Staff Spotlight - Jacqui Cannon

Staff Spotlight | Jacqui Cannon

A Candid Conversation with Jacqui Cannon about her 12+ years at Florida Rush — from first-year volunteer team manager to a decade-long journey as club registrar.

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If you’ve ever had a child enrolled in one of our club’s soccer programs, you will have inevitably interacted with our club registrar, Jacqui Cannon.

As a member of the club’s leadership team, Jacqui oversees the club’s administrative duties. This is a wide-ranging role that encapsulates many different compliance and registration tasks: building team rosters for each age group and league, ensuring employee risk management, training volunteer team managers, and managing the club’s working relationships with various stakeholders in the industry, such as Florida Youth Soccer Association, Major League Soccer, and the United States Soccer Federation.

Originally from Brighton, England, Cannon was working outside of youth sports and soccer altogether, before becoming involved with the game and our club in 2009, when her then nine-year-old twins (Daniel & Jack) joined Florida Rush’s competitive program at West Orange Park in Winter Garden.

Over a decade later, I sat down with her to discuss her time at the club, raising children through youth soccer, and the ever-changing landscape of our industry.

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So, you’ve been with the club for over a decade now, which is quite impressive… What motivates you to come to work everyday?

Really, at the core, I want everybody’s child to have the opportunities that my children had through Florida Rush.

If they had gone to any other club, they wouldn’t necessarily have had the journey they did because [when they joined] they’d never kicked a ball, and they were horrendous!

[I laugh, knowing that both Jack (Catawba College) and Daniel (Marshall University) played collegiate soccer after they graduated from the Soccer Institute at Montverde Academy (SIMA) in 2017 and 2018, respectively.]

It’s all true! Rush taught them how to play by not worrying about winning, giving them touches on the ball, and giving them opportunities to play with different teams.

But, more importantly, I truly feel that the family community, for my sons, helped me raise them in a really challenging period of their life.

[After I ask for permission to provide more detail, she graciously explains…]

For starters, I was thankful that Florida Rush gave me the opportunity to have a job when I first came to America. I started as an administrative volunteer, and was eventually offered a full-time role when the registrar before me was offered a job at Disney.

For the boys, having male role models that cared helped me parent. If their grades weren’t good enough, I would just mention it to the coach, and the coach would have his say… because, sometimes, they didn’t care about my opinion. But they cared about their coach’s opinions.

And with Jack now coaching at Rush, it’s like everything has come full-circle… What’s it been like to see the growth of soccer in this area over that time period?

I mean, to put in into context, when the boys first started at Rush, the only option of a league was the Greater Central Florida Youth Soccer League (GCF). And that was it.

The boys wish that they could go back and start again, because there weren’t many options. When they ended up at SIMA, the U.S. Soccer Development Academy was new.

What were the biggest challenges as a registrar at that time?

The rapid growth in soccer’s popularity and league pathways that developed as a result have brought many changes in the use and development of software.

For example, when I first started, we were not in GotSoccer! And, now, we’re in the next evolution of that software, which is GotSport.

When there’s always new software, you’re constantly educating yourself how to do it. And making sure that [the coaches and team managers] understand.

That seems like a lot of responsibility in just one person’s hands…

Yes. No one truly knows what [the registrar] goes through to make everything happen. That’s why I help other clubs, because they have volunteers, and its just overwhelming for them. And it’s also why I really believe in what Rush does.

Of the larger clubs, we’re one of the last not-for-profits. If there was somebody else that helped me, then we wouldn’t necessarily have the funds to give financial assistance. And I feel that we’re one of the most generous clubs when it comes to financial assistance.

That’s because it’s something that everybody in leadership believes in. It’s in our core values. No one owns us and no one’s seeing [financial assistance] as coming out of their pocket at the end of the year. It’s just who we are.

So, you mention how you help other clubs who have volunteer staff, and I sense that is important to you. Considering your background, how did the transition from parent, to team manager, and (finally) to registrar shape how you work?
Well, everything that I have tried to implement at Rush has been with the support of club leadership. But each time we have brought a new software on — for example, TeamSnap — it’s because I remember how I felt as a new team manager, parent, or someone who just didn’t understand the process.

Well, considering your track record and our club’s growth over the years, you must be the best around, no?

[LOTS of laughter…]

No, that’s not true... There’s a ton of people who are like me.

But I asked who’s better!?

There’s about five people who have been longer serving than me, but I feel that we’re all around the same level.

Given your extended tenure at Florida Rush, what has been special about working in your role at the club?

The people I work with. I mean, Rush has such stability in its core staff. For example, I’ve worked with Erick and I’ve known Erick since the first day I came to the fields. With everybody, it’s been a long term commitment. And they just become my soccer family.

Now that we’re wrapping-up, are there any final thoughts that you would like to share, or anything about yourself that you would like for our club membership to know?

The thing that I really value about my role and definitely gives me the most satisfaction is I work for a nonprofit organization that is genuinely committed to our players, their parents and our community.

When we can, behind the scenes, help a family or a player financially, and that enables them to stay in an environment this is — I hate the word safe space — but it is their only safe space from the reality of their world. That truly is the thing that I enjoy most about my job.