Jazz Hervin is a passionate young football coach from the South West of England and has been with the FCN since day one…in fact, she was our first ever interview back in July 2014!
Having been one of the first female coaches ever to coach a men’s semi professional team in the UK, she went on to be head coach for a WSL Developmental Team, worked with the Canadian Men’s Team at the?Cerebral Palsy World Cup and even spent 6 months in China working with the next generation of young players.
We thought it was about time to catch up with Jazz and find out what she is up to, how her coaching has developed and who she thinks will win the UEFA Women’s European Championships 2017!
We first interviewed you way back in 2014 when you had just started coaching a men’s semi pro team…what have you been up to since then?
Since then, I have been experiencing a lot of different environments in the game. I went and worked at Yeovil Town Ladies for a year as Manager of their Development Team in the WSL Development League. I worked in China for 6 and a half months within a variety of different schools, for a business that was building itself from scratch.
I’ve also been at the Cerebral Palsy World Cup for 3 weeks in 2015, where I was the Team Liaison Officer for Canada Men’s Senior Team. Fortunately we struck up some very good relationships early on and I was welcomed into the team, at pitch side, analysis meetings, and training sessions, where this saw me actively involved in delivering to players also. A fantastic experience on a international scale.
Now I am back in England coaching in secondary schools for boys and girls, coaching the U14 girls at Exeter City?s Development Centre and have gone back to playing the beautiful game for Exeter City Ladies First Team.
Are you coaching at the moment?
The reality is that before I left to work in china, I had good relationships and had a place within different organisations etc, from moving to china for 6 and a half months and then returning to England, I cannot just come back into these organisations as the space I was in has mow been filled by someone else.
So it has been hard coming back to England and not really knowing where I belong anymore.. The role I was brought out to China for had fallen through and therefore I wasn’t happy to be over there anymore.
I contacted Exeter City FC, asked if they were looking for any additional staff to work for them and sent my CV. I was called straight in to meet with them and community work was offered. It is enjoyable to a certain extent because you can always have a positive impact on someone?s life. But we all know my real passion lays with working with a team.
Can you tell us about the project you are working on at the moment?
So what started out as a project and passion, is now becoming a business and passion. Jen at She Kicks has been great in helping me get the project out there and building the type of resources I had the idea of in my head.
Elite Excel is the business and there are many strands to this, but in brief; Elite Excel is a personal, resource-based development project for players and coaches to access specific and detailed insights, which link directly to them as an individual, to support the development of those things they feel they are missing from the best version of them.
Along your coaching journey so far, what has been the biggest lesson you have learned, why and how will it help you in your future career?
Biggest lesson for me has been using everything I experience and everyone I meet to help me understand myself more. I question myself constantly and this helps me to truly understand my standards of different things. Knowing your standards is vital to wanting to be the best version of you.
Who has been the biggest influence on your coaching behaviours and philosophies and why?
I think its been the people that have put me down and made me feel not very good about myself, those are the times where I question myself most. Sometimes I will be saying to myself, No Jazz, actually you are okay, that’a not wrong, that’s you, and as long as you can answer why then that’s alright. It’s important to not believe every piece of criticism because some people can be very wrong about you if they haven?t taken the time to understand you too.
What are your thoughts on their being 6 out of 16 of the clubs having a female head coach – it is of course an improvement from the 4 / 16 in Rio.
As you’ve said, it’s an improvement.. I personally don’t mind if it’s a male or female coach. It?s about the why. Why this coach for this team? If there was a male and female coach in the top 2 for the job and the male coach was chosen over her, if I asked why, I’d like to think it was something to do with him being a better coach/leader/fits their philosophy best etc, rather than, because he’s male. But we know we’d never truly know the answer to that question.. haha.
@TwinkyJazz