Colt Almodova is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Arcadia High School for AZPreps365.com

Adam Zweiback is doing it all.

By day, he’s a tutor for his own SAT test preparation website on Testwhisperer.com and the head coach for Arcadia’s girls’ varsity soccer team.

By night, he’s the lead singer and guitar player for his own band known as the “Twice Baked Band.”

“You can say anything you want but it’s what you are doing in your life,” Zweiback said. “When I zoom over to soccer and coach the girls, and I have to leave because I have a gig that night, I have to have my guitars in my car, I have to be just as prepared to multitask as my players do.”

Titans head coach Adam Zweiback (Adam Zweiback photo/Arcadia)Zweiback is a leader by example. He wants his players to be able to balance their own responsibilities in their lives, whether that is on the soccer field, the classroom, or their daily routine.

“So much that goes into being a successful student-athlete is how you balance all the other components of your life,” Zweiback said. “They want to play hard and be committed and have as much success as possible, but it cannot come at the expense of other areas of their lives.”

Zweiback’s journey started out in Omaha, Nebraska, where he found success in sports and in school. In 1983, Zweiback attended Princeton University where he was a tight end on the now discontinued Tigers sprint football team. After Princeton, he received his master’s degree in history at Stanford University and went on to not only teach but also coach soccer, basketball, and softball at schools in England, Spain, Italy, and in the United States.

Over 20 years ago, Zweiback and his family came to Arizona where his wife Kimberly Marshall, a classical musician herself, became a professor at Arizona State University. Arcadia High School was where his three children attended, years before he became the head coach of the girls’ varsity soccer team in 2012.

Since taking over the program, Zweiback has made it his mission to inspire the young women on his soccer teams, encouraging them beyond the pitch.

“Adam has taught me to have faith in myself for everything I do, not just soccer,” senior outside midfielder Ava Camberlango said.

Senior Ava Camberlango maneuvering the ball against three Deer Valley defenders in a regular season game last season (Audrea Walshire photo/Arcadia)As the male leader of a female team, Zweiback sees the importance of understanding the issues that his players may face during their lives outside of soccer.

“I think that it’s important if you’re a male coach coaching young women, that you’re sensitive to the things that you can’t share in the experience because you didn’t go through being a teenage girl,” Zweiback said.

Zweiback has always made it a priority to protect his young female athletes, especially because he is coaching girls that are between 13 and 18 years old. He wants his players to focus on their nutrition, hydration, sleep, and to train at a safe level.

“I have very specific things that I want to do in practices, but I want to limit how much pounding their legs are taking,” Zweiback said. “We want to devise drills and short-sided games, and some full-field games that allow us to improve in very specific game situations, but not just have miles and miles of extra wear and tear on their bodies that are not very productive.”

Off the field, female sports are often overlooked in favor of men’s sports, an issue that Titans’ players feel exists at the high school level.

“I think [female sports] are sometimes put behind men’s sport in terms of equal pay, fans, or the recognition, especially for high school,” junior midfielder and University of Virginia commit Maggie Cagle said. “I believe more or at least equal announcements on games and how the team is doing should be given to students at Arcadia.”

Arcadia junior and University of Virginia commit Maggie Cagle (Audrea Walshire photo/Arcadia)Zweiback believes in supporting his young student-athletes by “keeping it very fun” during a time when youth sports are an integral part of their lives.

“The girls have a great time,” Zweiback said. “There’s a lot of laughter, there’s a lot of giggling, sometimes dancing happens. We really believe that if you play for the love of the game, and the joy, and the friends, that high school sports can be the most memorable part of your youth.”

Zweiback is heading into his ninth season at the helm of the Titans girls’ varsity soccer program, a career that has featured seven straight postseason appearances and a run to the state title game in 2017.

“We have a foolproof system to having playoff appearances every year, and I’d like to take credit for it but the system is to have a bunch of parents in Arcadia district who put their girls into pee-wee soccer when they were four and five and six years old,” Zweiback said.

Zweiback characterizes his team as a collection of “artists,” those that have the natural vision and skill with the ball, and “workers,” those that impact the game through their work ethic and desire to “lay it all on the line.” His positive mindset and attention to detail has caught the attention of his players.

“He always brings a positive energy to any training or game we have, which I think is one of the biggest things I have taken away from Coach Adam,” Cagle said.

After losing 11 seniors from last season, many would say the Titans are rebuilding. However, Zweiback disagrees, believing his Titans squad is going to “reload and come back even harder.” Among the stars on the team are Cagle, who tallied 20 goals and 12 assists last year, and Camberlango, who will be starting on varsity for her fourth and final year. Camberlango scored eight goals and delivered 11 assists during her junior season.

“We’re going to rise to the challenge against the best teams, we’re not going to be afraid of anybody,” Zweiback said. “You’re never going to hear me make an excuse after a loss about the referee or the wind or anything else. We’re going to play hard, and at the end of the day we’re going to represent Arcadia with class.”

During his career at Arcadia, Zweiback has never received a red card, an example of the high standard that he wants his team to emulate both during and after the game. Regardless of the result, Zweiback wants his girls to shake hands with the opponent and leave their sideline clean to “have a reputation of being respectful” to the game and to the community.

“I hope that we can leave a legacy of playing with a lot of skill, with a lot of passion, with a lot of class, and really representing our school and our community as well as we possibly can,” Zweiback said. “If we can play hard, send girls off to college prepared to face the world, get some scholarships, and have people admire our program, then I’ll be very satisfied at the end of the day.”

With the recent AIA decision to postpone winter sports in Maricopa County due to rising COVID-19 cases, it is uncertain if Arcadia’s first game against Saguaro on Dec. 1 will go forward as planned.