What is Atlético Dallas Youth?

It’s part of an organization that’s obviously in Dallas, and we’re the Central Texas division of that. It’s a youth soccer club: boys and girls select soccer, so travel soccer. We’re taking kids that have been playing recreationally for a while and are ready for the next level of soccer and high-level coaching. They train here in Waco, play their games primarily in the Dallas Metroplex area. I just completed my first year doing that.

I felt like there was a real push in our community to bring soccer together. Soccer is really big here in Waco, but it’s very divided. There are a lot of different segments of soccer throughout our community. My goal was, is there a way for us to start bringing those communities together?

And I felt like this was a good opportunity for that. This organization I felt gave us the right structure to do that. We went from 90 kids to 270 kids in that first year and we just finished tryouts. We’ll be close to 500 kids now. It’s not about numbers, it’s can we get them all together? If we can bring our best players together, bring our best coaches together, I think we can develop players a lot better that way. That’s been my goal and I think we’re starting to do that.

What is Warrior Way?

Warrior Way is a program that merges faith and sport through soccer. Being at Baylor as long as we were, we recruited Christian athletes. We thought that was a huge recruiting benefit for us that we could find different types of kids than maybe if we were some other school. We used that to our advantage. One thing we learned through that process is that we had a lot of players who came in that were Christians and they were athletes but didn’t really know what that meant. We’re like, how do we help them bring Jesus onto the field, because if we’re a Christian athlete, we’re really playing for something greater. We play for our teammates, we play for our family, but if we’re a Christian, we’re really playing for God and God’s given us an ability we need to do our best with it. We teach kids at a younger age what that really looks like. It’s a Monday night, six-week program where kids come out for an hour. We do soccer skills and then there’s a verse that we focus in on for the entire six weeks and teach the kids the verse through the time. What does it mean and how do we use it while we play?

But we needed to give this program to other people. So a nonprofit was formed called Warrior Way Gives. We take the same programming that we do in the Woodway area and we do it for free in East Waco, primarily in the Estella Maxey community. It’s a great program doing the same thing: teaching kids God’s word and pouring into those families. And that’s grown into ministry that we do in Guatemala where we’ve started leagues for under-resourced families, providing uniforms and developing their coaches in these farming villages outside of Antigua. We have a military program that we do at Fort Hood, where we partnered with another group to run leagues for our military, and another program called Inspire Her, where we’re empowering young women through sport and ministry.

How long were you and Marci at Baylor?

We were there for 14 years. When we first came to Baylor in 2008, my wife was the head coach and I was the assistant. Then after a couple years we were co-head coaches because we started having children. And then Marci phased herself down a little bit and I got promoted up to head coach.

What’s your best memory of coaching at Baylor?

I think the 2012 Big 12 championship was pretty big because nobody expected it. We were not a very good team technically. We were just a bunch of fighters who surprised everybody. In 2011, we went to the NCAA tournament, and just surprised [everyone], because [when] we got to Baylor in ‘08, Baylor had been a losing team for 10 years. So to go to the NCAA tournament in three years was a big surprise. Winning a Big 12 tournament in four years was a bigger surprise.

Did you get a big gaudy championship ring?

We did. I have three. I don’t wear them. When I was at Baylor, I wore them more. If we went to a special event or something, I’d wear my most recent ring. But they just sit in a jewelry box.

Paul Jobson is the director of Atlético Dallas Youth – Central Texas and the co-founder, along with his wife Marci Miller Jobson, of Warrior Way. They moved to Waco in 2008 when Marci was hired as head soccer coach at Baylor. Marci, Paul or the both of them together led program until 2021. The Jobsons have four sons — Miller, Grey, Nash and Jett — and are members of Harris Creek Baptist Church.

Paul played soccer at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, graduated from there in 1999 and coached at Northern Illinois University before coming to Baylor.