By Gary Lee Stuber
Angela Brown is one tough mother. Not just in her capacity as Director of the Clay County Health Department, where she excels. Not as a champion of grant writing, where she also seems unequalled. No. It is her capacity as mother. Where she not only champions her own children but has kind of become a tough mother for an entire youth sports league. Probably to most under twelve she is ‘Coach Brown.’ She is coach to 45 youth members of the Clay County Soccer League. She would love to expand her league to the teen crowd, but to do that she has to grow soccer practice space at the Maysel Soccer field. Those pesky sports regulations. It will happen someday.
“She was relentless,” Clay County Commissioner Connie Kinder says of the Health Department Director who is a friend of the commission. Joyce Johnson nods her head in agreement. “A bunch of Clay County parents got together, and with Angela’s direction they got it done.” Angela had just left the commission meeting after telling the commission that they had their first soccer game the previous weekend on their new field at Maysel Park.
It was a long time in development. But Angela is also a patient person. “I have been director at the Health Department over 10 years. At the Health Department you are trying to look at a population’s health as opposed to an individual’s health. So, you try to do things that will affect more than one person.” She illustrates: “We follow up on a septic complaint or a water complaint, because that has the potential to affect a lot of people.” And with that, she segways into grants. “We will look at grants into food, because that might affect diabetes. And exercise, because that too can reduce the chance of developing diabetes. Access to better foods and exercise can at least delay the onset of diabetes in a susceptible population.”
She briefly weighs into Covid. “It was a very trying time. But we had some very helpful partners that we worked with. It was something new. We have taken many of the things we learned into the present. Covid is still with us. Like pneumonia. Like flu.”
Angela was born Angela Fitzwaters to Dawn and Danny Fitzwaters. She has a sister, Shanna Taylor who is a teacher at Clay, and a sister Katherine, who was killed in a car accident. Her father Danny was also a teacher at Clay who taught Special Education classes. Her mother, however, was probably her role model. Dawn worked 40 years at the Clay County Health Department. “You have to have a heart for the work.” Angela says, and thinks her nephew is one she sees with it. Her parents are both retired.
Her husband Greg gave her two sons: Issac, who is now a senior at Clay County High School, and Carson, who is a fifth grader at Clay Elementary.
“Issac is a coach. That is just because we need coaches,” she laughs and she wouldn’t be the last mother to press her son into service. “We have never seen ourselves as a soccer family. But Carson when he was about five he said, ‘I wanna play soccer.’ And I said let’s just try t-ball instead because it was in county and we went and he tried, and his socks were too big and his shorts were too small and he said, ‘At least I look like a soccer player.’ I said we will try our best to find soccer next season.” Next year they would find it in Braxton County. There were no leagues in Clay County. Not even as school sports options. “Not many soccer fields are lighted so everything must be done by dark, so you dash there after school and then have to eat out since you are coming back so late. There were five or six other Clay County kids playing soccer in Braxton. Most Clay County families cannot afford to do that.”
So even before Covid back in 2019, Angela was working on getting a Clay County Soccer League started. Her first grant dollars she acquired from the BeHealthy Grants through the WVU Extension Office. That was just the beginning. She first started looking at sites and it took her to the old Philcon site there on Route 36. Big field, odd angles, private equipment sitting in places. And then they set their sights on Maysel Park. She pulls up a photo from earlier this winter, which is an aerial view of a mostly brown field. On it are drawn-up soccer fields. She points to places where the ground is low or uneven that she one day hopes to fill in and level out, as that would give her the field size to add a Teen Soccer League. She will get it. She is tough that way. In the meantime, she is using the rest of the field for her existing teams. No longer brown, it is lush and green and landscaped for the games. Right now they must bring equipment with them as they have no storage building to store equipment on site. This is their first year, first season, and they had 45 kids sign up. The future is bright.
Signage for the site would also be a great opportunity for a business to sponsor the club. As one would expect, whether you have children or grandchildren in the league, all Clay County citizens are invited to come up and cheer on the teams. Bring your own seating. Food truck is available. There are two more weekends before the season ends until this fall. The US-12 game is 6 p.m. on Friday May 3. Three games starting at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday May 4, and the remaining four games on Saturday, May 11, which will also be the Spring Season Year End Event that will give awards to players at 3 p.m. Check out their web page for more details: claycountysoccerleaguewv.org
“You have to be patient in public health. When you work in a hospital, or with a doctor’s office, you see results almost immediately, very quickly you watch them going out better, or they are not.” She smiles, “In public health you have to be very patient and wait, because sometimes it might take you two years. I have been working on this for five and I finally got to see a game played last Saturday.”
