A ‘part of something bigger’

“A duck above water: They’re calm, they’re chilling,” Haddonfield Memorial High School’s new girls soccer coach Chris Zirpoli said of his first meeting with the team.

“But below water, they’re working their tails. That’s me right now; I might look calm and composed, but I am a mess.”

At their first practice, about half of team members – 36 – showed up, encouraging Zirpoli along with the weather.

“And the rain stopped!” he marveled. “It rained all day and then the soccer gods, it’s 6 o’clock, were like, ‘No, that’s alright, you can go ahead and have a nice first session here.’ So it’s beautiful to be back.”

In the leadup to practice, Zirpoli rediscovered one of his favorite parts of coaching soccer: planning practice sessions.

“Someone compared planning a session to writing music,” he noted. “You have something you don’t like, you throw it out. You cross it out, you scribble it out. You can spend two hours planning a session that’s 90 minutes, cause you want it to be so good.”

During that first practice, Zirpoli did his best to ingratiate himself with the team members and get them to understand his coaching style.

“I got this from my college coach,” he recalled. “If you yawn, it’s five sit-ups or push-ups or whatever. So if I caught anyone yawning, we would just do a fun little thing with that. It helps get to know each other, have fun. It’s just soccer.

“We’re here to have fun, make friends for life. Be a part of something bigger than yourself.”

That matters to Zirpoli because he’s the team’s third head coach in two years.

“If you’re a senior sitting in one of these interest meetings, you’re like, ‘Aw man, here we go again,’ so it might be tough,” he explained. “What’s this guy about? What are we gonna expect? Are we going to like him? What’s his philosophy?’

“So I just wanted to get everyone relaxed,” the coach added. “We’re all going to be ok … I don’t plan on going anywhere. This is something I love.”

The team’s previous head coach was Christiana Ogunsami, who was in that role from March of 2025 to this year and succeeded Lori Quintavalle, head coach since 2013.

Zirpoli attended and played soccer for Delaware Valley University, where he eventually served as the school’s head men’s soccer coach from 2017 until 2023.

“I knew from 21 years of age, that’s all I ever wanted to do, was be the (Delaware Valley) head coach,” he remembered. “So when you say dream job, that was a dream job. I lived it for six years, beautiful. We did some great things, met some amazing people, still have those relationships. But after six years, for a variety of reasons, it was time to move on from that.”

Before getting to Haddonfield High, Zirpoli was the director of coaching for Mount Laurel United Soccer. Moving from college men to high-school girls was a bit of an adjustment, but he was able to take the difference in stride.

“One, it’s a public school,” Zirpoli said. “You’re just getting the kids that are there, compared to college-age men that I recruit and I know, and I’ve talked to their parents and I’ve said, ‘You’ve got to let me coach these kids the way they need to be coached.'”

Zirpoli said it takes a different mentality to train girls.

“With guys, there’s different buttons you can push,” he acknowledged. “With girls, you’ve got to be a little more cautious, a little bit more, that psychological aspect to how you handle things, where with guys I don’t have to really think about what I’m saying if there’s something that needs to be said. I have to be cautious about how I say it.”

Another change comes with the tools for coaching. At the college level, players recorded all practices and wore GPS vests during games so they could track distances run and plays made, according to Zirpoli. That let him know which players needed to dial it back at the next practice.

While the vests aren’t available to Zirpoli now, he wants to raise some money for them through the team’s booster club.