It didn’t take long for Capilano University men’s soccer coach Paul Dailly to get inside the head of young recruit Devan Woolley, planting the seeds that would help him blossom into a hard-hitting anchor on defence for the Blues for years to come.
It was the summer of 2012 and Woolley, recently graduated from Sutherland secondary, was trying out for the vaunted Blues team. In his mind, it wasn’t going all that well.
“The first training camp I was super nervous,” he says. “I was thinking for sure I wasn’t going to make it because there were a couple of super-skilled players. I wasn’t sure, I didn’t know the coaches.”
Coach Dailly didn’t know Woolley all that well either, but he noticed that while the young player was still raw, he was also powerfully built and full of effort and energy. As the tryouts were winding down near the end of August, Dailly told Woolley he was “on the bubble.” The coach needed to see a little bit more out of him.
“What do I have to do?!” Woolley thought to himself, before crafting a plan. “I know that Paul likes the skill, obviously, but he loves the guys that are going to put their body on the line and give you 110 per cent every game. Considering that I’m not the most skilled player, that’s what I tried to bring to the table. Apparently it paid off.”
It most certainly has paid off. Woolley made the team, and now, five years later, he’s the captain of the squad, the only fifth-year player on a Blues team that will try to win PacWest gold for the second year in a row. Capilano is hosting the provincial championships this weekend at Burnaby Lake Sports Complex, looking to win back-to-back titles as well as a second straight trip to the CCAA national championships. The Blues will be favoured this weekend – they’re currently ranked No. 2 in the country, having run away with first place in the PacWest league with a 10-0-2 record, scoring 34 goals while allowing just six. If they do make it back to nationals, the centre back out of Sutherland will play a huge part for the Blues.
“It’s been cool coming full circle from barely making the team, to getting half a game (as a sub), to getting the armband and playing 90 minutes,” says Woolley. “With our team I don’t even need to be that classic captain who’s ordering (people) around. I’m just another guy – I try and lead by example, but we’ve got so many role players on our team that I think that we could easily have more than one captain. Having the armband on a team that is so close like that is pretty cool.”
Dailly would probably politely disagree with Woolley’s assessment that he’s “just another guy.” Over the past five years Dailly has watched him grow from a raw recruit to a polished maestro who controls the Blues from the back and is always ready to seek out dangerous attacks and blow them up.
“He leaves it all on the line – he doesn’t shy away from anything,” says Dailly. “He kind of plays like every game is his last – that’s his mindset, and it shows on the field. It’s contagious – the guys see their captain, their leader doing it and they jump on board and they want to do it too. … He’s such a leader back there. He’s just one of those guys you want to have on your team. If you could clone him, you would.”
As the Blues begin their playoff run, Woolley is coming to grips with the fact that one of these matches will, in fact, be his last with the Blues. On Friday everything will be on the line in a provincial semifinal matchup against fourth-place Quest University. The loser will drop to the consolation final, while the winner will move on to the PacWest final while also securing one of the league’s two berths in the national championships.
The ultimate goal is to win nationals, an objective that has extra meaning for Woolley and the rest of Capilano’s veteran players. The Blues made the national final last year but couldn’t grab gold, losing to Ontario’s Humber Hawks in a shootout following a 0-0 tie. Woolley admits that the low of losing in the national final outweighs the high of winning provincials last year.
“As much as I’d love to say it’s the high, I’ve got to say the thing that sticks with everyone the most is the sting of losing in the bitter end,” he says. “We’re that close again this year, so hopefully we can get it done. … This year being my last year, I just want it that much more. I want to win nationals so bad.”
That drive to win and team-first mentality are what make Woolley a quintessential captain, says Dailly.
“He’s one of those guys who doesn’t want any accolades,” he says. “If we win championships and he doesn’t score a goal in five years, he’d be happy with that.”
If they do win a title, however, Woolley will enjoy celebrating with the coach who helped him unlock his potential over the past five seasons.
“We’ve gotten really close,” Woolley says about what it’s been like playing for Dailly for five years, including winter seasons now spent together with the West Vancouver Soccer Club’s dominant premier men’s team. “I consider him a friend-coach – he’s almost more friend than coach. That’s been really cool – I can go to him with anything. … I can’t believe it’s been five years. It’s flown by.”
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The Blues men will play Quest University in the PacWest semifinals Friday starting at 3 p.m. The championship final is scheduled for Saturday at 8 p.m.
On the Women’s side the fourth-ranked Blues play top-seeded Douglas College Friday at 12:30 p.m. with the championship final scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Saturday. All games will be played at Burnaby Lake Sports Complex West.
