St. Mary’s senior named CCL Most Valuable Player
When Alex Glover became a regular player for the St. Mary’s High School boys soccer program as a freshman, he looked up to some of the talented seniors on the team, leaders like Kevin Hart and Mike Connors.
“Kevin and Mike taught me a lot and helped me develop as a player,” recalled Glover.
Glover never forgot the kindness and respect extended to him by the older kids in the program. So when he became a senior captain this season, Glover knew what he had to do in his position of leadership.
“Those seniors really took me under their wing and that’s what I hoped to do this season,” said Glover. “And I feel I took the underclassmen under my wing this season just like Kevin Hart and Mikey Connors did to me.”
And along the way to that noble demonstration of leadership, Glover became one of the most outstanding players in school history. The Catholic Central League coaches thought he was a pretty special young man, too, selecting Alex Glover for its 2009 Most Valuable Player Award.
Glover was characteristically modest about being named the best player in a league whose champion (Cardinal Spellman) is now 24-0 and playing in the state semifinals.
“I was actually shocked at first. Cardinal Spellman was undefeated and I thought one of the MVPs would have come from their team. But I’m honored that the coaches thought I contributed a lot to my team. I was excited when the coach told me.”
St. Mary’s Coach Mike D’Agostino, a former league MVP himself for the Spartans, said Glover was fully deserving of the league’s highest individual honor.
“Alex definitely deserved this award – he’s one of the best players in the league,” said D’Agostino, a Class of 1998 graduate of St. Mary’s and former UMass/Boston standout. “It’s just stunning because there was so much talent in the league to choose from. Alex really stepped it up this year on a team that only had three seniors. He showed his talent and skill on the field to the other coaches, combined with his exceptional leadership.”
Glover was also named an All-State player and he has been invited to play in the Eastern Mass. All-Star Game on November 27 in Quincy. He will likely receive the St. Mary’s MVP Award at the team’s banquet Thursday night. All-Scholastic honors and Item All-Star awards may loom on the horizon and there’s his likely selection to the Agganis Soccer Classic in July.
If anyone should be basking in these major individual awards, it’s Glover because the achievement of scoring his 100th career point on the soccer field went largely unnoticed. Because of a miscommunication about his career statistics, Glover wasn’t aware that he had scored his 100th point until after the season.
“I really don’t believe in individual ceremonies anyway, because it’s more about being a team,” said Glover.
One of only three seniors on a team that lost 14 players to graduation, Glover had a superb season as a 5-foot-8-inch, 150-pound midfielder, netting 18 goals and 12 assists. The rebuilding Spartans gelled in the second half of the season under D’Agostino and assistant coach Terrence McGaughey and went 6-3-3 in the final 12 games.
Glover participated eight years in the Lynn Youth Soccer program. He developed his game at St. Mary’s under coach Al Jackson and brought his skills to even higher level under D’Agostino’s reign.
“Coach [D’Agostino] taught me a lot of new things about soccer that I didn’t know,” said Glover. “As a first-year coach, he really built up team chemistry and we brought things together in the second half of the season.”
Glover hopes to play soccer and study Sports Management in college and he has applied to four schools: St. Anselm, Regis, Springfield, and Fitchburg State.
Regis, formerly an all-girls college that is located in Weston, Mass., became a co-educational school three years ago and is building a boys soccer program. “That’s one of the reasons I want to go to Regis. I want to be a part of building up a program. I feel I can compete in soccer at the college level.”
Glover will be a candidate for the varsity basketball team and will return to the Spartans’ baseball program in the spring. He was a CCL All-Star outfielder and batted over .300 last season.
Glover is in his sixth year at St. Mary’s, having arrived in the seventh grade after attending the Pickering and Lynn Woods Schools.
“I love St. Mary’s High School,” said Glover, who cites history teacher Michael Jalbert as his favorite educator. “St. Mary’s is like being in a family.”
Glover said his parents, Tom and Gail, encouraged him to play sports and he’s grateful for their support of his endeavors. “They are the main part of my life and have supported me in everything I’ve done,” said Glover, whose parents are involved in the soccer parents organization.
Looking ahead to Thursday night’s awards banquet, Glover said he hadn’t prepared a speech for what will be his final official act as a team captain.
“I’ll probably talk about my five years in the program and thank coach Mike D’Agostino for the great job he did this season and how much being a St. Mary’s soccer player meant to me,” said Glover. “Playing soccer really helped me get acclimated to the school and get to know everyone.”
D’Agostino said Glover’s presence in the program will be missed.
“Alex was a great player,” said D’Agostino. He really controlled the middle of the field and we’ll miss his leadership in our program. He worked with a lot of our younger players in practice like [freshman] Mike Russo, who going to be like Alex down the road. He helped Mike out a lot and that’s just one example of what Alex meant to our program.”