
Hugo Kametani’s overtime goal gave Pima its first-ever national championship in soccer.
°Â³ó±ð²ÔÌýDave Cosgrove earned a history degree from ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ in 1993, he thought he’d pursue a career in law enforcement.
“I did some tests,†he remembers, “but I never got picked up. What a blessing.â€
He returned to the UA, completed a teaching certificate and Plan B was to teach and coach at Amphitheater High School.
Now, 25 years later, Cosgrove is Pima College’s national championship men’s soccer coach. But it was more than an NJCAA title; it was a season like few others in JC soccer history.
The Aztecs won 26 games, the most ever in the NJCAA. Only Yavapai College had ever won 26 games in a year. Pima won 18 consecutive games; its school record was nine.
Cosgrove, the son of a distinguished UA history professor, did coach at Amphi, but his career plans changed when he accepted a full-time job as director of coaching of the Foothills Football Club, an organization that turned into the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Soccer Academy, which later turned into FC ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Youth, a robust soccer operation with more than 2,000 young players.
Along the way, Cosgrove had to overcome the NJCAA’s No. 1 men’s soccer program, Yavapai. And  he has now done so. After finishing No. 2 in the NJCAA in 1999, Cosgrove knew he would someday have to go outside a ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥-only culture and add a few important non-ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ns to the roster.
There are 156 teams in NJCAA men’s soccer and almost all of them have a foreign element. Cosgrove added the most important “foreign element†in school history a year ago when Hugo Kametani moved to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and enrolled at PCC with the purpose to take English as a Second Language (ESL) courses.
Kametani, who is from Kashima, Japan, planned to play at Iowa Western, but after working out with FC ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and PCC players for a few months, Cosgrove was able to persuade him to remain in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.
“Of the 4,200 players in NJCAA Division I men’s soccer, Hugo is No. 1,†said Cosgrove. “He just fell into our laps.â€
Kametani, a sophomore who is being heavily recruited by four-year programs, is the best soccer player in PCC history, and that’s not me saying it, it’s Cosgrove saying it. The Aztecs have had so many first-team All-Americans — from Minh VuÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýJulian GaonaÌý³Ù´ÇÌýJason Romero and on and on and on — that it tells you just how good Kametani was in 2018.
Kametani finished second in the NJCAA with an amazing 30 goals , including the game-winners in the national semifinals and final. He didn’t do it alone. Freshman goalkeeper Nils Roth led the nation in goals-against average at .45 per game. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ High grad sophomore Daniel Suazo, Sahuaro High grad freshman Alec Nguyen and Cholla High grad sophomore Kaskile Zawadi were strong contributors.
On a national scale, Cosgrove now has 347 career victories, which is No. 6 among active  NJCAA coaches. And it’s not like he’s coasting toward some finish line. He is also the head coach of FC ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, a May-to-July season in which he coached the national developmental team to a 7-3-4 record and the PDL Western Conference final.
Who’s had a better year in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ sports? Nobody.