You might say soccer runs through Trevor Cushman’s blood.
The new head coach of Burlington High School’s boys soccer team has been playing the game for as long as he can remember, his passion for it shared by his older siblings and their father, Shawn Cushman.
“My dad, he was stationed in Germany, and that’s where he first learned about soccer was in the military,” Trevor said.
Shawn was so taken with the sport that he brought it back to Burlington, where he coached at the Y for a time before establishing the Burlington Area Soccer Club, which ultimately spurred area schools to establish their own soccer programs.
“Through the success of the club, some local high schools started taking notice to it, and he ended up helping Notre Dame get their starter program,” Trevor said. “I think that was late ‘80s, early ‘90s, and then a couple years after coaching there, Burlington was going to adopt it as a trial program, and so he coached all the way through (2008).”
Like his father, Trevor was hooked on soccer from the start. He liked the level coordination it demanded, and the way it blended that coordination with creativity and decision-making. For Trevor, soccer was a test, an escape and a mode of self-expression all in one.
“There’s no single way to play the game,” he said. “Every player has their own style, strengths and approach. It’s not about following a system, it’s about finding your own rhythm, outsmarting opponents and making the game your own. … It’s a game that really pulled me into the moment like no other sport could.”
He played soccer throughout high school, earning conference honors, making the All Hawkeye Team, and being selected as a First Team All State player.
After graduating BHS in 2004, he went on to play for GrandView in Des Moines, where he made three national tournament appearances, was a three-year conference honors award winner and was team captain.
He decided to take a year off and returned to Burlington, where in 2008 he joined his father — a Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year and Iowa High School Soccer Hall of Fame inductee — once again at Bracewell, this time as an assistant coach instead of a player.
“He’s the one who really laid the groundwork of what a coach is supposed to look like,” Trevor said. “He really let me do my own thing and encouraged a mindset that valued curiosity and learning over profession, and that alone really helped me recognize that mistakes were a natural part of the learning process, specifically from a player and a coach’s point of view.”
After that season, Shawn retired from coaching and Trevor returned to Des Moines to finish out his career. He and his wife, Alex Cushman, another BHS graduate, later returned to Burlington, where Alex took a teaching position at Aldo Leopold Intermediate School, and her father, Jim Krekel, encouraged Trevor to get back into coaching.
“He voluntold me,” Trevor said with a laugh, explaining he had been planning to return to coaching eventually, but not until his sons were older.
Again, Trevor was hooked. His first season as assistant coach was rough, but over time, the culture of the program changed, and each of the past three seasons has been a winning one.
“The (second) year, we ended up having our winning season, which was the first one we’d had in a while,” Trevor said. “The next two years after that, we’ve been really competitive. We’re looking to get through the conference and hopefully be conference champs this year.”
Regardless of whether the team achieves that goal this year, Trevor is proud to be carrying on what his father began.
“I want to continue on in his legacy and see if I can follow on in his steady footsteps,” Trevor said.
The impact of Shawn Cushman’s passion for soccer isn’t isolated to the boys program. Trevor’s sister, Jamie Sparrow, recently came on as an assistant coach for the girls soccer team.
