Like so many teams at Rye High School, boys soccer is seemingly an annual contender for Section 1 championships.
In each of the past three seasons, the Garnets advanced deeper into the playoffs than the year before. After falling in the section title game in 2023, Rye took home the crown in 2024 and 2025. In November, the Garnets reached the state championship game for the first time since 1979.
With nine starters set to return from last year’s Class A state runner-up, Rye will once again field one of New York’s top teams in Fall 2026.
Many factors contributed to Rye’s soccer success over the years. But none had more of an impact than the calm, cerebral presence of Rye’s boys varsity soccer coach, Jared Small.
After the Garnet soccer team claimed the program’s 12th section title and seventh region title in November, Small was honored as New York’s Section 1 Large School Coach of the Year.
“The Section 1 recognition is a special honor for me and our coaching staff, for sure,” he said. “This past season was as good as we’ve had in a very long time in Rye. We almost won it all. To have our staff recognized by our Section 1 coaching peers makes our terrific 2025 season that much more meaningful to me.”
Before gearing up for his 22nd year coaching soccer at Rye High School, and 18th as boys varsity head coach, Small reflected on what he’ll remember most about the 2025 Garnets, who finished with a record of 19-2-3.
“Just the dominance with which we beat so many high-quality opponents. The run we went on in the last third of our season is one that may never be repeated ever again at Rye,” said Small, whose team rode a 19-game unbeaten streak into the first state title game of his tenure. “Somehow, we seemed to get stronger and stronger with each playoff game.”
Entering the 2025 season, several key pieces were set in place on Rye’s starting 11. Senior Lex Cox, a University of Chicago commit, was already established as one of the top midfielders in Section 1. Sophomore sensation Harrison Zimmer anchored the back row. Senior Shun Nagata, and juniors Peter Wilmot and Kasen Scarperi — who have both been named 2026 team captains — led one of the strongest midfield units in the state.
But the starting goalkeeper position was up for grabs, and the resolution of that key role — ultimately earned by sophomore Will Alexander — was hardly arbitrary for the detail-oriented Small.
To help turn one of the roster’s few question marks into a strength, he added Dane Jacomen to the coaching staff on a part-time basis.
“Dane is a professional goalkeeper for Westchester SC, on loan from Loudoun United of the USL,” Small said. “Dane is just an incredible human being. His soccer wisdom, perspective, and presence on the field with our boys this season cannot be overstated.”
The results speak to Jacomen’s impact.
“The goal differential in several games that we expected to be much closer was something I’ll never forget,” said Small, whose team outscored opponents by a combined margin of 25-3 in the playoffs. “Six shutouts in our last seven games was astounding.”
As Small has shown in every stop of his educational and professional journeys, when he sets his sights on a goal, he doesn’t stop until it’s achieved.
Rye Homecoming
The origins of Small’s career as an educator and coach began as a student at Rye High School. Small was a fleet, athletic defender who also played goalie his junior year. He enrolled in nearby Manhattanville University, where he played soccer and was – wait for it – a five-tool catcher on the Valiants’ baseball team. Small then transferred to Harvard University, where he played soccer and majored in history.
While completing his history degree and the Undergraduate Teacher Education Program at Harvard, Small took a job teaching high school at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School near campus, continuing his lifelong pattern of constantly pushing himself.
“I did my student teaching there the fall semester of my senior year,” he said. “Then, in the spring, they asked me to fill in for a teacher who suddenly just wasn’t there for some reason. The school was in a tough spot, so I became a full-time college student and a full-time classroom teacher my last semester of college. The paychecks were nice.”
Upon graduation from Harvard — and remember: this was a brilliant young man who had multiple offers and career options — Small accepted a job teaching history at his alma mater, Rye High School.
“I graduated from college in the spring of ’02,” Small said, “and three months later I was teaching history, coaching JV boys soccer — and assisting coach (Rich) Savage with girls’ soccer in the spring — at Rye. I was born in White Plains, and I wanted to come back to Rye.”
After earning a reputation as a magnificent, tough teacher, particularly of AP History, during his 13 years in the classroom, Small sought another change. He decided to go to Harvard Law School.
“I needed to push my own boundaries and experience something new, so law school was where I wanted to be,” Small said. “Many of my classmates were there, rightly so, to enter the legal profession and pursue high-paying jobs, Wall Street firms, etc. That was never my focus. For me, it was about the journey of learning. I was more interested in human rights and that type of work.”
Called to Coaching
While in law school, soccer crept back into the mix. Small also worked as a full-time assistant coach for the Harvard men’s soccer team. Later on, he spent two more years on the men’s soccer staff at Yale. Coaching at that level and working with Division I Ivy League student-athletes was transformational.
“Throughout law school, I was able to maintain a foundation in coaching, mentoring, and teaching — which in my mind, are all the same thing,” he said. “It was an honor for me to learn from top-level coaches and develop bonds with so many incredible soccer players from all over the world. Ultimately, I decided teaching and coaching were what I felt most comfortable doing; it was something I felt called to do. I feel fortunate to say I still get to do all of those things every day here in Rye.”
What is it about the sport that resonates with him more than a potential career in the legal field?
“Coaching soccer is largely about figuring out the best way to accomplish a goal,” Small said. “It’s about problem solving, and it’s about engaging players in what has really become a full-year model. I love the challenge of leading a group of players into the postseason, and once there, figuring out how we can perform at our best at the most critical time of the year.
“There’s a complex formula of physical development, technical development as soccer players, and the physiological part, such as our summer training with coach Jon Tuttle. Then there’s the psychological piece, the togetherness, and the bonds of brotherhood. So, there are many moving parts, but when you eventually get to the actual match itself, most of your work as a coach is done before the game is played. As a coach, my role during games is subtle compared with other sports, where coaches are central to almost every second of a game.”
Small’s leadership off the field has been more hands-on. In 2004, he co-founded Peak Performance, a test preparation and academic advising company headquartered in Rye. In keeping with Small’s instincts of service to others, Peak Performance’s impressive team of educators works with students and families all over the world, many on a pro bono basis.
In his rare remaining free time, Small runs Rye Youth Soccer (RYS) with Savage, one of his good friends. RYS is a nonprofit, competitive fun factory that involves thousands of kids and almost every family in Rye. Children in this beautiful, sports-obsessed town play soccer — as well as many other sports — all year long.
In Jared Small, Rye has someone no other school or community in New York can claim: a proud alumnus entrepreneur educator, who is a highly credentialed and universally respected soccer tactician and happens to have a degree from Harvard Law School.
Small is a kind and thoughtful man, who is as gracious as he is private away from the pitch. And as a soccer coach, he has done exactly what his unyielding Garnet teams are known for: he’s consistently gotten better, year after year.
