Nottingham High principal Frank Ragazzo can thank Aimee Turnbull for helping provide him with Jess Belmont as the Northstars new girls soccer coach.
Were it not for the former Steinert girls mentor, Belmont and soccer would have parted ways a long time ago.
And “Jessie Bells” remembers it like yesterday.
Now 32, Belmont was a 14-year-old sitting out at Steinert’s soccer field the summer prior to her freshman year. She listened intently as Turnbull insisted on how important she could be to the Spartans despite Jess deciding her soccer career was over.
“I had a couple bad experiences with some (travel) coaches and I thought, ‘Maybe this isn’t the sport for me,’” Belmont said. “I had a hard time swallowing the fact I was just gonna be the goalie and not be on the field anymore. So I wasn’t even gonna play soccer in high school, which is the crazy thing. Maybe play softball and basketball.”
And then…
“Aimee Turnbull reached out and said, ‘Would you be willing to talk to me?’” Belmont continued. “I remember it all very vividly, meeting her at the soccer field and just sitting down at one of the benches and going through everything. She finally said, ‘Why don’t you give it a shot?’ I tried it, I made some really great friends on the team and I ended up loving it. A lot of credit goes to her for keeping me involved in the sport.”
Turnbull had recalled Belmont coming to the 8th-grade interest meeting, and was surprised when she was not on the sign-up sheet to come out. Having had Belmont’s mom, Angela, as both a teacher and supervisor at Steinert, Turnbull approached her about her daughter.
“I knew she was very into basketball and that she played a little soccer, I just wasn’t sure of the extent,” Turnbull said. “I thought this was an opportunity for an athlete to play. We could always use her physical ability in the goal. At that point you don’t know how much talent people have but we know it’s a good thing for kids to get involved. We thought we could provide her an environment that could help her grow.”
And Belmont did indeed bloom into a standout athlete. She was not only a strong rebounder/defender for some talented girls basketball teams, but went on to be the starting goalie for the Spartans 2007 Central Jersey Group III championship squad. From there she played two years at Montclair University after Spartan/Red Hawks teammate Melissa Koster recommended her to the Hawks coach.
After getting her masters in school counseling from The College Of New Jersey in 2016, she began working at Grice in September 2017. Two years later, she became the Notre Dame High freshman coach and varsity assistant for former Hamilton West standout Victoria Camera.
After three years, Belmont moved to Nottingham, and last fall she was varsity assistant under Nicole Sullivan. When the head job opened, Belmont felt confident enough to accept the challenge. Her former coach feels Nottingham made the right choice.
“She’s one of my colleagues as a counselor and I see the respect she has for her students at such a young age,” Turnbull said. “It’s really cool to see that she will be able to help out young athletes and foster that environment. And she can also show from her experiences what she can do with that program.
“I feel that not only her leadership, but (also) her motivational ability will be able to help her build relationships with her players.”
Turnbull isn’t just guessing when she says such things. Any good goalkeeper excels at commanding their box. They are the coach in the back and, without leadership abilities, things will deteriorate quickly.
“She definitely had natural leadership tendencies,” Turnbull said. “And that all grew as her progression, maturity, experience and confidence grew.”
Belmont was unaware that those experiences would help her gain entry into the coaching fraternity.
“When I was playing, that’s not where my focus was. I always thought, ‘Yeah it would be cool to be a coach.’ Having a coach that I loved and someone I looked up to made you think, ‘Maybe that could be me someday.’ But I wouldn’t say it sparked my drive to be a coach,” she said.
So, what did?
“Once I got into school counseling and knew I would be in a school setting, I thought this could be a real life goal for me at some point,” Belmont said. “It really was me just being interested in taking on more leadership roles combined with my passion for the sport.”
Belmont is thankful to Camera and Notre Dame for the opportunity to coach a team for three years. Even though it was the freshman level, she was in charge and was able to create her own philosophies when it came to running things.
“Stepping into that role helped tremendously,” she said. “I went in with all these soccer plans, but I wasn’t sure how to go about coaching at that level. I played all my life, but I never really broke down the fundamentals of the sport for someone. It was a big adjustment for me.”
Belmont takes over a program that has fallen on some tough times. She and Sullivan got the most out of their talent to go 7-11 last year with just two seniors on the roster. But the Northstars have not had a winning season since Christie Fink’s outfit went 13-5 in 2018.
That cannot quell Belmont’s excitement for the coming season. In early August, 36 girls were cleared to play, and most had their paperwork in.
“We had around 15 girls show up for every summer workout,” Belmont said. “Usually we’d have around six or seven.”
Nottingham is looking to revive its JV program, which is invaluable in a rebuilding situation.
“That will be so awesome for this program,” said Belmont, who is assisted by Sullivan and Eric Struble. “It is girls getting to be involved in something. At the varsity level, it’s so hard with no experience, and at the JV, we’ll be able to develop them.”
Nottingham will be hard pressed to replace leading scorer Brooklynn Samonski, who collected 23 goals and eight assists last year and is now playing for Holmes Community College in Mississippi. The other 11 goals came from returning underclassmen, and senior Bridget Cutty showed flashes of offense with four goals and seven assists.
But Belmont is not concerning herself with numbers or statistics. She inherits a program in which success will be graded by progress rather than wins and losses. The new coach is looking to build a foundation and go from there.
“I’m really trying to go into it with a positive mindset,” she said. “We have some really skilled and talented players. I’m just hoping I can create a safe environment for the student athletes and hope they enjoy and remember their time on the team. Hopefully the wins we get this season will be an extra bonus for us.”
Turnbull will be rooting for her former keeper and is toying with reaching out to her for a job once her kids get a little older.
“It’s nice to have talent,” Turnbull said. “But getting them to relate to each other and become a team is sometimes more important than talent. I think Jess’s personality can certainly provide that for the program. It’s gonna take some time. Nottingham has had some successful years in the past, and I think she has the ability to make them successful again.”
Belmont says she will draw on the influences of coaches from all the sports she has played over the years, adding that Turnbull was one of the best.
“She would push you, but she was also there for you when you needed the support,” she said. “She was very good at encouraging you to always do your best and get better. I hope that rubbed off because she had such a big impact on me. My experience was so great having a leader like that so I am hoping to bring those qualities to my team.”
Informed of those comments, Turnbull smiled and said, “Wow, that’s really cool.”
And it all started with a simple chat on a soccer bench under the hot August sun.
Former Steinert goalkeeper Jess Belmont is the new girls' head soccer coach at Nottingham.,
