Windham High senior Evan Glicos practices a chip shot at Portland’s Riverside Golf Course earlier this week. Glicos plays on Windham’s soccer team, as well as on the golf team, in the fall. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer Buy this Photo
For as long as Evan Glicos can remember he’s loved two sports.
“I think I’ve played soccer and golf since I could walk, and extra soccer since I was like 11,” said Glicos, a Windham High senior.
But those twin loves created a dilemma when Glicos entered high school. Both sports are played in the fall.
Glicos had to decide. Stick with soccer and utilize the skills he’d honed through years of playing on elite teams with GPS Portland? Or choose golf, the sport he knows intimately because his father Nick Glicos is the PGA professional and co-owner of Martindale Country Club in Auburn?
Or, maybe he could find a way to play both sports at the same time?
Freshman year, soccer won out. Glicos said he wanted to focus on that sport because he felt he had a shot at making Windham’s varsity team (he did and was a starter). His parents were completely behind the decision.
“He’s a good soccer player and he had a limited amount of years where he could do it and I knew he could play golf competitively afterwards. It would be there waiting,” Nick Glicos said.
But the past three falls, Glicos has been able to balance both sports – while maintaining a 98.6 grade point average with a schedule loaded with advanced placement courses.
“I actually love golf a lot and soccer a lot so I want to make time for both of those, even with the workload in school,” Glicos said.
Glicos said it wouldn’t work without the support of all of his coaches. He also credits his mother Jami Glicos’ ability to help coordinate schedules and communication.
Evan Glicos has been a four-year starter on Windham’s soccer team. This season he is playing at outside forward. Adam Birt/American Journal
Soccer is the priority sport, so that means Glicos misses several regular-season golf matches. He played in Windham’s first three nine-hole golf matches this year, breaking 40 in all three including a 2-under 34 at Riverside Golf Course last Friday.
“When all is said and done, he’ll probably get five (of 10) matches in,” said Windham golf coach Adam Manzo. “If you saw him swing a club, you would think this kid would shoot 34 every time out. Right now his biggest downside is around the green, chipping and putting and what not.”
For much of the next month, Glicos’ athletic focus will be on soccer. A four-year starter, he has played all over the field for Windham: midfield as a freshman, left back as a sophomore and striker as a junior. This season he will play an outside forward position, ceding the striker position to his younger brother Sam, a sophomore.
But that doesn’t mean he’ll stop playing golf. In fact, he may be able to practice more this year.
As a senior, his school day at Windham ends around noon. After a morning full of AP classes in calculus, physics and psychology and an honors-level anatomy and physiology, he has the freedom to leave the school grounds.
Two days a week he goes to the University of Southern Maine’s Gorham campus to take a college English class. The other days he’ll have nearly four hours off until soccer practice.
“So I can head up to the course to hit balls and practice for the big tournaments,” Glicos said.
Golf’s team championship is Oct. 5. Windham boys’ soccer hosts Cheverus the same day. The past two seasons, Windham golf has barely missed qualifying for the Class A team championship.
“If we were to qualify for states, they have a soccer game at the same time,” Manzo said. “If that happens, we’ll figure that out.”
For his part, Glicos believes 2019 can be a breakthrough year for Windham in both golf and soccer.
“All four years in both sports we’ve progressively gotten better,” he said. “In soccer my first year we were 2-12 and last year we were basically even (6-7-1) and made the playoffs. Last year we were one shot off states in golf. So this year I’m hoping to qualify into states for golf and then get a home playoff game in soccer.”
Glicos has qualified for the Class A individual championship the past two seasons. As a junior he finished 17th.
Individually, Glicos knows where he wants to be on Oct. 12, the day of the Class A individual golf tournament at Natanis Golf Course in Vassalboro.
“Honestly, my goal is to try to compete with the best guys in golf, like (Mt. Ararat senior and defending champion) Caleb Manuel because I’ve known him for years. It would be awesome to be in that final group with him.”
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