Since arriving in Burton in 2021, Stephanie Franks has had a hand in developing the youth for the Berkshire Badgers girls’ soccer program. After three years serving as the middle school girls’ soccer coach, Franks has been selected as the new Badger girls’ soccer coach.
“I think it is exciting,” Franks told The Weekly Villager on April 24. “I feel like I have been developing youth for the last 10 or 12 years and I am excited to get back into that. Obviously middle school and travel and club are all very competitive, but I am excited to be back at the high school level and I am honored and humbled, so I want to do right by them.”
Franks succeeds Ian Patterson, who served as the Berkshire girls’ soccer coach for eight years. According to Franks, once Patterson announced he was not returning for the 2026 season, he informed her that he had strongly recommended her to succeed him.
Franks said that she had worked closely with Patterson for the last several years, as it was her responsibility to prepare the Badger middle school girls for varsity level soccer.
“We met several times a year to talk about transitioning from middle school to high school and I always felt that my job as a middle school coach for him was to build skills for the players so that they were prepared for high school and understand the commitment that it takes to be on a team and retention was really big for me,” the first-year coach added.
Franks takes over a program that is only two years removed from having been just one victory away from qualifying for the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division V Final Four.
Although the Badgers have a new face at the helm, Franks is far from an unfamiliar face as she coached almost every one of her current varsity players during their middle school days.
Developing youth has been something that Franks has been involved with since her family moved from Springboro to Burton when her husband Jon, a Berkshire graduate, was hired as the new high school principal.
Upon her arrival, she became involved with youth soccer because of her two children and immediately started coaching recreation soccer, then joined the Geauga Federation club soccer program as an assistant coach before earning the nod as the middle school girls’ coach.
Franks said that she has taken pride in developing the youth and culture for Berkshire girls’ soccer, as she has not only dealt with her players as a coach but also as a teacher, working as a social studies teacher in the Berkshire school district.
“One of my biggest strengths is in forming relationships with athletes and believing in them so a lot of times I see growth,” she said. “I have a lot of great eighth graders that are moving up into the high school who are going to continue to play soccer.”
Franks acknowledged that she is stepping in during a pivotal transitional period for the program, as the team is graduating one of their best scorers in program history in Kelly McCandless but is confident in the pipeline that she helped establish with recreational and club coaches.
“I am very much aware of the program, and I was aware of the goals of the team,” said Franks. “I know how the practices ran and obviously there are some differences here and there, but I think that it is going to be very seamless.”
Franks’ coaching career started when she was a high school student at Springboro High School, coaching several youth teams while also being a three-year varsity starter.
Her playing career ended during her freshman year at Miami University due to injury and became an assistant girls’ soccer coach at Princeton High School shortly thereafter.
“I did not know for sure where that was heading but I got the opportunity during my student-teaching,” she said. “I loved it and in my first teaching job, it was the same thing, they asked if I would be willing to coach and I was like ‘I am actively trying to coach’.”
Franks spent a year working with the Riverside middle school girls’ team and varsity program when she moved to Painesville to begin her teaching career but soon moved back to Springboro to teach at her alma matter and continued coaching before taking a step back as she started a family.
No matter how long Franks has stayed away from coaching soccer, she has always been pulled back because of her children’s love of the sport and now has been handed the reins of the Badger girls’ team.
