By: Adam Crooks
KENNESAW, Ga. - From his time as a player, goalkeeping coach, or director of youth or professional programs in South Africa, England, or the United States, the word that best describes Wezly Barnard is resilient.
Wezly grew up in South Africa just outside the county's largest city, Johannesburg. He had a prolific youth career, playing for several semi-professional academies, including Luso Africa FC. He even made a foray into the international system with the South African Youth National Team from ages 12-17. However, playing professionally in South Africa was an extremely tall task.
"From a local standpoint, the teams in my area were some of the top teams in the area, and most of the national team players were there, so it was really tough to make it," Barnard said.
This was the first of many hurdles he faced in his journey. He overcame the fierce competition by moving to England for six months to see if it would give him better odds at playing professionally. While there, he trained with several different clubs, including Aldershot Town FC, Stevenage and Bournemouth. He quickly learned that 5'10 goalkeepers like him were not in high demand. Barnard made the long journey back to South Africa dejected about the impending end of his professional career. Little did he know that he would be granted another opportunity upon his return.
Not long after, Wez, as he is affectionately known by his players, returned from England. He heard from his former high school coach's teammate had partial scholarship open at Young Harris College in Towns County, Georgia. Sight unseen on a handshake deal, Wez made his second massive trip worldwide to try to play professional soccer.
"The coach (at Young Harris) said, in my first year, that I would have a scholarship percentage of a certain amount until he saw me play," Barnard said.
Soon after arriving in Georgia, Wez impressed the coaches at Young Harris with his skill and leadership. Early on in his freshman year, he earned the starting keeper job. Not only did he get the starting keeper job as a freshman, but he also received was upgraded to a full-ride scholarship his sophomore year and was named a team captain.
During his college career, in addition to playing at Young Harris, he played semi-professionally for the Knoxville Force and the Georgia Revolution. However, he recalls that it wasn't long before reality set in:
"When I graduated, I could see how the system was changing, how the level had improved, and how American soccer was taking a new leap, and I already missed the boat," Barnard said.
After graduating from Young Harris, he stepped away from soccer and was resigned to becoming an insurance salesman. He took on a bigger role by becoming an insurance broker, but he always felt like something was missing. He found what was missing when a friend with a youth soccer club offered to let him come in and help his team practice.
"Within three-to-six months, I found so much joy in the couple of hours a night that I was coaching far more than the eight hours a day in the corporate world," Wez said. "I still remember the day I came home, and I had a really good commission check, and my wife could see that I wasn't too happy, and she said, 'You need to figure out this coaching thing,' and ever since then, I never looked back."
That conversation kickstarted a multiple-year-long coaching journey for Wez, taking him all over the southeast. He started as the goalkeeping director at Brookhaven FC. It was not long before another Young Harris College connection sparked an opportunity for the young South African. Barnard's wife Kelsey, also a former keeper at Young Harris, knew a former coach who took a job at Berry and offered to bring Wez on to work with the goalkeepers. He spent a year at Berry but soon Barnard was on the move again, this time, with a professional club.
While on a recruiting trip for Berry, he ran across a good friend who told him about an opening with North Carolina FC. Wezly quicky inquired and took the job, spending three years with the club, running its program of 250 goalkeepers and 12 staff. He attributes those years as the time when he grew the most professionally.
"Those three years were an extremely positive experience for me as a coach," he said. "They were probably the three years I grew the most because I was around such unbelievable coaches and staff."
His world was turned upside down in a good way this time with the birth of his daughter Charlotte, during his time at North Carolina FC. Her birth ushered in a decision and Wez and his family left North Carolina and brought his talents back to the Metro Atlanta area to be closer to family and become the Director of Coaching for Southern Soccer Academy.
Coming to Southern Soccer Academy (SSA) brought challenges of its own. He was no longer just focused on goalkeepers; Wez now had to be focused on the entire team.
"It was tough for me to go away from the goalkeeping side where I feel like I am best, to a more running regional location, plus helping goalkeepers, plus helping teams," he said.
Just like every challenge that Barnard faced, he once again showed his resilience, leading the Atlanta program to several great years and overseeing the development of a new goalkeeper program. However, it wasn't long before things would change once more. Through a connection he had, Wez learned that Chris Cahill, at the time the newly minted head coach of Kennesaw State women's soccer, was looking for someone to help with goalkeepers.
"After speaking with Chris (Cahill), we decided it was a good fit," Barnard said. "What the program was about to become, and his growth mindset was beautiful to me and I decided this was a no-brainer."
Barnard went from coaching a couple hundred players and several teams to 32 players, including just four goalkeepers at Kennesaw State. Although he began coaching a smaller group it came with its own challenges. Just four games into the season, a road match versus the Georgia Bulldogs offered the season's first obstacle. His starting goalkeeper, Charlee Bernal went down with a foot injury. That meant true freshman Ariana Rosenblum was thrust into her first collegiate game, and subsequently her first start in the next game against North Florida.
"I think throwing her in Georgia was good because there wasn't too much time to think about it. She had an outstanding performance and some excellent saves, and that was something we could build off regardless of the score. It was mainly just a mental thing, I told her 'You have everything we need right now,' And then it's just getting the right repetitions in training." Barnard said
Rosenblum would perform admirably for the next couple of contests before another challenge would arise. Just 17 minutes into the match against Florida, Rosenblum collided with an opposing player meaning Barnard needed to prepare his third keeper of the year. Charlotte native Caroline Wehr came in to relieve her fellow freshman. After a 3-0 defeat against the Gators, Barnard returned to Wehr against conference foe UTEP. The North Carolina native made six saves that night and led the Owls to their first draw of the season, which started a five-match unbeaten streak that included two wins and three draws.
Whether as a player or as a coach, soccer has meant everything to Wezly Barnard. It's taken him from Africa to Europe and North America, and it could take the young South African further. There have been numerous mountains to climb as a player trying to make it professionally and as a young man making a career change from the corporate world to the coaching realm. The one thing that has always stood out is his resilience. When they told him he couldn't make it as a 5'10Â goalkeeper, he still played in college, and when his 2nd-sting keeper went down, he instilled the confidence in Caroline Wehr to play the game of her life. Wezly Barnard is a father, husband, and coach, but his resilience sticks out the most.
