The All-Area Boys Soccer team for 2007 is, from left to right, Bryce Walker, Perry-Lecompton; Kory Roberts, Perry-Lecompton; coach Jason Pendleton, Free State; Greg Glatz, Free State; Alex Clayton, Free State; Alex Silva, Baldwin; Erik Slan, Free State; Andrew Heck, Free State; Zach England, De Soto; Spencer Nash, Mill Valley; and Dustin Schiller, Baldwin.

A mainstay of Free State High boys soccer for the past nine years, Jason Pendleton isn’t exactly the same coach he was when he took over the program, but he isn’t that different either.

Although he says he has learned much more about the tactical side of the game and all its nuances, he’s still in the profession for the same reason he got into it: To help young people develop work ethic and responsibility.

Pendleton is first and foremost a teacher to his players, but he is also known for being an entertaining coach to watch on the sidelines with his animated reactions to plays and sarcastic quips for players and referees alike.

“It’s a curse and a gift, I think,” the coach said of his penchant for sarcasm, adding that he picked it up from his witty mother growing up.

“At times it can be a real positive because you can alleviate stress and things like that,” Pendleton said, noting he tries not to use it to berate officials. “It’s a subtle way of getting your point across, and sometimes it can be effective … and sometimes not so effective.

“More often than not, the referee is so far away that anything I say is probably more for me and my players to hear than it is for the referee.”

But the FSHS coach said he is actually much calmer now than he was when he first started coaching. This season marked the first time in three seasons that he received a yellow card.

“Unless there’s something that I would view as physically threatening to one of my players – on the verge of them getting hurt or something – I’ve realized that the referees are doing, for the most part, a good job. And just like players who make mistakes, referees aren’t trying to,” Pendleton said.

There’s much more to Pendleton than coach-ref relations, though.

In his tenure he has laid a foundation for the FSHS soccer program.

“Teams know what they’re going to face when they come up against us relative to work ethic and our willingness to compete,” he said.

This season the Firebirds finished 11-6-1 – Pendleton credits his hard-working staff for the team’s success – and a promising year ended with a shootout loss in the regional final to Olathe Northwest. Pendleton said the FSHS offense was dynamic and dangerous, and one of the top few teams he has coached during his time at the school.

“This is a team that more so than any other that we’ve had up to this point, bought into the expectations that me and the rest of my staff placed on them. They worked extremely hard and as a result of that investment they seemed to play with a certain zeal and energy that maybe other more-talented teams in the past hadn’t,” he said, adding that they lost a few they should have won. “It wasn’t for lack of effort or energy, it was being unable to execute at a key moment or something along those lines.”