John Babula
BLOOMFIELD, NJ — John Babula, a volunteer coach in the Bloomfield Soccer Club for the past seven years, has been named a 2024 regional winner of Positive Coaching Alliance’s Coach of the Year Award presented by TeamSnap.
Babula was selected as one of only 36 regional winners from nearly 500 nominated coaches throughout the country. Coaches were nominated from all sports and from all levels, including club, academy and high school teams.
PCA will select 10 of these winning coaches as national winners and one as PCA Coach of the Year.
Babula was nominated by his girls’ team, the U11 Bloomfield Thunder, after they completed an amazing fall season. The team won the Piscataway Fall Classic Tournament; had a wonderful run in the New Jersey State Cup – Presidents Cup, where they advanced to the semifinals and lost a heartbreaker in a penalty shootout; and completed their season in EDP Flight IV with a 7-1-1 record, earning 22 points, which tied them for most points in the group.
The Bloomfield Thunder started the fall season ranked at No. 169 in New Jersey and finished the fall ranked at No. 28.
This is not the first time Babula has been recognized for his efforts. In 2021, NJ Youth Soccer named him the Bob McNulty Coach of the Year. He was nominated for that award by his U11 boys team, Bloomfield Barcelona. At the time, that team was competing in EDP Flight I and was ranked at No. 4 in the state and No. 28 in the nation.
Photo Courtesy of Michelle Lowry Babula
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