when he arrived from work and stepped onto the field with dress shoes still on. He figured it would be a fantastic opportunity to embarrass him – and was in complete shock when the elder deked and dribbled by him.

Agyare-Tabbi says his father was a definite philosopher of the game, which influenced the way he saw soccer. He soaked up whatever he could about the sport and like many local kids, started playing on the pitch through Guelph Soccer. Agyare-Tabbi gained experience as both a striker and a defender, using his experience from the former position to gauge what attackers were thinking when they ran at him on the backline.

Athletics also ran in the family with Agyare-Tabbi’s sister, Michelle, excelling in track and his younger brother, David, starring in basketball and soccer. His first coaching gig was actually leading David’s youth team. Agyare-Tabbi was away at Laurier when Akwasi texted him that they would get 25 per cent off David’s registration if a family member coached the team.

“I asked him, ‘Are you going to coach David?’ and my father said, ‘No, you are,’” Agyare-Tabbi says with a laugh. “I knew how to play, but didn’t know anything about coaching.”

The team was loaded with two-sport athletes, and it all came together on the pitch. Agyare-Tabbi says they went on to win the league three years in a row, though they would usually fall short in the final tournament of the season.

By then, coaching had become a passion. Agyare-Tabbi reached out to Guelph Soccer’s Justin Springer to look for more opportunities. He took a role as an assistant for a rep team and found himself excited about not only instructing kids on the field, but also tracking down some of David’s old teammates to fill roles.

“It all stemmed from my Dad just wanting this discount to me actively recruiting and learning more about coaching, which worked perfectly with my professional degree,” says Agyare-Tabbi. “It had come full circle. I was trying to seek opportunities to impact youth.

“I’m not like the soccer coach you had 15 years ago. I became more focused on how the kids could become better athletes and how they can learn about things they will apply outside of soccer.

“When we’re on the field, I want to be able to communicate with them and build relationships.”

Agyare-Tabbi had another full-circle moment when he joined the John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational Institute junior soccer team’s coaching staff in the thick of the pandemic. He had won a D10 championship while attending the school and after a few matches into the season, Agyare-Tabbi realized this edition had the same potential.

Ross indeed won D10 and fell just agonizingly short of another title in the CWOSSA championship game.

“The kids were bummed, and I had this big smile on my face,” Agyare-Tabbi of a dramatic 3-2 loss. “I said, ‘Guys, this was the last possible junior boys’ soccer game of the season, and you got here. They were processing it and realized how big of an accomplishment it was.”

“It was also a moment that I realized I wanted to keep doing this.”

Agyare-Tabbi credits Springer for having belief in him as a coach. It opened his eyes to what he could do for the kids on the field. And Agyare-Tabbi will bring his unique brand of mentoring to this year’s U14 Boys Academy team, which is an entirely new group of players for him. He wants the boys to understand that he is there to build on the successes they have already had and offer a new perspective.

“It’s about building a community with the team and developing through a common goal,” says Agyare-Tabbi. “How can we become more intelligent about our play? We want them to be well-rounded, complete soccer players.

“We’re trying to supplement what they already know with a different way to see the game, because that only adds to their profile as players. So I want to make sure I understand the parents’ perspectives, the players’ perspectives, and understand where they want to be individually by the end of the season.

“I’m not a wins or losses persons. Results are not my measure of success. It’s about the kids understanding what the next level of soccer is. Can they understand how to adjust tactically or use more sophisticated terminology?

“We want to be a culture where we can advance our players on and off the field so that they can mature and develop a really solid foundation.”

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Written by: David DiCenzo