REF Honors Jim O'Donnell
 
 

 

 Jim O’Donnell
Longtime Youth Soccer President
 “Getting a kick out of serving Robbinsville’s youth”

 The giggles of joy when the matching shirts are unpacked, the shin guards longer than the legs they protect, and the beehive swarming around the ball – these are the signs of what has become a rite of passage for most children: Playing on their first soccer team.

In Robbinsville, the apparently seamless process of turning toddlers into teammates doesn’t happen by accident.  For more than a decade now, it’s been the ultimate responsibility of Jim O’Donnell, president of the Robbinsville Soccer Association.
 


 It’s a role O’Donnell cherishes, although he is quick to list a dozen others who have helped create teams, line up sponsors, recruit coaches and help Robbinsville Township keep the fields in good shape.

It’s like a “second job,” he admits, but one well worth it.  There’s nothing quite like walking the fields that first weekend each fall, and seeing them filled with players, especially the youngest ones.  “You get to see the whole community,” he said.  While he is happy to be the REF honoree, “I don’t care if people recognize me.  That’s not what it’s about.  It’s about the kids.”

 With roughly 725 children enrolled in the fall recreation program, and 200 children involved with travel teams, the reach of RSA is enormous.  “We enroll 50 percent of the school age population from fourth grade down,” O’Donnell said.

 RSA recruited Jim O’Donnell and tapped him to become president in late 2000, barely a year after he and his wife, Betty, and their two sons had moved into town.  In O’Donnell, the league had found someone who’d grown up in the soccer hotbed of Harrison, the ethnically diverse Hudson County town that now hosts a $100 million, 25,000-seat soccer stadium, where the Red Bulls play.

 On his watch RSA has adapted policies to ensure that Robbinsville players make up the majority of the travel teams the league supports.  The league has added spring and winter clinics, and created a “travel light” program as a bridge to the financial and time commitment of a travel team.   Over time, O’Donnell said, RSA has worked to ensure that the league is giving all players time to develop, rather than just quickly identifying the best players and putting them on elite squads.

 O’Donnell grew up with a passion for sports, especially soccer.  Harrison fostered O’Donnell’s love for all things Irish, but also his ability to embrace differences in others.  In Robbinsville, Jim and Betty found a good fit.

 His adopted hometown is now home to a new project: Fostering the growth of a community St. Patrick’s Day parade, now the third in Mercer County.  O’Donnell helped found the Robbinsville Irish Heritage Association, and write the by-laws, with an eye toward including those with little Irish in their bloodlines, or perhaps none.  

“That’s why it is the Robbinsville Irish Heritage Association,” he said.  

The parade kicked off Saturday, March 19th from the Foxmoor Shopping Center parking lot and marched through Town Center.  There were more bands this year, but O’Donnell doesn’t foresee the parade losing its small-town feel, with scout troops and service organizations as important as the bagpipes.  He loved seeing last year’s parade lined with little children and with senior citizens, and took note of the front-yard bars and house parties that sprang up along the route.

 “The community of Robbinsville is a very special place,” he said.