JAQUELINE CATANO

February 1, 2018

To Whom It may Concern:

As a student athlete now playing Women’s Soccer at Dominican University, I have had many coaches who have helped me throughout my journey in soccer. Although every coach has shaped me into the player I am now, Rose Shoen is one of the coaches that I can say has impacted me the most throughout the years.

I have known Rose Shoen for the past 4 years and I am apart of her WPSL team, Primero de Mayo. My first year playing in Primero de Mayo with Rose, I was often shy and lacked confidence in myself while playing. Having low confidence made it hard for me to pick my head up from any mistakes I made while at practices and in games. There was even times where I just wanted to give up, but despite feeling this way, Rose always helped motivate me to do better. Rose helped me realize that from those mistakes I should learn from them and strive forward to do even better in order to fix them.

Throughout the years playing on her team, Rose continued helping me with trainings and with many lessons that helped me mentally and physically. With all the wise lessons she has taught me I began to feel confident and happy in everything I was doing. She always believed in me and knew I can achieve great things. This all then lead to 2018, where my soccer path really was starting to begin. Rose was helping me to get an opportunity to play college soccer. Through her busy schedule of coaching, playing, and working, she still was able to manage her time to help me find college camps, seeking club teams that I can join, helping me understand college paperwork and contacting college coaches. Not to mention, she would also offer extra practices, for example, team practices, gym trainings, conditioning trainings, and early training before team practices. Her dedication to help me seek an opportunity to play college soccer was one to be grateful for. I received a scholarship to play soccer at a Division 2 level. If it wasn't for Rose, I wouldn't have had this amazing opportunity that she has given to me. Once I have accepted to play at a college level, even then Rose still continued to help prepare my physical strength to become stronger before playing in college and continued being there for me when I had questions or needed anything.

I am very grateful to have had such an amazing coach as Rose. Her dedication to her teams and players is honestly unbelievably incredible. She always helps those who work hard and helps them become stronger mentally and physically. She is an inspiration to me, and I look up to her a lot as a coach, player and as a person. She has impacted my life significantly and I can not thank her enough for it. She has shaped me into becoming the best I can be and has motivated me and helped me gain a lot of confidence in myself. I hope to one day also be able to be an amazing role model and to inspire many others as she has.

Sincerely,

Jaqueline Catano