PORT ANGELES — The template for a successful community college soccer program is no secret to Kanyon Anderson.
The right-hand man of Peninsula College men’s soccer coach Andrew Chapman during much of the past four years, Anderson has witnessed it first hand.
It’s practically staring him in the face as he looks over the men’s team tryout playing out in front of him on Civic Field’s glistening green grass Sunday.
That’s where 30-plus players are killing themselves in side-by-side nine-on-nine scrimmages, fighting to prove their worth.
With just nine sophomores trying out — some of whom won’t even make the team — an opportunity for a roster spot is there.
The reward if they make it? They get to do it all over again . . . for the next three months of their lives.
Just the sort of atmosphere Anderson, tabbed the women’s program’s first-ever coach in May, wants to see a few hours later when his team takes the field.
“All of these guys who are at this tryout could go play somewhere in [the NWAACC], and they chose to come here for a chance to play at Peninsula,” Anderson said of the men.
“I think that’s kind of the key, to make it something that the players value, that they are proud of making the team . . . and to carry enough players that it is competitive every day.”
No doubt, that last part has had a lasting impact on the men, who have reached the NWAACC playoffs each of the past five seasons and the Final Four two of the last three.
If nothing is guaranteed to any of the players on the pitch, they don’t have an excuse to let up . . . ever.
“Although we have a tryout at the beginning of the season, we really try out every day,” said Anderson, who will still work with the men’s program when he has the time this fall.
“If a guy isn’t getting it done, there’s a capable player on the bench who is ready to take his spot.”
No year has that been more true that this one.
Peninsula invited a total of 34 players to its men’s tryouts this past weekend, with 27 moving on to camp.
Unlike years past, when cuts tended to be obvious five to 10 minutes into the tryout, Chapman and his coaches had a number of difficult choices to make this time around.
Who gets to play on the Pirates’ new on-campus artificial turf field — which may be ready for play as early as September — is quite the competition.
“We’re very, very deep,” said Chapman, who has a 62-56-25 record in his seven years as Pirates coach.
“We have a bubble area of about 12 players [on the cut line]. It’s very unusual to have that many on your bubble that you’re not sure what you’re going to do with. It’s very competitive it looks like.”
That’s just how Chapman and company like it.
There’s a reason why Anderson — who had 18 athletes for the women’s team inaugural tryout — refers to position battles as “fun.”
The fight between his own standout goalkeepers — freshmen Ashley Manker of Coupeville and Krystal Daniels of Kent — is as intense as any on the men’s side.
Anderson hopes that competition will spill over onto the rest of the pitch as well.
“I did a lot of recruiting and got as many good athletes as I can,” Anderson said. “I think our good athletes are going to be as good as anybody else’s.
“It’s going to be a question of developing kind of a team identity in a short time. [With the men], there’s a lot of returners, and they drive this tryout.
“With everybody being new [on the women’s team], trying to kind of instill a team philosophy with all freshmen . . . that changes things a little bit.”
The philosophy on the men’s side isn’t too hard to find.
Chapman’s teams have almost always been intimidating and physical during their five-year playoff run.
There’s always one or two imposing and talkative players at the center of the back line willing to throw their bodies around (think 2009 NWAACC West Division MVP Steve Prevost).
And the athletes in front of them doggedly fight for possession for 90 minutes, often getting shuttled in and out to keep the on-the-field product fresh.
Throw in some playmakers at the forward and midfield spots, and you have the ingredients of a team that has won a share of the West Division two of the past three seasons.
Sophomore goalkeeper Alec Risk, now in his third year out of Oregon with a redshirt season, knows the blueprint better than most.
“We definitely work hard in practice,” Risk said. “We’ll stick people, not to hurt them or anything, just to let them know you are there. And it toughens them up.
“This is a tough league, and we’re going to play some really good teams.”
Anderson wouldn’t mind his own team having such a blue-collar identity as well.
It’s just another part of the men’s model he’d like to adopt, with the help of Chapman.
“They’ve done in one year, or a couple of months, what it took us three years to learn,” said Chapman, who also works with the women’s program.
“Those players that are on the women’s side, it took us three years to really get those players [for the men].
“We were able to take the women’s program and look at the men’s success and the things that helped them do what they have done and we were able to implement those right away.
“The fundraising, going off to camps [for camps], the gear . . . all that kind of stuff we had a great idea early of how to do that.
“It’s almost like a third-year program the way we have structured things with them.”
Daniels said that was part of the women’s program’s appeal, and one of the main reasons she chose to come to Port Angeles.
“I was looking at another school, and I didn’t meet their athletic director [like she had at Peninsula],” the Kentridge graduate said. “The coach was a little iffy.
“Once I came up here, I knew before I even left the [recruiting] session that I had with Kanyon that I was coming here.
“I’ve heard about how the men’s program is run and all the things that they have won so far, and just the way that it is all ran is very organized. That was a major motivation [to come here].”
And now, she just might help jump-start something special.
Provided she earns it, of course.