ORDER-2021-76 : A Resolution Honoring Melrose Youth Soccer Coach Danielle DeSimone for Leadership in Girls’ Sports

Transcript (~14 min @ 55:05)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 55:03 Speaker 8: yes councillor thomas yes councillor Tramontozzi yes president sneller yes 11 yes all right we're

▶ 55:09 Christopher Cinella: under rule suspension i'm putting the card before the horse but councillor Grigoraitis

▶ 55:15 Jen Grigoraitis: yes thank you uh president sanella i am speaking on behalf of myself and councillor thomas as the co-makers of this resolution honoring the melrose youth soccer coach danielle de simone for her her leadership in girls' sports. Ms. DeSimone is a Ward 7 resident and won a national award for her role as a coach, and we wanted to recognize her for that achievement. And with us tonight are Ms. DeSimone, Jamie Mahoney, who is a parent of three girls who've been coached by Ms. DeSimone, as well as a member of the Melrose Youth Soccer Board, and Jim Donahue, who is the current president of melrose youth soccer his daughter grace who is also um uh was used to be coached by ms de simone and they are also both ward six presidents um so at this time i'll pass it over

▶ 56:12 Cory Thomas: to mr to counselor thomas thank you very much um council Grigoraitis and welcome to everyone here um we have before us a resolution honoring melrose youth soccer coach danielle de simone her leadership in girls sports and i'll read the order order 2021-76 whereas misty simone was recognized by the united states youth soccer organization as the national girls recreational soccer coach of the year for 2020 whereas this recognition was preceded by her recognition as both the massachusetts and eastern region 2020 girls recreational soccer coach of the year whereas misty simone a former melrose youth soccer and melrose high school soccer player has shared her soccer skills and commitment to girls sports as coach of the melrose youth soccer grade seven and eight team one for over a decade whereas in her role as a coach misty simone has not only developed the skills and passion for this game in hundreds of girls but also invested in and supported their development as strong confident young women individually and as a team Therefore, we recognize Misty Simone for her leadership in Melrose and for serving as a role model at our local, state, and national level on how to positively impact the lives of girls and young women through personal growth and team camaraderie.

▶ 57:33 Speaker 4: All right.

▶ 57:35 Jen Grigoraitis: Sorry. Just a point of order. I apologize in my attempt to make sure all of our guests got online, I forgot to motion for immediate consideration of this order, so I just wanted to correct that before we move forward.

▶ 57:47 Christopher Cinella: Okay. any objection to immediate consideration seeing none we may continue if you have any do you have any other words to add uh counselor i think go ahead counselor thomas

▶ 58:05 Jen Grigoraitis: fdu is great i think at this time we are going to turn it over to ms mahoney to speak as both a parent and a member of the board right that floor is yours oh go ahead uh ms mahoney uh

▶ 58:14 Christopher Cinella: Is Ms. DeSimone, is she on?

▶ 58:21 Speaker 9: She is on. She's saying she doesn't have the option to turn her camera on.

▶ 58:28 Christopher Cinella: Oh, one of our clerks can look at that. Go ahead, Ms. Mahoney. Thank you for being here.

▶ 58:34 Speaker 9: Thank you for having me. I am fairly nervous even though I am a teacher and should be comfortable doing this. So I'm gonna read and hopefully that's okay. Danielle's coaching philosophy is to truly care about and value every player and help them grow to be better players and better people. Danielle supports her female athletes in the way that female athletes, particularly those in middle school years, need. She focuses on building genuine confidence in themselves and their soccer ability, and in exchange, they deliver for her on the soccer field. Danielle has technical knowledge, but the intangible that Danielle brings to coaching is her ability to connect to her players and motivate them to be better, work harder, and connect to each other. This isn't easily taught, and even when learned, can be difficult to execute genuinely. She achieves this by valuing players individually as soccer players and people and valuing them as members of the larger unit, the team. Danielle shows up for her players past and present, as you'll see when Grace speaks. She goes to see them in plays and basketball games and participates in walks for breast cancer with them. She goes to the eighth grade semi-formal photo opportunity to get photos of her players dressed up with their teammates in seventh grade. She meets the team pizza in hand to watch high school soccer games together. And Danielle's impact is felt beyond her players to the parents who see the positive impacts that she has had for their daughters. With all that said, I want to congratulate Danielle again for winning the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Girls Recreation Coach of the Year, the U.S. Youth Soccer East Region Girls Recreational Coach of the Year, and the U.S. Youth Soccer National Girls Recreation Coach of the Year. Thank you.

▶ 1:00:15 Christopher Cinella: Thank you. Ms. Donahue, did you want to say a few words?

▶ 1:00:21 Speaker 10: She will. I'm going to pre-empt her for just a quick moment. I'm Jim Donahue, President receive soccer and i've had the opportunity to work with danielle both in sort of the administration of aspects of of our program but also um to observe what jamie described um and had and had the pleasure of having danielle coach my daughter so i'm going to quickly um turn it over to her but um but congratulations danielle we're very proud of you and grateful for for all you've done for for the program and for our girls.

▶ 1:00:54 Speaker 5: I just wanted to second that. And I just wanted to share a few words from the letters of, I guess, recommendation that me and a teammate of mine and myself wrote to support Danielle's original nomination to for like the state award, which literally went on the rest of the ranks. So this is from a teammate of mine. She said, Danielle truly cares about each and every one of her players the way a good coach should. Took me a while, but with the support of the team, and more importantly, Danielle, my confidence grew. She taught me how to calm my nerves and sparked a love of soccer that I never knew I had before. And I said, Danielle has become a pillar in my growth as a person. As her leadership and encouragement empowered me to be confident in myself and my abilities. And it's helped me find a voice to speak out what I believe in. She always very clearly emphasized to her players the importance of girls being able to stand up and say, this is what I want and this is why I deserve it. I was a player on Danielle's team in seventh and eighth grade, but I, of course, I've maintained a relationship and a friendship with Danielle. And I just really appreciate the way that she's, I guess, shaped so many girls at a really formative time in their life, middle school when they're really uncertain of themselves and lacking a lot of confidence and i think that she really contributed to the growth of a lot of the girls i know and um i don't think that they'd have the same level of confidence in themselves and what they can do without danielle so thank you danielle but also congratulations on the awards very very well deserved thank you

▶ 1:02:40 Christopher Cinella: thank you thank you i don't know that she has a connection seems like she might be offline but hopefully she's watching this on mntv right now live she's probably crying if i already guessed it but um congratulations um i think this this is one of our favorite things to do as a council and i'm sure this was on your bucket list to come before us so you can check that off but um congratulations anybody else have anything to say to add i didn't see any hands go up

▶ 1:03:12 Jeff McNaught: counselor mcnaught thank you mr president and thank you miss mahoney mr donahue and miss donahue for speaking i wish we had our honoree on camera um but like most leaders um um she probably doesn't mind as much because she puts other people first and what i wanted to say was we must be the luckiest city council in the history of the morrow city council because we're constantly um honoring melrose sports in every sport um every age for winning championships and now national awards i mean this is crazy good and i just wanted to say you know i grew up here and i didn't win these trophies so first i want to know where you all were then i'm just kidding but it really is amazing to be from a city that is thriving so so much and doing so well in so many sports you know I've said this before I'm not a wrestler I know we're winning a lot in wrestling I didn't play football we're winning everything in football soccer I know we just had a banner year in the high school sports and it seems like these younger kids coming up are just to keep it going so as i did play uh sports so as a past athlete who won nothing in morrow's i just wanted to thank you all very much um it's an honor to be from here and we're proud of all of you so

▶ 1:04:44 Christopher Cinella: thank you and for all that you do well said counselor uh what he left out was that council

▶ 1:04:52 Cory Thomas: mcnaught and bench warmers council thomas thank you mr president um this in the same vein as councilman mcnaught i just wanted to take this time to to thank you know we have melrose youth soccer uh president jim donahue here um what council mcnaught is 100 accurate um we are very fortunate to have the youth sports organizations in melrose that we have um you know we have deep roots uh in melrose youth baseball um melrose youth hockey um the melrose usa football program uh and in so many other programs uh the recreation department um It's really a testament of the volunteers, people like Jim Donahue that volunteer their time to coach and to be administrators of these leagues. So to recognize Ms. Danielle DeSimone, she joins the ranks of some of the great legendary coaches in Melrose history, you know, the Harry Pools, the Joe Hoogs, the Henry Huses, the Frank Balls, you know, some of our great female coaches, Jan Johnson, June Murphy, Denise Canvaldez, longtime gymnastics coach all these great accomplished coaches in melrose history have done so many things on on a regional state new england level but i can't remember anyone winning a national award like this so so kudos not only to melrose youth soccer but to danielle herself for winning such a tremendous award and representing our city our state and our region

▶ 1:06:24 Christopher Cinella: with such class so congratulations again well said counselor anybody else miss any hands counselor

▶ 1:06:33 Robb Stewart: stewart thank you mr president and thank you mr simone um ms mahoney mr uh donahue and miss donahue for for being here tonight as a parent of a seventh grade girl who is in in the youth soccer program. I just, I want to commend the whole program for how well it's run and how all the words that I've heard are so true because as a parent, I get to experience it firsthand and see how engaged, excited my own daughter is in the program. And particularly this year, with all the challenges that we've had the the program really stepped up by making sure the practices could be run that we found teams that we could play that we could be it at the fields and keep it safe but active and fun so I just want to say less of a counselor and more as a parent thank you it was very much appreciated and especially for Miss DeSimone for this incredible achievement I think it He's just a great representation of the program in general. And I thank you all. Thank you, Mr. President.

▶ 1:07:53 Christopher Cinella: Well, anybody else?

▶ 1:07:58 Speaker 7: Seeing none, what is the will of the Councilor Thomas?

▶ 1:08:02 Cory Thomas: Thank you, Mr. President. Motion to place on file.

▶ 1:08:06 Speaker 9: Second.

▶ 1:08:07 Christopher Cinella: Motion to place on file made by Councilor Thomas, seconded by Councilor Grigoraitis. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

▶ 1:08:15 Speaker 8: Councilor Eccles. Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor DeMoledine? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli?

▶ 1:08:34 Speaker 9: Yes.

▶ 1:08:36 Speaker 8: Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. President Sinella? Yes. 11 yes.