How to Overcome Adversity and Get a Career in Sports

Lilijhana Jones is an LLS graduate who’s currently a sports coach in New York with Beestera Soccer Training, an award winning soccer programme that holds camps in 40 locations across 9 different states. We got in touch with her to ask her a few questions about her time at LLS.

What made you join LLS?

Lilijhana remembered her uncertainty about what career paths she could take. A career in sport interested her, but she didn’t have experience outside of playing sports herself. After watching a presentation in school about the LLS sixth form course, she decided it was right for her.

Having never coached before joining LLS, she described how the thought of it made her nervous. It was only once she began sports coaching that she discovered that she “really enjoyed it.” 

“As we got through more [sports coaching] opportunities, it became a lot easier and now I’m a lot more confident with it.”

How did LLS match up to your expectations? 

“It was a lot better than what I was expecting. […] I thought it would be more getting the work done and handing it in, but there [were] a lot more opportunities than I thought.”

Do you have a memory of LLS that sticks out in your mind?

“Alicante.” 

“We coached the kids in some of the schools, and it was just a great experience. […] Trying to get through the language barriers, and getting to know different cultures.”

Each year our students are able to travel abroad and hone their sports coaching skills in a new environment. These trips provide new experiences that develop our students as coaches, as well as broaden their horizons.

When we ask students what their favourite part of the trip was, we expect an answer like touring Valencia FC’s Mestalla Stadium, or spending time in Alicante’s old town. However, like Lilijhana, most often they remember delivering a coaching session in a foreign school to kids who didn’t speak English as a first language. It remains a proud memory in which they accomplished something they’d never thought about before.

Did you have a favourite LLS tutor?

“Nadine.”

Did you learn anything from Nadine?

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Because I have [Irlen Syndrome], I find it hard to process information, especially when it’s in bigger paragraphs.”

Irlen Syndrome is a visual processing disorder. It can affect concentration, attention, and behaviour, making school increasingly difficult. Lilijhana was only diagnosed in her final year of secondary school, meaning she had to overcome this challenge without help for most of her life.

“[Nadine] found an easier way to break things down to me, and I was able to read things and it’d sink into my head a lot quicker than before.”

So Nadine was a big help when you started working with her?

“Yeah, definitely.”

Lilijhana excelled in her studies despite her late diagnosis. Her ability to succeed and overcome was exemplified when she won the LLS End of Year Award for Academic Achievement. She’s a shining example of someone who takes full advantage of what is available to them, and is now spending 2 months in New York coaching at Besteera’s prestigious soccer camp. She’s enjoying the 4th of July weekend in one of the greatest cities in the world, travelling to places she’s never been before, because she challenged herself and decided to chase a career in sport by joining LLS.