By BRIAN TORTELLA
Correspondent
On X @tortreports
Mike McGovern has lived in Haddon Township for nearly two decades while raising his family and coaching several youth sports.
Before this season, he had never been a head coach at the high school varsity level. But foreseeing the departure of Haddon Township girls soccer coach Chip Whitte — who moved to Moorestown as a teacher and head boys soccer coach — a door to the head job opened.
After volunteering as an assistant last fall, McGovern took the reins as the Hawks’ new head coach this offseason.
It was an opportunity he felt he had to take advantage of.
“Absolutely, I couldn’t pass it up,” McGovern said. “Because I feel like I have an ability to get them in a good position to maximize their talents and abilities.
“I knew that Chip had moved on to Moorestown to teach, and I knew his family was getting older, so I didn’t think he was going to be sticking around. When he left, the opportunity presented itself.”
An extra benefit of coaching the defending South Jersey Group 1 champions is McGovern getting the chance to coach his youngest daughter, Maeve.
He has coached his three other children — all Haddon Township alumni — at the youth level, but this is the first time he’s gotten the chance to coach Maeve.
“It’s definitely different and definitely something I had to adjust to, but luckily last year he was a volunteer and helped out a lot, so I got used to it,” the junior midfielder said. “There have definitely been some arguments, but that’s okay. I mean, it comes with it and I’d assume that would happen.
“He treats me just like all the other girls on the team and when we go home we don’t really talk about it. He coached all my other siblings in various different sports in youth, but I never got that, so it’s my turn now.”
Sure, it’s a great bonus to be able to coach your daughter, but it didn’t impact his interest and final decision in the slightest, he said.
“Sometimes I have to get some of the assistants to have a word with her because it’s a little bit harder when it’s father-to-daughter, but I love it,” he chuckled. “I would be here anyway, but I love it.”
In his first season at the helm, McGovern has led the Hawks to an 8-9-1 record — enough to earn the No. 6 seed in the South Jersey Group 1 playoff tournament, which begins Wednesday when the Hawks host Maple Shade at 4 p.m.
Haddon Township has played a challenging non-league schedule on top of its already tough Colonial Conference slate to prepare for the postseason. The Hawks have faced bigger schools such as Timber Creek, Cherry Hill East, Eastern, and Northern Burlington.
McGovern believes that could make the difference over the next few weeks.
“We’ve been gearing up for this all year. We specifically chose our schedule to get us battle-tested for the playoffs,” said McGovern, a 1990 Maple Shade graduate who was also a varsity assistant at Northern Burlington in the late 90s. “We knew that our seed was not necessarily going to be the top seed because our conference is pretty difficult. In addition, we added Eastern and Cherry Hill East. We knew that although those games might turn out to be a loss for us, they’re going to get us ready for that Group 1 South Jersey playoff.”
The Hawks start their journey next week looking to repeat as sectional champs, and McGovern couldn’t be more thrilled to be a part of a program with such rich soccer history.
“Our town has a good reputation for soccer talent and I’m just trying to put that forward. I tell the girls all the time, it’s not about me, I don’t care about my record or anything like that. I just want to give them the best opportunity so they can maximize their talent and abilities.”
