Head Coach

HEAD COACH PROFILE

Named All-Met Coach of the Year in 1999 by the Washington Post, Coach Eduardo Alejandro Polón has been at the helm of the SSFS Men's Varsity Soccer Team since the fall of 1996.

In the winter of 1995, hired to take over a storied program that had befallen hard times, few could have predicted that the 'Beests would become a winning program (8-3-3) after only one year of cauterized growth. This winning way became the norm, a tradition of twelve consecutive winning seasons, and counting.

Furthermore, Polón would guide the 'Beests to, not only their first conference regular season and playoff championships in 1999 but, back-to-back PVAC regular season championships ('99 & '00).

Since, and not surprisingly, the 'Beests find themselves placed fittingly among the perrenial conference contenders year after year, including another PVAC playoff championship in 2004. In addition, not only did 2005 mark Coach Polón's decade-long anniversary at the varsity helm, but with it came his 100th regular season and playoff victory, bookended by achieving the elusive conference double, earning both the PVAC regular season championship and playoff tournament, and doing so in perfect style, finishing 18-0-0. Yet another conference double in 2006 served as the coronation of an eight-year dynasty. Serendipitously, the fall of 2008 saw the program's reign close a ten-year circle by hoisting the PVAC Tournament banner, its ninth conference championship since the first in 1999.

Entering his 14th season with the 'Beests, Coach Polón begins the 2009 campaign with a 143-53-21 combined regular season & playoff record at SSFS (142-40-21 since '97) and a, once again combined regular season & playoff record, 679-220 goals for and against ratio (664-166 since '97), a plus-minus differential of +459 (+498 since '97).

And whether it’s on the field or in the classroom, Polón’s student-athletes give it all they’ve got, and it shows. His players have gone on to stunningly successful endeavors in soccer and life.

COACHING HISTORY

Polón's first taste of coaching came in 1987, while still a student at Utica Eisenhower High School in southeast Michigan, as the Lady Eagles' varsity goalkeeper coach. This same charge repeated itself the following preseason, in 1988, this time for the boys varsity squad, prior to embarking on his college quest.

While completing his undergraduate, student-teaching internship, Polón was hired in the spring of 1993 as the goalkeeper coach for the Portage Northern High School Huskies girls varsity soccer team in Portage, Michigan.

Along with a move to Maryland to pursue Graduate studies in the fall of 1993 came the opportunity to serve as a player-coach for the University of Maryland College Park Club team.

After two years at the helm, while simultaneously completing his graduate studies, Polón accepted his current position at Sandy Spring Friends School. In 1995 he served as the girls 7th-8th grade coach and as a consultant to the boys varsity soccer team before Ari Preuss, the program's founder and head coach, ceremoniously passed the technical directorship torch to Polón after nearly three decades at the helm.

PLAYING CAREER

In addition to his coaching accomplishments, Polón was also a standout student-athlete himself. The son of Argentine immigrants, it was actually in Canada that he began playing soccer. Named "Best Offensive Player of the Year" for the city of Oakville, by 1977 Polón was already being singled out as a developmental standout striker moving from his local neighborhood team to the prestigious travel club Oakville Rep Select, in the western Metropolitan Toronto suburb of Oakville, Ontario. Along with a move in 1978 to the eastern Metropolitan suburb of Oshawa, Ontario, came a change in club and position.

Following in his grandfather's footsteps with Club Atlético Independiente from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and inspired that same summer by a first-ever Argentine World Cup championship victory, led by world-class keeper Ubaldo Matildo Fillol, Polón became a goaltender himself.

As a starter for Ontario Cup finalist Oshawa Spartans SC, and later international, Toronto-based Robbie Tournament runner-up Oshawa Turrell, Polón received an invite to join the provincial team of Ontario U-14. Polón platooned goalkeeping duties for a season and a half until a knee injury, suffered in a national indoor tournament in Ottawa, Ontario, as a member of the U-15 provincial squad, in the winter of 1984, sidelined him for over a year. 1985 brought a move to the United States, as a result of a job transfer his father received, essentially ending Polón's young journey through the ranks of the Canadian national soccer pool.

But it wasn't until the summer of 1986, coincidentally following the next Argentine World Cup victory in Mexico, that Polón retook the pitch as the starting keeper for his high school Varsity Eagles of Utica Eisenhower HS in southeast Michigan. Assuming the captaincy duties his senior year, Polón guided the Class A, 6th ranked Eagles to a 14-1-1 record (11 shutouts, 0.44 GAA), a regular season conference championship and a noble, albeit ill-fated, run at the State Cup.

As a two-time All-Conference 1st Team selection, Polón shattered most of the previous single-season school and conference goalkeeping records, earning All-State Honorable Mention his senior year. By the end of his varsity campaign, Polón was recognized as "Best Captain Ever" in school soccer program history.

Parallely, by the spring of 1987, at the club level, Polón, then 16, served as the reserve keeper for the nationally ranked, state champion Birmingham Blazers SC U-17, playing U-19, alongside fellow All-State teammate, High School Player of Year, future Hermann trophy winner, Alexi Lalas of Rutgers University, MLS and US national team fame.

Following his 1988 "Best Goalie" performance at the international Twin Cities soccer tournament in Windsor, Canada, at 17, a spring/summer stint with semi-professional, Detroit-area polish club, Hamtramack Eagles, earned Polón the honor of youngest player in club history. That same summer, Polón declined an invitation to join the Division I Broncos of Western Michigan University (Mid American Conference), en lieu of accepting a weightier academic scholarship to the same institution. Instead, Polón joined Yago School Fútbol Club, a private university team from Madrid, Spain. YSFC served as a kind of goodwill ambassador soccer program, touring the state of Michigan, visiting university campuses ranging from playing the likes of D-1 University of Michigan (then club) to D-3 Kalamazoo College. In his rookie season Polón was awarded MVP, and by 1992, four years and eight successive bi-annual championships with Yago would serve as the appropriate toast to end his competitive goalkeeping days.

PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY

The younger of two sons, Eduardo Alejandro Polón was born August 18, 1970, on the outskirts of Toronto, Canada, from Argentine parents who emigrated from the increasing Latin American socio-political and financial instability brought about, in part, by the now infamous "Dirty War".

Prior to satisfying a Master of Arts degree in 1995, concentrated in Hispanic Literary Criticism and Methodology from the University of Maryland at College Park, Eduardo first completed a Bachelor of Arts program in 1993 from Western Michigan University's Lee Honors College in Kalamazoo with four major degrees: Spanish, English, French and Secondary Education.

He is currently the Head of the Upper School French & Spanish Department, as well as a teacher of the Spanish language and Hispanic cultures at the private, preparatory Sandy Spring Friends School in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Eduardo lives with his wife Jody and daughter Alejandra Sabrina in the northern suburbs of the greater metropolitan Washington, DC area.