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Home My WebLink AboutTimes Advocate, 1999-06-30, Page 20Ike• THIS Wiwi is SP0RTs Panther basketball star wins provincial free throw contest. Page 21 Exeter hardball team to don the cleats at Hall of hon. ceremony. Pam 22 Page 20 WawaContact Sports Editor Craig ad re Tel: (519) 235-1336 ext. 113 Fax: (519) 235-0766 E-mail: sports@SouthHuron.com Wodtamsdayjme 30,1999 Exeter Times -Advocate A new beginning = • The Exeter Centennial Soccer Club held a grand re -opening ceremony for the Community Park soccer pitch Friday night before the Exeter Centennials senior men's soccer game versus the Wallaceburg Sting,The pitch is now lit allowing for more games to be played after sunset. Exeter Mayor Ben Hoogenboom is pictured cutting the ceremonial ribbon at centre with the I Bumble Bees (normally the Dolphins) girls soccer team to his left and the U-11 Athletics girls soccer team to his right. Some younger players are sitting in front..The $45,000 project to erect lights at the field was started early in the spring with frun ising and was completed earlier this month.The lit pitch is required to meet the growing demand on existing fields: 450• young people under age 19 and 80 adults now play soccer each year. Exeter Centennial Soccer Club president George McEwan said the lit field was completed not lust. for the current needs of the Exeter area but for the future. "All indications are that soccer is here to stay;' he said. Hoogenboom added the town has 30 acres of land adjacent to the sewage lagoons off Hwy. 83 that could be used for more soccer fields if soccer continues to grow.Also on hand at the ceremony were Western Ontario Soccer League president Adam Sasko, Elgin -Middlesex Soccer Association president Bill Spence, EMSA registrar Gus Katsiroumbas and many soccer players and their parents. Coach Cooke is king of the beach By Craig Bradford 11MES-ADVOCATE STAFF GRAND BEND - Jim Cooke may not play the game any more, but he's still on top of it. Cooke, 37, was recently ,named the coach of Canada's Olympic beach volleyball team. Canada will field two men's pairs and Cooke. hopes to qualify tWO women's pairs for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He will also serve as Canada's national beach. v -ball coach and was named the beach volley- ball sport leader with the Canada 2001 Summer. • Games. Grand Bend will host the beach volleyball and sailing events for the. Games, Grand Bend beach lovers recognize nize g Cooke as a familiar face. He started the Grand Bend Volleyball Club last summer and holds weekly clinics for children aged 8-1b. He also runs a beach v- ball league for teens and adults that runs Sunday afternoons and hosts all the major tournaments that are held in the 'Bend. Born and raised in Toronto's Beaches, Cooke was bumping and spiking on the sand at an early. age. 1 was playing volleyball when it wasn't very fash- ionable," he reminisced. Cooke played pro volley- ball from '89-95 before a knee injury forced his retirement. In '90 Cooke •: r: - vrr ••r.• - He's gone national. Grand Bend Volleyball Club founder Jim Cooke isn't just a beach fixture. Cooke has been appointed Canada's national beach volleyball coach and coach of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games beach volleyball squad won the Norceca Championship, the first time a Canadian won the event. While he was playing, Cooke was ranked in the top five in the country. He has coached indoor volleyball for 15 years at he hastaught at chop schools and through throe h clubs. He was also an Ontario Summer Games volleyball coach last year. Cooke and hls wife, Therese Bowler, moved to Kippen in '95 and beth started teaching at Clinton Central Huron Secondary' School (he teaches science and phys ed). Cooke said the family (he and Therese have two daughters) will soots move to Bre tlel . ce d Co thenational Coaching team will be a touch of ddja vu for Cooke since he used to train and play with several of the, cur- rent*upa.. rY bei-s;�P • -- � "I'm glad to get into coaching," Cooke said "I think it's the next step the sport loving to go." - Canada I among the top 10 world beach vol- leyball powers but has some work to dat to equal Brazil's sand superiority or match our powerful neighbours to the south. "The U.S. is strong but Canada is right up there," Cooke said. When asked what the V allure of beach volleyball is, Cooke pointed to its challenges. Played on the same sized court as the indoor game, beach v -ball teams of two must cover the same area as six indoor players do on a less than stable surface. "It challenges you to be physically and mentally in the game," Cooke said, adding that unlike indoor v -ball, players; can't spe- cialize in just one disci- pline like setting or power hitting. "In beach volley- ball, you have to have all the skills or the opposition can exploit your weak- nesses. On the beach there's no where to run or hnie., Beach v -bail is easier on the body and its players enjoy longer careers than their indoor cousins, he said. The beach game has had to battle the opinion of some sports nuts that it's just an excuse to be at the beach, generally a pleasant place to be on a sunny summer day. 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