Latest / I Hate Soccer with Jason Collinsworth / I Hate Soccer #102 - Rudy Cleveland, Girls Academy Director at Midwest United

Transcript

I Hate Soccer #102 - Rudy Cleveland, Girls Academy Director at Midwest United · I Hate Soccer with Jason Collinsworth

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Rudy Cleveland is the Girls Academy director at Midwest United that plays in the Girls Academy.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: This is actually the second episode of my partner episodes with Midwest United.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: Rudy has a long coaching career in Chicago.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: Came up through uh soccer's and spent some time at FC United.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh he's been part of the DA, he's been part of uh the GA, uh the former Girls Development Academy.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh in this episode, we just talk about what he's uh trying to instill in the girls' program at Midwest.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Uh he has some pretty cool things of how they structure their coaches um at Midwest, as well as just some, you know, philosophy, uh some development philosophy, what he looks for in players, how he develops players, and just the overall climate of youth soccer in the United States.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: This is the second of six episodes that I'm gonna be doing with some of the Midwest guys, um, not counting the one that I did with the their executive director, Lewis Robinson.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: So get to know Rudy, and um I like what they're doing over there in the Midwest.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: That's one of the reasons why I partnered with them.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: If you're a member of a club and you want to know how these partnerships work, please just uh email iHate soccer podcast at gmail.com.
1:22
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1:28
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1:36
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1:39
SPEAKER_01: I hate soccer podcast.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Enjoy.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: I hate soccer.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been part of a club that was in the ECNL?
1:49
SPEAKER_00: I was a part of when I was at Soccer's FC, they were in the ECNL in my early years at the club.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: It was only later, like when they had transitioned into the development academy, that I took a much greater role in the girls' program.
2:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Before that, I was coaching boys' teams.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, like it was um the year before the Girls DA launched, they had the U12 Boys Development Academy.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: And Chicago had like a localized U-12 Development Academy league.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Soccer's had two teams in it.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: One of them was the main hub in Schaumburg, the other was a Naperville group, which was formerly fire juniors.
2:28
unknown: Yeah.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was work I was working in the Naperville location at the time, like kind of overseeing that program a little bit and coaching the U-12 Development Academy.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And then that year was when I really had more like direct interaction with David.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: And they were making the transition from ECNL to GA, and it was a little rocky.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: And then David had decided to make some changes, like at that point, and some of the staff had m seen their way out.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: David asked if I wanted to coach girls.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: I said, What the heck?
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I coach soccer, so it doesn't matter to me.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: What year was this?
3:03
SPEAKER_00: That was 2016.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: 2016.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: So you really like have only well, you probably always coach girls at some capacity, yeah.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: But fully focused in 2016.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, but even throughout, like in the time at soccer, I still spend a lot of time around boys' teams.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Like the the model of coaching there is very collaborative.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: So you have groups of coaches that kind of work across certain areas of the club.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: So, like, for example, at the time, 2017, I was working in the Girls' Academy, Girls Development Academy teams as my primary role.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: But I would also coach some uh as an assistant with some of the boys' development academy teams.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Got it.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: And so, like that year, 2017, no, it was uh that was 2019 when um the DA, it was their last year, they had taken the U19s and separated them from the rest of the league and tiered it.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: So, like they that was the beginning of like the MLS clubs really ascending, and then some of the stronger elite academy clubs joining them in like a quote unquote first division.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Um so like that year our 19s were on a different schedule than the rest of the clubs.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the time I would spend going with David in the 19s to Atlanta, to Toronto, you know, to play the clubs that were in our conference and then working with the girls at the same time.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: And because they were both in the DA, it was easy to make a schedule where we would put the girls on Saturday and the boys on a Sunday and just do all single fixtures.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: Got it.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, we had a lot of cross-pollination at the time.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, David was head coaching a couple teams in the Girls Development Academy, working also as head coach of two of the boys' development academy teams.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: We had Brett Hall as an assistant in the program.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: I would assist the boys, take a primary role with the girls.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: So, like, we had this collaborative coaching group that would just kind of be a part of everything.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: And that's but prior to clubs, it seems like all clubs are either boys' side and girls' side or girls only, and boys only, and like because you got the hawks that are just girls, you got the wolves.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: Now they have a younger girl's side, but it was boys only when they divorced, and then Vardar is kind of only boys, and then Liverpool took their girls and their boys, yeah, or had their boys.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: So I mean so that's just going back and forth.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: But okay, so you were there at the start of the girls' DA.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: How and you were boys' development academy prior.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: With the U 12s, yes.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: With the U 12s, yeah.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: You were like, was that pre-DA or what was it?
5:45
SPEAKER_00: It it was I mean, it was U12 Development Academy, so it was I mean, it was administered by the same people.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it had its own set of frameworks and standards because it was 99 and it was kind of a pilot program in its first year where they wanted to start the pathway one year earlier and help teams transition into U13, which I think I think they had their hearts in the right place.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, in principle and in practice, there were a few things about the model that were just not like very feasible.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Is it about the travel and stuff?
6:15
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean our our travel, maybe in other areas of the country.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: I could see travel being an issue.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: You guys are such uh dude, we we had um I mean soccer's had two teams, fire juniors had two teams, FC United had two teams, one of them was Chicago Magic, they had just acquired them.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, so they had two, and then you had Campt United at the time had one, and Indiana elite in Northwest Indiana.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: So all of our games were within an hour and a half's drive.
6:41
SPEAKER_02: Right.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, the U-12 model, I think they just realized that for the the benefit, we could play in a Chicagoland local league and just play at U-13 and still get really good games.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: So the U-12 games were kind of like just okay.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Like we would get some competitive games here or there, or some of them, especially in the first year, were a little bit one-sided.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: So we kind of realized that look, our our teams that our DA teams that would play in a local league would get better games in the local league at that age.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: So why did we need U12 DA?
7:17
SPEAKER_01: Right.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: That was kind of our realization of it.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: But there were some things about the model that were great.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they had um, you know, it was 9v9, you needed a a pool of 22 to 24 players, so you would essentially field two teams on game day.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, one one, whatever the roster ended up being, 12 to 16, whatever the total was.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I mean you would every every fixture date was two matches.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And the clubs could design those two teams however they wanted.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: They can do stronger, weaker, they can do older in the birth year, younger in the birth year, late developers, early developers.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Like they were they had total flexibility about how they wanted to design them.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: Got it.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: So, like again, in theory, it's great.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: In practice, it just didn't work that great.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: So okay.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: Fast forward, now you're your role here, Midwest, and you were part of the girls DA, and now you're part of the Girls Academy.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: What are what are the major differences?
8:17
SPEAKER_01: Like like can like because you're the only you're the first person that I've talked to that has been in both.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: I talked to Scoby a little bit, but he's kind of brand new to the girls' side or the girl that role, and he wasn't really part of the DA because they weren't part of the DA.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Jags at the time they had just come into the DA.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: And for a full yeah, in the first year, they they came in as a partial pathway.
8:43
unknown: Okay.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: They only had teams up to U17.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: They did the U 19s weren't included.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, the they just didn't have a competitive team and they didn't think that it would be appropriate to put that team on buses and so they allowed it.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Which I I personally like.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't I don't like that you have to have five competitive teams or six competitive teams to get into this league.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: And it's like I I don't know.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, the external factors are the problem, right?
9:11
SPEAKER_00: Is like when you let's say you have a a full pathway, you you need to have six competitive teams to to really be able to feel the full pathway.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: But in a partial pathway, especially coming in, say you have three really good teams and three that maybe aren't as strong yet.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Maybe in a year's time of being in that platform, doing good work, building your reputation, those three teams that weren't as strong could become a little bit more attractive now.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: And maybe they bring in some players that are you know more appropriate for that level of competition.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: Right.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: I like the idea of partial pathway.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Like I think there are some clubs that have come in to leagues in the last couple of years that would have benefited greatly from having maybe just three or four teams in the league as opposed to all six in year one.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: And just give them that runway to kind of build up those other teams that maybe weren't quite ready.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, because the downside is you come in with six teams, maybe two or three of them aren't competitive, they're not having success.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: At some point, the lead platform and the name doesn't matter as much.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Like the players want to have a positive experience, they want to have success.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think us as coaches, we need to find the right level of success.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, and if they're coming into a league and they're losing games 4-0-5-0 regularly, them getting better in the next year is going to be incredibly difficult.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: What about the leadership of like the DA, the girls DA versus the Girls Academy?
10:36
SPEAKER_01: It's completely different, right?
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, US Soccer, obviously involved in the DA, and I think did a lot.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Like I I may be in a minority to say I really appreciated US soccer's involvement in it because it was like a genuine third party.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, there was no you couldn't politic.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Like you like it was somebody that was outside of the realm that when you sent an email and said, Hey, I want to reschedule this game for some bogus reason, they would come back and just say, No.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, you know, like now you don't have that.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I I I valued that.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the perks or the the things that I really wanted to take out of the DA into the Girls Academy were a lot of like the player development standards, the minimum training standards, coach licensing standards.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: Um the DA had more of that than the girls' academy, right now.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yeah.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: I think the GA is trying to get there.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Like in in recent years, there's been a lot more talk, and um there's been more traction as far as like standards, yeah, and and development standards, especially when it comes to things like coaching licenses and whatnot.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, but US soccer were very strict, and and this was the reason going back was I had to start in the U 12 boys DA as a um forget the term that they use, like a mentor or a um, I forget the name, but I I couldn't be head coach in title because I only held a C license.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: So they they required a B.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you had to have a B.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: So that year is when I went through the B license.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And then in the next year, when it came to coaching the girls, it was no problem.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: And now there's nothing like that.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: There's no I I think we're trying to get back to that point.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: I say we uh I'm not speaking on behalf of the GA, but just in conversation that we've had, you know, things that have been talked about in the circles, and I think the goal is to eventually get to a point where there is a minimum coach education standard, which I do agree with.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Right.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, like everybody says, having a license doesn't make you a good coach.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: But what it gives you is like a baseline level of experience and understanding of you know what an elite environment could look like.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and I'm a believer of ongoing education.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Like even if there's a you go to uh the the North American Soccer Expo last August.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Boom.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, went out there last year, sat in on a couple seminars, a couple presentations, walked out of there one percent better.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was worth it.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and we as coaches, we have that standard on our players.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: We say we want you to get one percent better every day.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Like that adds up over a period of time.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Why are we as coaches any different?
13:16
SPEAKER_01: And the networking, and just like catching up with some people that you may have not seen in a while.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I love like the convention and the expo and man.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: A lot of good shared ideas.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: It's it's not as much I mean, there is always an element of like the social side and and running into people that you know and making new connections in your network.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: But I've always felt like going to those conventions that you when you're networking, it's not just somebody that you're networking with to be like your friend, like you're networking with somebody that has a different experience than you, and that when you sit down with and you talk shop, you're taking little bits away, like, wow, like yeah, you know, I didn't think of that.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna take that on.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, sometimes it's uh it's the opposite direction where you run into people and you just get to talking with them and you'd be like, I'm you know, I'm probably not gonna take that.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, now I'm conscious of it, right?
14:07
SPEAKER_00: It got me thinking about that.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's how we develop as coaches.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: It's like you you you work with mentors or somebody else and you learn what you want to do, and then you learn what you don't want to do.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean you have to, yeah, and that's what this podcast has become.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: It's really just an education for me, and everybody's like will message me and say, Man, I get I learned so much.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: It's like I learned so much because I like Zathy yesterday, right?
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Zathy coached my D license when I was 19 or 20 years old, so that comes out, and and then I get to just listen to his stories, and it's just ridiculous.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Then I get to know you who came up in Chicago for the last how long have you been or how long were you in Chicago?
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Started in 2007.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Really?
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I was right out of high school.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Like I did not like most most coaches go through a pathway of being a player and play in college or even beyond.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I got into coaching as like a side gig the summer after my senior year of high school, just doing like little cans and stuff.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: And um, like over the years, not having a as a young person, not knowing what I wanted to do, um, that just became something I just grew a passion, you know, for sure.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: Took it and ran with it.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: And and hell, I think the first I mean, I was I spent 13 years at soccer, and I think for the first three years I was part-time.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: And and after that, you know, it became full-time, it became, you know, rising and you know, eventually getting to the point where I am now.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: How hard was it to get into soccer?
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Actually, quite easy for me because it was an acquisition.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: So at the time when I started, I was working with a Chicago Magic uh affiliate club.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: And they had gone through a process of kind of seeing their way away from Chicago Magic and then brought into Soccer's FC.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: And it was a a location in my community, Chris Lake, Illinois, um, with a guy overseeing it that I would say is the one I owe the most to in my coaching career because he was the guy that got me started.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Um's Carl Smith.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: I I don't think he's coaching anymore, but again, really, really good guy.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, we became a soccer's affiliate, and that's when things like took off when I was able to get in the door a little bit at a club like soccer's and I Schaumburg was 35 minutes away, so I can go down to the main hub and like be around like the top, top teams and players.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: I I think that was what set the hook to be like this is now what I want to do, like this is my profession, and I'm gonna chase it.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I mean that was what back in 2011.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: How long until you were part of the DA?
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Shoot.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think U 12 that started in what 2013?
17:00
SPEAKER_00: 2013?
17:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: I could be wrong on that.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I've lost track of the years.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Like I I don't yeah remember things by year.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: It all kind of blends in.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, it was it was a few years in, like it was probably four years into working at soccer that I kind of made my way there.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: Did you I mean, what was your role when you first got to the main soccer?
17:24
SPEAKER_01: What would what did you do?
17:26
SPEAKER_01: How many teens did you have?
17:28
SPEAKER_00: It was so I I I had taken kind of a long path in.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Like I started in a an affiliate out of my community in Crystal Lake, got reassigned as a promotion to over kind of work in the Naperville location.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and and eventually now event like work in overseeing it at the end.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: Right.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then from there it was then moving into Schaumburg.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Um and it was right at the the transition of that U 12 DA into working with the girls' side when they had just come from ECNL into the girls DA.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: How many affiliates of Soctors are there now?
18:03
SPEAKER_01: Now there's only one.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: There's only the one, the main hub?
18:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: Because Soctors was always one of the the best.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, magic was too.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: Is Magic still around?
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes, but it's a it's a very different, it's not what Chicago Magic was back when, like how is we remember it from back in the 90s.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Is that because of the fire?
18:24
SPEAKER_00: No, I I think more of it was the the coach, it was very coach-driven.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, the guys that were at the top of it were kind of the the ones that made it what it was.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: And eventually they saw their way into other paths, like um Mike Makovich, I think, left to go work in Akron at the University of Akron as an assistant to Caleb Porter.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Um his career now has taken him elsewhere in soccer.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: He's still in it.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, but then at the same time, the other John Hannon, I think he had moved out west to work at Crossfire.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, now that the those coaches that were the best coaches there were gone, it would then gone through an acquisition.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Um a you know, uh uh somebody from the North Shore of Chicago came in and decided that they wanted to purchase it and you know run it, and that uh at that was kind of the point where we transitioned out.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Um it became a soccer's, but yeah, it's uh the magic today is not the same one that it was back then.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: So arguably soccer's is not what it used to be.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: Magic's not what it used to be.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: Let's be honest, Eclipse is not what it used to be.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: What's is everything just being split too much?
19:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and then when does FC United come into the picture?
19:45
SPEAKER_01: Because I never even heard of FC United until Stan.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Great guy, Stan.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Um the uh you know, and I and I could be I could be wrong on this, right?
19:59
SPEAKER_00: This might have to be fact-checked, but FC United had come in to the girls DA as an outside applicant.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: They weren't in the ECNL, they were a high performer in like the USYS realm.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: And so they in the the first year of the girls development academy had put in their application, they had been accepted.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, at the around the same time, and it may have been just slightly earlier, was when FC United acquired Chicago Magic.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: And through that acquisition, picked up the Boys Development Academy with it.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: How do you get acquired?
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay, how are you a Chicago like the Chicago Magic?
20:38
SPEAKER_01: Get acquired and give up the name.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: I I mean that's gotta be so hard.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: I I well I guess that happened here.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: To some degree in the past, right?
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I don't that's a level of the the sports that I am not in, man.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: Like, it's the same with Waza and Waza and Gators, and then they merge and it becomes nationals, and now the Waza, there's still a little bit of Waza left, but like Gators is no more, PSG, which is a premier sports group, is no more, and now it's just nationals, and it's like it's all gone.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: And VAR like Vardar, is Vardar gonna be around much, you know, and it's crazy.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I could do that.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I again above way above my grade.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I uh I I prefer being out on the field than in the boardroom, and yeah, yeah, I don't I don't know if that's ever gonna be a part of my wheelhouse.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: Join the I Hate Soccer Patreon for early access to episodes like this one with Rudy Cleveland.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Also, by joining my Patreon, you'll get access to all of my bonus episodes.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you notice, most of my episodes are all in person.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: Not the case on my bonus episodes.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: I talk to people from across the country and including some of my former players that I'm no longer close to.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Um because I'm not no longer in Buffalo and they're usually in Buffalo in the summer.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: Also, I'm gonna have some rants.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm gonna have some book reviews and continue to just provide more behind the scenes content that I don't post anywhere else.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Patreon.com slash I hate soccer.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: And so you are still on the field.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: You are part of like you're not just the director, you are the girls' academy director, but you also are still on the field.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I prefer it every day.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if it's not teams that I'm directly coaching, I spend time around some maybe the other teams in the vertical.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, this spring has been great because I can spend more time around the U13s and 14s.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Just be a fly on the wall sometimes, help out when needed, you know, just be a part of it.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's it's kind of a culture that I've been trying to build, is like we want our coaching staff to be more than just the coach of teams.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Like we want us all to make each other better, complement each other with our strengths and you know, help each other in their weaknesses.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, if there's a way that we can design a coaching model where all the players are exposed to all of us at different times, they're gonna be able to take things away from maybe one of the other coaches on the staff that they wouldn't take away from me.
23:17
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Because as much as we communicate in ways that players are gonna be able to take in, maybe my communication style doesn't hit with a a certain player.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: How do you get buy-in from the staff on that?
23:32
SPEAKER_01: Because there's like with younger coaches, they want their own team.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they don't want maybe input, they want to run their own team because this might be the first team that they're they have of their own.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: How do you get buy-in on that?
23:43
SPEAKER_01: Because I love that because there are clubs that I've been a part of where a kid doesn't even know who that is.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, oh, that's the best coach in the club, and you don't even know.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it makes um it solves a lot of problems when you have a collaborative coaching model because there's always going to be a situation that's out of our control that might bring a coach away from a team for a period of time.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Right?
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Like somebody gets sick, you know, somebody um sure, you know, some some coaches have full-time jobs, you know, outside of soccer, and maybe their schedule availability could be limited.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: So having a familiarity with the whole staff, if I ever had to step in for somebody else on the staff, all the players know who I am, and I'm working with them one day a week at minimum to even a small degree, sometimes directly.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a seamless transition.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: And I think some clubs, you know, as as clubs go year over year and coaching staffs change, you know, that familiarity can be the anchor for a family or a player to say, you know what, I'm gonna stay in the club, even though my coach last year's leaving.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Right, because I know who the next one is.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm familiar with the staff already.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not an uncertainty.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: Don't you think, yeah, that would that would absolutely keep kids in the club.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: If they already knew the staff and already and just being so comfortable with everybody.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and that's what you picked up at soccer, right?
25:09
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: And because not every was that like on purpose or was it just how it was?
25:16
SPEAKER_00: I I think it was you can ask David this too, but I'm pretty sure it was deliberate.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Like it was let's bring especially younger coaches around, like let's try to integrate them, let's get them experience, let's, you know, let's monitor in some ways, you know, and see how they're doing.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's it felt very deliberate, and and the door was always open to me in that model to say, like, if my trainings are done with the teams that I'm responsible for, I can go and spend time around other ones, and I'm welcome.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: Right.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that's the the biggest step is as coaches, our teams sometimes become our identity.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: And when we let somebody else in, it could take away from that identity or we feel threatened in our identity.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: And so as our staff, like I think our our key is that one, we respect one another's work.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Like we spend a lot of time around each other here in the office when we go on the road and you know, we can have a laugh with each other.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: And in the end, like I would say that we're friends, but not friends to the degree that we it gets in the way or hinders our professionalism.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Right?
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Like it's not like to that degree where you say, like, all these guys are in cahoots with each other.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, no, like we're still we still challenge each other and want each other to get better, but because we have that baseline respect for one another, we accept it.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: Do you have like a system, like a set Midwest system of like this is how we tend to play, or does that vary with Coach Yes and no?
26:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I would the I guess the easiest way to describe it would be we don't have a fixed game model where we we don't look at all of our teams and say they all need to play the same.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: Because in our model in the United States, we have to take the players that come to us, and so we can't always just go and recruit players of a certain profile that are gonna allow them to be successful playing a certain style, you know.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Like we could never be in FC Barcelona where they they're getting their hands on all the best players that have the profile to play the way FC Barcelona wants to play.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: But why do we model all of our coaching education off of what they do?
27:32
SPEAKER_00: I I feel I think a lot of it's moving away from that.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Like there is still I know there is still that stigma, but so the reality is in our in our landscape, we we're at the mercy of the profile of players that come through our door.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: And so we don't want to design a team in a way that maybe is gonna ask a player to play in a way that doesn't complement them and and could be a hindrance to them, right?
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: So we look at the makeup of our team, our group of players, and say, what are what might be the best structure or shape?
28:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, what functions might be effective within that structure.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: If there's a consistency across our teams, it's that the actions and behaviors we want to be consistent.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: So, like an action of you know, basic aggressive, imposing, defending.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Like we want all of our teams to be defending on the front foot, you know, pressing or, you know, at mid-block, right?
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Or some in some way that we're not gonna be a team that just drops back to defend and lets the opponent come to our goal or come into a scoring position.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Like we're gonna be very imposing.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, in possession, we want all of our teams to be imposing with the ball.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Like we want them to be forward thinking, we want them to play forward when possible.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of our coaching is about, you know, principles of play that are gonna allow them to do that successfully, identifying 2v1s, um, dribbling when unopposed, taking space when unopposed to try to draw the opponent or disorganize the opponent, um, skip lines, you know, utilize the third man when possible.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Like those are principles of play that we would like to be consistent in our teams.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: But in the end, in order for those principles to be successful, the actions and behaviors of the players have to allow them to execute that principle.
29:15
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: So most of our can if there's a consistency in our training, it's that we want those actions and behaviors to be consistent.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: And and that and that is trans that's transferable to all styles of play.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: If you could if you nail the principles, you can play whatever, you can change formation at halftime.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: You can't change principles at halftime.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: It's no, you can't change your technical ability at halftime.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: So if you I believe that if you focus on the principles of play and then and then the technical development of each player, I think you can do whatever you want in the game.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, whatever the game asks of you, you're gonna be able to do.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you do need to play in a low block, maybe you can high press, sure, maybe you can do just adapt.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I get the reason why I wanted to like partner with with Lewis is that and with you guys, is that I find that there's there's a lot of clubs that say it's our way or the highway.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: And it's like I don't really jive with that type of club, right?
30:19
SPEAKER_01: Where it's like we're all gonna build, we're all gonna play 4-3-3, or we're all gonna play 3-4-3, or we're gonna play three box three, or whatever the hell that is.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, and it's like we're all just this system, and we're looking for this type of players.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: Like, we're not there yet, I don't think, as a country, especially if in based on your area.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, the play, the makeup of the players, it's the player profile that should determine how you're playing soccer.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: And now, of course, we're always gonna try to improve that player profile.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Of course, right?
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Like that should be our goal in in improving actions and behaviors and improving principles of play.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can change the profile of a player to a degree, right?
30:59
SPEAKER_00: But you know, you there are going to be certain players with certain affinities.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: And you also want to make sure that you have an open door to those players that maybe play or have a certain strength that a certain style of soccer may not complement.
31:12
SPEAKER_02: Right.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Right?
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, I have a big imposing center forward.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: We could play the ball in the air into the box, and she could be a scoring threat and she can thrive in that way.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: So why am I going to ask her to play everything on the ground and build up on the ground if we can play in a different way and still be very successful?
31:29
SPEAKER_00: I think the other driver of it is that when our goal as a youth club is to try to promote players to the next step, yeah, whether that be collegiate or more opportunities in the professional game today than ever.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: Right.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: They may step into their next team that has a completely different way of playing.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: And so if we've only ever asked them to play in one structure, one function, one style, are they going to be set up for success when they make that step?
31:55
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: And I don't I've seen, I've literally seen a club that does do it that way, and they don't have much success putting kids into the next level unless one of their club coaches is also a college coach, and then they just go there and it's an easy transition because it's just so predictable and it's all it's not, I guess it's as special as is to kind of taken out of them, or everything's so structured that they don't have a mind of their own, and they're not allowed to solve problems on their own.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, autonomous thinkers, right?
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Autonomous decision makers, problem solvers, risk takers, right?
32:35
SPEAKER_00: Like that's something I think is totally undervalued right now, is taking risks, right?
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Because there's so much on stand on standings and rankings down to the youngest ages where it's somewhat prohibitive to encouraging risk.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: And it's like coached out of them, and it's I mean okay.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: So I Wayne State put on this high school thing, and it's high school soccer, so whatever.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: So we'll take that as what it is.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: But everybody tried to build out of the back, everybody was kind of like, oh, everybody tried to play, but then I'm looking up top and I'm like, there's no threat, there's no dribbling, there's no taking on.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: Everything seems very patterned and orchestrated.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: It's like I only saw like one player who is going to eastern Michigan.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: I saw one player that I was like, hey, I like her because she is going at it and kind of is outside the system.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: We're coaching it out of them for some sometimes.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think in some ways, maybe we we think of it backwards, right?
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Like we co we try to coach patterns when the patterns that appear are an outcome of what the game has allowed, right?
33:50
SPEAKER_00: Like if you see, well, that their pattern of play is to when they're playing out of their defensive third, they like to play very centrally.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: They're probably doing that.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: If they're doing it right, they're doing it because there's an advantage there.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Or they're trying to exploit an advantage in that area.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you see patterns of play in the midfield of, you know, whatever ball circulation between your midfielders, it's not the pattern.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: They're they're doing it because it gives them the advantage against that opponent in that moment.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: Right.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: So we we look at a pattern, we watch a game and we see, oh, they're playing in this pattern, but that pattern is only because that way of playing is able to exploit something in the opponent.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: And so we think, all right, we're going to coach the pattern.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: Well, no, we should be coaching how to recognize and uh something to exploit in our opponent.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: That when we do it at a high frequency, it appears to be a pattern.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: And manipulate the defense and do make it do whatever you want, and then be able to attack and force them into a mistake.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: So it starts with building an autonomous decision maker that can recognize, like, hey, the opponent is in this structure or utilizing this function.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: In order for me to beat it, I can use this pattern, I can use this play at a higher frequency.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: So somebody looking at it says, Oh, look, look at that pattern.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, no, there's the only reason there's a pattern that appeared is because they were allowed to do it.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, so I think we want we want to coach players that can recognize that and do that.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: And we should be helping players through that process, uh, just basically just flipping the pattern, right?
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Instead of coaching the pattern itself, coach identifying cues in the opponent that would bring out a frequency of a certain action.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: How how do you educate your coaches?
35:34
SPEAKER_01: Like what is the role of you as the director?
35:38
SPEAKER_01: You're obviously overseeing all of the teams, but you're obviously overseeing the coaches as well.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're so we're in year one.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I call it year one.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: It's my first year in the club, but it's also the first year of our coaching model.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, we have one coach that oversees the U1314s, one that oversees the U15-16s, and one that oversees the U17s and 19s.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: Do they have a team or they do, yeah.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: So they would head coach those two teams.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: And it's and it's no longer, it's not like a tea somebody gets to stay with that group for eight years.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: Because that happens at clubs.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Happens, yeah.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: And then and the girls are like, I need a new voice.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: When and sometimes, I mean, there there's a sometimes it's good to have a coach for three or four years.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Like there, there's ways that that can be effective.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: I think the design of it is let's try to position coaches at the age and stage where they work best, right?
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Because certain all coaches have different natural affinities, right?
36:38
SPEAKER_00: We all have different education, we all have different philosophies.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: We but some of us just have certain innate qualities that allow us to work well in a certain age and stage, or for some, it's certain gender, right?
36:51
SPEAKER_00: And so, how can we design our coaching model to say, let's not look at it as like this coach with this team, let's look at it this coach within this stage working with this group of players because they have this quality that allows them to do it well.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: I like that.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: What okay, you're in year one, you just got here a year and a year ago now?
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Almost exactly a year.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: What is it, May?
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: So probably what, June?
37:18
SPEAKER_00: You probably it was it was May 1.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was May 1.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was May 1, yeah.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, did you bring that with you?
37:24
SPEAKER_01: Or was it between you guys and the staff and Lewis and everybody's like, let's do this.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: A lot of it was informally in place.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe, maybe not as deliberate.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but in the final stages of it when it was all right, let's determine who's coaching who.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the chips fell.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of took that with me from my experience in Chicago.
37:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: Where, you know, in the one of the clubs, I you know, spent a lot of time at soccer.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the design of the club is by age and stage.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: You work in a certain age, you you work with this group of coaches.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: You work in this stage, you work with this group of coaches, and all designed deliberately.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: And so I think the way the chips fell here in the first year at Midwest was perfect to be able to start to design like really formally that structure.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: And so, one thing that I'm really proud of in this first year is that going into next year, it's the exact same.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: Like we're not changing the coaching staff at all.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: There's no ins and outs.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: It's the same coach, coach Joe White, coaching the U13s and 14s, the same coach at U15 and 16s, Grand Osi, the same coach at U17 and 19, myself.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, now support staff, we've we've moved around a little bit to try to get them a little bit of a different experience because in our support staff, it's also a developmental path.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: And you're trying to figure out where they best fit.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: And exposing them to maybe a different experience that they can take.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, for example, we have a program assistant that is a program assisting with two teams in the GA, but then head coaches teams in the more local level.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: And so the goal is to say, look, take our take your experience from working with us, go and adapt it to your own environment where you have more autonomy, and you'll find out what works really well for you and what doesn't.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: And so in that process, then that coach is going to learn to say, like, all right, I can't directly take this training session and run it with my U12 girls, but I can take these bits of information, maybe this activity structure, maybe this coaching point, and I can go and implement it with my team with autonomy and learn, like, hey, this works really well for me.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm developed myself as a coach in this process.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: How how long do you okay?
39:38
SPEAKER_01: What is yours?
39:39
SPEAKER_01: I know that you're with the olders, but like what is yours?
39:43
SPEAKER_01: What is your like favorite or wherever you would you want to be?
39:48
SPEAKER_00: My age and stage.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: Prefer the this like kind of the U 16, 17, 19.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, just from a personality, from uh a like standards and expectations, like I mean, it again, it depends on who you ask, but I like to think that I hold pretty high standards on players, just a little bit outside of their comfort zone because that's how they grow.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's uncomfortable.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're in a good development environment, it's gotta be slightly uncomfortable.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: If you're comfortable, you're not growing to the degree that you could.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: You're not, you're not gonna hit your ceiling.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: I think with older players, they they are more conscious of that.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: Like they they understand that, like, hey, coach said that this wasn't good enough, not because he doesn't like me, but because uh he wants me to be better.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes with younger players, I have I just personally, I'll be honest, I sometimes I feel harder.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: It's harder for me to connect in that way.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: And if I want to coach them effectively, I have to change maybe my delivery, maybe my um the moments where I intervene, you know, the you know, there might just have to make an adjustment to be effective there.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: Whereas I think we have a coach that works incredibly well with players at that age and stage.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: So run with it.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: And then and then it's just like stages where because I just talked about this about there in Europe, it's one year most clubs, it's one year, and then they move on, and then that coach stays in that age group because that's their specialty, right?
41:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like we I don't know, we tend to just hold on.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: There is a there's a coach at Western Europe Flash that's had the same team for nine years, and some of the girls they still love her and and everything, but then there's some girls that are like, I just need somebody else uh to hear from.
41:41
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, doesn't it get stale?
41:44
SPEAKER_01: I I would get stale.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: I think I think the sweet spot I I've always thought and been taught two and a half years, two and a half years is the sweet spot.
41:52
SPEAKER_01: If you can get and then have a transition that third year, that's the way to do it.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: That's so hard, but well, it's it's hard.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: I think in the sporting realm, I've said this to to families before when they you know we talk about guarantees and things like that.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: I I don't think in the sporting context you can speak in absolutes, right?
42:13
SPEAKER_00: Because there's there's always outliers, right?
42:15
SPEAKER_00: There's always I don't want to say exceptions, but there are like there are situations where maybe a coach being on a team for three or four years or more is a good thing for that team.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: The team grows, the players improve, they you know are developing, and those players are moving on to that next level that they aspire to.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: So did that coach need to change after a period of time because we just felt like we needed to make a change?
42:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's an outlier, right?
42:42
SPEAKER_00: Like that might be an unusual case.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: Maybe in reality, the way some coaches are, their qualities that after two years, maybe it is time.
42:50
SPEAKER_02: Right.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe they've taken that team to as far as they can take them, and it's time for somebody else to grab the baton now and run the next leg of the race.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: How many times?
43:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's talk about the development pathway for the coaches.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: So when you get a young coach, do they immediately want to run to the 19s or the 17s, the 11 the 11 game?
43:14
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of coaches want to get to where they ended as a player.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: Like that that's their natural starting point because it's what they're most familiar with.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Like I think that's where we uh we just naturally gravitate to is just like, hey, I I played up until this level.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: That's that's a really good point.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: Like that's my last experience.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: That's the most fresh you know, piece in my memory.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be where I want to start.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: Because think about it.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, like when you when a college player ends and they want to get into coaching, they immediately want to go to college.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: That's a I've never thought of that like that.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: That's that's a good point.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's just correlation, you know.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not causation, but in the end, it seems to be a trend.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: Like it, I I don't see a Lot of young coaches coming in that say, like, hey, I really aspire to work well with U11s and 12s.
44:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: No, no 23-year-old wants to be like, you know what?
44:08
SPEAKER_01: Give me the U8s.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: It's like, no.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: And maybe, you know, in some ways, maybe it's best that it's not their starting point in the U Littles, because I think I think one of the most undervalued or underrated qualities of a coach is having experience with children outside of soccer context.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: After I had my daughter, like in retrospect, I changed as a coach significantly.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: Really?
44:33
SPEAKER_00: And in the early stages of it, like it was uh it was kind of adapting.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I would say things, I would act a certain way, I would respond to things in a different way.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: After I had my daughter, it was like uh there was a much higher degree of empathy.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: There was a much, you know, a closer connection or understanding that this is not only a soccer player, but it's a child.
44:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they're trying to figure things out.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they probably don't do not understand what I'm talking about.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: If I'm frustrated, they're probably frustrated.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: So just us being frustrated with one another isn't gonna help, right?
45:08
SPEAKER_00: So um, but yeah, I think that, you know, for a lot of young coaches, you know, without having that life experience, maybe that connection isn't naturally there yet.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, with just working with children.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: But for some, it could be, right?
45:20
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't want to speak in absolutes because there's some people that just have that natural empathetic quality and just connect well with young people.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:28
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys do that on the boys side too here?
45:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, I you know, to be honest, I'm a little disconnected.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: Like I could I don't know if I can accurately speak for it.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: I spend so much time around girls' teams and in the girls' vertical and in the girls' meetings and around the girls' staff that I don't see it enough.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't like I couldn't speak for it.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's why I'm talking to Luke next.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: Well played.
45:52
SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, why the girls?
45:55
SPEAKER_01: Why do you stick with the girls?
45:56
SPEAKER_01: I asked that to everybody.
45:59
SPEAKER_01: Anyone that is on the girl side, I usually ask the girls.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: I think, well, for me personally, it was an opportunity that presented, right?
46:08
SPEAKER_00: Like it was a progression, it was a step that I could take at that period of my life to move from working with U1112, quote unquote national level, that U12 DA, but it really was very much a more regional localized level.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, the next step or opportunity was to work in a girls' program at a larger scale.
46:31
SPEAKER_00: And so I took it, but at the same time was still coaching boys.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: I would say today, like I would love to be able to still do both.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: Like to coach both boys and girls because they're different and they're both uh they're both fulfilling as a coach in different ways.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, obviously the boys' game maybe a little bit faster, maybe a little bit more flair and flavor, and you know, but the girls, they are so much more coachable and and you can change, you can develop girls' players much faster.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: I think that you you are more likely to get them to play how you want them to play.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I definitely I think it well, again, it not speaking in absolutes, but yes, I I think overall, like they're a lot more receptive when they trust you.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: Like when you're you're credible and you have a rapport and you know you you they know that you're in their corner, right?
47:23
SPEAKER_00: They'll take information in and apply it immediately.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, where again, I I'm a man, I was a boy once.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: I remember when a coach would say, Oh yeah, you need to do it this way, and I tell him, No, I'm gonna do it my way because I know better, right?
47:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: Like that's how we are sometimes as as boys and as men.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, so development, sometimes it just it takes longer because of that personality trait, which you tend to see a lot more in boys.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: But um, but as far as like, you know, speed of play, you know, the flair, flavors, you know, that that highlight real skill, you know, you'll see that a little bit more in the boys, but it's coming in the girls.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: Like you see more cross-pollination now between boys and girls players.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: Like we have some girls' players that train and play with boys' teams.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: I heard about this U12 girl that you guys have, or yeah, U13 girl.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: And and again, from a development perspective, it's great to be in a club that embraces that, where you know, there's no roadblock to saying, like, hey, we have a really high performing girl that we think could not only hang in a boys environment, but like really thrive in it and develop in it.
48:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, nobody's saying no, you can't do that.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, so but we also have to be selective, right?
48:32
SPEAKER_00: We we have to make sure that it's the profile of the player is suitable for that environment.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: And you know, sometimes it's not just being as good enough, sometimes it's like being able to cope with a little bit more pressure and a little bit more competition and the standards of a training session that might be a little bit harder or higher.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so it's it's not just quality of player, it's players their whole profile.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, is it suitable to do both?
48:56
SPEAKER_01: Right.
48:58
SPEAKER_01: Man.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: How what's your role in terms of helping college placement and stuff like that?
49:08
SPEAKER_00: We work pretty collaborately with it.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, obviously, Lewis is very connected in the college game.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: He's in it.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, I've worked with enough players that have gone on to play college soccer and built enough connections where you know I could mentor and and work with players through that process.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, we've hired on a coach who is a former college coach, Coach Mario Zaniga Gill, um, currently at Aquinas here in Grand Rapids now, who is is very he embraces that.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: He he's he's hungry for that process and and really wants to run with it.
49:41
SPEAKER_00: So it's a bit of a collaborative process, but the the underlying piece is if a player wants help in getting to college soccer, they just need to ask.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: Right?
49:50
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, coach, can you give me some insight here?
49:52
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you everything I got.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: And if there's somebody in our organization that I think can give you more or has an experience that I don't, I'm happy to set you up with them.
50:01
SPEAKER_02: Right.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: Because in the end, like as much as I think the the social media realm and this hyper competitive and transactional realm of getting players from youth to college, you know, people tend to look at a certain club or at a certain coach.
50:15
SPEAKER_00: We all know it takes a village to get a player from start to finish in this race.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: Right.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: Right.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: And if it's a way that we can integrate other people or other programs or processes into it that's gonna help, that's what we should be doing.
50:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
50:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
50:29
SPEAKER_00: It's not just playing in this team is gonna get you to that level.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: It's no, I mean that's just this league.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like it takes it a village to develop a kid, it takes a a process that uh happens over the span of years.
50:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, and it's getting frustrating.
50:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm getting very frustrated with the with what uh some of the clubs are doing marketing-wise in terms of league versus league.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: And it if it's not new.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: Michelle Cooper, right?
51:00
SPEAKER_01: Michelle Cooper, who's playing for Kansas City Current, she's playing on the national team.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: She grew up in Southeast Michigan, right?
51:08
SPEAKER_01: She played for Vardar East.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: They just not even Vardar.
51:11
SPEAKER_01: She played for Vardar East, came up with Miriam Hickey.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: Do you know Miriam?
51:15
SPEAKER_01: You know Miriam?
51:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she was overseeing the Girls Development Academy.
51:18
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
51:19
SPEAKER_01: So so Miriam Hickey coached her, right?
51:22
SPEAKER_01: I still to this day, probably the best player that I ever, or at least the most handful of a player that I had to coach against.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: And she was eight and nine years old.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: It was ridiculous.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: But so she then goes to Hawks and for like two years, because Hawks are hawks, right?
51:43
SPEAKER_01: And then she goes to IMG in the girls DA, right?
51:49
SPEAKER_01: When she gets her first call-up ECNL post, this is this isn't Hawks, this isn't IMG.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: This is ECNL posting about her, yeah, and then girls DA posts about her.
52:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, guys, yeah, can you guys just shout out Miriam?
52:09
SPEAKER_01: Because you know, out of the out of the development pie, obviously Michelle has Michelle herself and her family has the biggest piece.
52:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
52:19
SPEAKER_01: But then, but then it's everybody is equal, and everybody that's uh and you said that it takes a village.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely right.
52:27
SPEAKER_01: And the player development pie chart, the player has the biggest piece, the second piece is the family and the parents, and then it's coach, club, teammates, competition.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's all those those four are just equal.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I don't know.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what that's just.
52:51
SPEAKER_00: And if they can't get me that, then I'm gonna go somewhere else that can get me that, as opposed to like transformational, right?
52:57
SPEAKER_00: Like, how am I gonna go through this process and end up a different player at the end than I was when I started?
53:03
SPEAKER_00: Because if you go through that process of transformation, you develop, then your doors are gonna be open at the end of the youth pathway, anyway.
53:10
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: Like if you're doing a good job, your players are gonna get better, they're gonna find a home at the next level.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: And that's right, I think, as a just a general landscape that we just have it backwards right now, that we get invested in in leagues and in events and in all these things where in the end, what makes the league is the clubs.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: The clubs are what make any league.
53:31
SPEAKER_00: The environment that the clubs are are creating are what are developing those players.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, and as opposed to just saying I need to go play there or I need to play there as far as leagues or events, find a club.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: I uh get so many complaints, and it's like, the GA sucks.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: And I go, okay, why does the GA suck?
53:51
SPEAKER_01: And like, well, they only train on a quarter of the field.
53:55
SPEAKER_01: I go, um, that's not a GA thing, that's your club.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, it's like, oh, we train at 9:30, or we only scrimmage and the G or the ECNL sucks because you know, we play, uh, we have to train on uh Friday night and Saturday morning.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: And it's like that's a club thing.
54:18
SPEAKER_00: If you're on a training ratio of three to one or four to one, spending four times as much time in a training environment as a game environment, which one do you think is gonna have a bigger impact on your development?
54:31
SPEAKER_00: The four to one.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: The four.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a higher frequency.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: It's exactly right.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's that's where I think we want to bring the focus back to, and I think that was a huge focus of the development academy back in the day of mandating twice started.
54:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it we had to train four days a week.
54:47
SPEAKER_00: And I remember the first year of it, they we had the stat sport vests, and you know, that's when they first were coming out, and there was all this hype and huge time suck to cut that information and like submit that information.
54:59
SPEAKER_00: Like it took hours to do it, but it was a way of the Federation monitoring us because if they see, like, oh, hey, we're only getting data from you for three days a week, Monday through Friday, what are you doing on that fourth day?
55:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, that was a mandate to be in the league, is you just trained four days or a four to one game ratio, right?
55:19
SPEAKER_00: Right, and so it was a it was a means of monitoring.
55:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think you know, we've gone away from it.
55:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, some clubs, you know, maybe four days for certain ages stages maybe might be too much.
55:29
SPEAKER_00: But I think the philosophy or like the the sentiment behind it about like let's bring the focus back to the club's environment, which is gonna have a greater impact on a player's development than just the game on the weekend.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: Zathy was talking about this too.
55:43
SPEAKER_01: He was in France, and Gerard Houlier was talking, and they were talking about like the American player and the French player, and he was talking about the Clairefontaine, uh, the their like the academy where they don't play games.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: So they train you throughout the week and you go to school there, and then they send you to your club.
56:02
SPEAKER_01: So imagine like there was a Michigan like Clairefontaine, right?
56:07
SPEAKER_01: So they train morning and afternoon, and then they go to school in between Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: They go they train Friday morning and then they go to school and then they go home, and then they play one game on the weekend with their local club.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: Nine to one ratio, but they also get Sunday off.
56:34
SPEAKER_01: And so they they are getting nine to one ratio and Sundays off.
56:39
SPEAKER_01: We well what's happening with a lot of our players now is they're training four days or three days with their club, but then they're going to Aaron Bird or next level or something like a technical trainer, maybe Lindsay Tarpley, right?
56:52
SPEAKER_01: And then and then they have two games on the weekend, and then they're going to strengthen conditioning, then they're going to this, and then they're like they're going to physical therapy, or it's like, wait a minute, all of a sudden we're not having any days off.
57:04
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
57:05
SPEAKER_00: No, well, and and load management, right, is a part of that too.
57:08
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I think in a in the youth realm, like when you go through coaching education, periodization is a a big piece of it.
57:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:15
SPEAKER_00: The theory behind it is totally sound.
57:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's science-backed, but in practice, there's so much uncontrolled or unaccounted load on our players.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: Right.
57:24
SPEAKER_00: That, you know, in our training environment, our club environment, we just don't we don't even know.
57:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
57:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, even players coming from school, like you're at school for seven, eight hours a day.
57:34
SPEAKER_00: You're coming out of school with a load on you.
57:36
SPEAKER_00: Even if you sat in a desk all day, like you're coming in with a degree of fatigue.
57:40
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not a physical fatigue, maybe it's more stairs, yeah.
57:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, but it's got to be accounted for.
57:47
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, so in in our world, like, you know, again, we're I think we're we're on a tangent now of uh of periodization, but I don't care.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: Um it uh it's hard, you know, because you know, yeah, we train three days a week, and maybe our players go and do training with a an external uh skills trainer, which I think many of them do a really good job and and have a huge role to play in the development of a player.
58:10
SPEAKER_00: It's the challenge is just aligning it in a way that we're not creating a dangerous situation.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: Make sure you're not killing her.
58:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, let kids be kids a little bit.
58:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean that's when you okay.
58:25
SPEAKER_01: So you went from Chicago to here.
58:28
SPEAKER_01: I always compare Buffalo, New York to Grand Rapids, just size-wise, strictly.
58:35
SPEAKER_01: But okay, so you got Southeast Michigan, a hotbed, you got Chicago, a hotbed, and then you're going into Grand Rapids.
58:42
SPEAKER_01: I was going into Buffalo.
58:43
SPEAKER_01: When I got to Buffalo, it was it was like, Where am I?
58:47
SPEAKER_01: It was like, why do you guys do this?
58:50
SPEAKER_01: Why are you allowed to play for two clubs at the same time?
58:52
SPEAKER_01: Why are you allowed to play for Flash and Clarence?
58:54
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
58:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, and it was a lot of parent coaches, no offense on parent coaches, but I was like, Where is all the professional coaches?
59:03
SPEAKER_01: There were no full-time coaches then.
59:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I was like, Where am I?
59:07
SPEAKER_01: This is 2015.
59:10
SPEAKER_01: Did you have any of that here?
59:12
SPEAKER_01: No, because Grand Rapids has always been really good because they had the crew and and legit, legit players.
59:20
SPEAKER_00: Down to even what we can call like a local level of soccer.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: There's actually quite a few soccer clubs in Grand Rapids.
59:27
SPEAKER_00: Like, I feel like I'm a new kid on the block, right?
59:29
SPEAKER_00: So I'm learning more every day.
59:31
SPEAKER_00: But I feel like when we come in and have conversations about, you know, how the local games went on the weekend, you know, how the younger teams are doing, you know, oh, so-and-so played uh, you know, this club.
59:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking, like, I'd never heard of that one before.
59:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, where is that one?
59:44
SPEAKER_00: Is that a grand is that a Grand Rapids club?
59:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
59:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, and then somebody in the room says, Yeah, like they're you know on the more on the north side of town.
59:51
SPEAKER_00: So like there's there's so much soccer here, right?
59:54
SPEAKER_00: That if it's the difference in Chicago is just scale, obviously.
59:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, population and number of players, but in terms of like the the strata of top, middle, lower, national, regional, local, it's the same.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it crazy how like Grand Rapids can compete with the Chicago's and the Detroit areas?
1:00:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think we're seeing it in a lot of what you I mean, you could look at a a Grand Rapids and say a Milwaukee is a of a very similar size.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and a Milwaukee has a a good history of of talented players coming through Milwaukee, good teams coming through Milwaukee.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, St.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_00: Louis, obviously, I mean bigger, obviously, but St.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_00: Louis is crazy, right?
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, so I don't think population is like the driver of soccer quality overall.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_00: I I just think it's the culture, the environment.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I love going to St.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_00: Louis, by the way, and just driving past every every club on the same road, like within two miles of each other.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_01: Uh Scott Gallagher is in town this weekend with the younger teams, they're 2011 to 2012.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to get somebody on, but like I don't know.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_01: Because uh they're playing the Hawks.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, because they're just so old uh in terms of their immigrant population.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_01: That's why they're a soccer hop at and always has been.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: But how is Chicago as a whole?
1:01:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, is it just so cutthroat and uh every all the clubs try to undercut each other?
1:01:26
SPEAKER_00: Or is it yeah, I think yes and no.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_00: Um I felt like in Chicago we could be cordial and friendly with one another regardless of what clubs we were at.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, we knew we were competing with each other.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_00: We always wanted to get the best players in our clubs, and whatever advantage we can find, we would want to utilize.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_00: But in the end, like at the end of the weekend, if we wanted to go out after a game for a beer and just talk shop, I felt like we could.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and again, I I worked at two clubs that people would look at from the outside and say, Oh, those are our tribals, right?
1:02:02
SPEAKER_00: Like soccer's and FC United.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: And in a way, yes.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, Chicago's a huge city, right?
1:02:09
SPEAKER_00: Like, let's say, like, just in theory, let's say one club has the top 18 players at one age, and the next club has player 19 through 36.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_00: Player 19 through 36 are still gonna be damn good, right?
1:02:23
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_00: So in the end, like you just acknowledge, like, yeah, like there's enough here.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: It's our work as club leaders and coaches to do the best job we can to try to get one through 18.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's not personal.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_01: How how is the transition to a smaller like town in terms of just living?
1:02:44
SPEAKER_01: Because I heard you, I heard you tell a story at the uh at the showcase.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_01: You're like 20 20 minutes, uh a 20-minute drive in Chicago, I'm still stuck in traffic.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've moved a mile, and then 20 minutes from here, you're in downtown Grand Rapids.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, anywhere in the city, anywhere in Grand Rapids, you can get almost 20 minutes.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's great.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_00: Um well, like full transparency, like I still live in Illinois.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_00: Like my family, my wife.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you do it.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_00: So like my my family lives in Chris Lake, Illinois, which is about 50 miles northwest of Chicago.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_00: And in during the week, when we're in training and we have matches on weekends, I'm in Grand Rapids.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_00: But like tomorrow night I drive home and I'm gonna spend at least Friday with my family and then come back on the weekend because we have some matches.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm doing I'm logging a lot of miles.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_00: When it when is that when are they moving?
1:03:39
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully soon.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're uh it's a my f my wife's a public school teacher.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, and there's a lot of long-term benefits to being a public school teacher.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_00: And right, you know, we want to we want to have those boxes checked before we fully up and relocate.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_00: And so it it might be another year.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_00: But if there's one thing we found out this year is that even though we're kind of living across two different states, we uh our family hasn't changed.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're still in a great spot, and like it's uh it just means a few hours in the car here or there.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_00: What do you have tonight?
1:04:17
SPEAKER_00: Um training tonight.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna go.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_00: Um we just opened up a new facility.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah down kind of on the the southern part of town.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm gonna go down there and do some just some clinics, like some shooting finishing work with some of our club members that just want to do a little extra work, and then I'll have a training session for a group of players that are opting out of high school soccer, um, just decided that they wanted to stay in the club.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_01: So you guys aren't year-round or uh full 10 months?
1:04:44
SPEAKER_01: Not nobody is required, right?
1:04:47
SPEAKER_01: And you're not you're not competing, you're not like the full 10 months.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_01: You can play high school if you want.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_01: Got it.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_01: How many girls?
1:04:56
SPEAKER_01: How many girls opted out?
1:04:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, total of 20.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_00: Really?
1:05:00
SPEAKER_00: Across from eighth grade to seniors.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, no, a total of 20 players.
1:05:04
SPEAKER_00: So okay.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, so across the U15 to 19s, which is eighth grade to senior year.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_00: We ended up with 20.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_00: And and so what what we ended up doing is got a little creative.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_00: Like with some of the older ones, we have them training with some boys' teams.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_00: We have them playing with our our women's team, our UWS and USLW teams.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, so their plan is a little bit more individual to suit their needs as as some of them are about to make the transition from youth to college.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, then we have kind of a younger cohort that is like eighth grade freshmen and sophomore that we are treating almost like a quote unquote team.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_00: That they train together three times a week.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_00: We have a series of games.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to come by games.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of them are friendlies.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to find events and leagues just because of high school soccer.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_00: But um, they're all players that they just had their own why that was like, you know, maybe high school soccer isn't what I want this year.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: And and maybe some of them have said maybe next year I'll give it a shot, which is great.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_00: Like if you wanna if if you think high school soccer's good for you, go and enjoy it.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_01: How did how do you feel about the age change?
1:06:11
SPEAKER_01: Because uh like I'm sure those eighth graders probably lost half of their team to high school, and so there's the eighth graders are like left behind the trapped players.
1:06:20
SPEAKER_00: I the the trapped player has always been kind of an interesting one for me because I feel like what we've been able to build out for those trapped players is a group of train a training group with older kids, games against older kids.
1:06:36
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_00: So they're actually getting a a challenging and developmentally appropriate environment outside of their quote unquote team.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_00: So, like for example, I mean, we had a a game earlier in the spring.
1:06:50
SPEAKER_00: We went up and played Ferris State, Division II, and we had eighth graders that were in the team.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_00: And and they did they performed like how'd that go?
1:07:00
SPEAKER_00: We lost two to one.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_00: That's still but you know, it was a good game, and and it, you know, it was a spring game for Ferris, so that they wanted to give players minutes, and I'm sure it wasn't their best team.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_00: And right, best stuff, yeah.
1:07:11
SPEAKER_00: But like in the end, that experience for those kids in eighth grade to go and play on the field with college kids, like that it's experience, right?
1:07:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, there's no substitute for experience, right?
1:07:23
SPEAKER_00: Right, you could talk about it all day long and watch video and go watch a game all day long, but when you're actually on the field out there and you're tasting it for yourself, right?
1:07:30
SPEAKER_00: That's a growth moment.
1:07:32
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
1:07:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we've we've done it with like we have our USLW and our UWS teams, our spring team will play each of them.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_00: Like we already played a game with our U USLW team, and and they had their way with the spring team because you have a a group of Division I college players, and you know, they're incredible high-level players that are playing in our USLW team.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_00: And the eighth grader in our our 2011 team this year went out on the field and had to play against a player from Michigan State in a scrimmage.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_00: Where who's coaching that?
1:08:05
SPEAKER_00: The USLW.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, Coach Joe, Coach Joe White head coaches our USLW team, Coach Dean Muckle head coaches our UWS team.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_00: But we work collaboratively, so like we have a collaborative training model.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_00: Like they'll be out here.
1:08:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, actually, no, they're not out here tonight because you USLW has a game.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, but like we we are I help them out.
1:08:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm on their staff.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_02: Got it.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, it's uh it's you know, it's trying to create experiences for those kids that maybe they wouldn't get in their regular season that would still be really highly developmentally appropriate.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_01: Man, what do you think of the inspire stuff?
1:08:44
SPEAKER_01: The U11 and the U of 12?
1:08:46
SPEAKER_01: That would be my age group, I believe.
1:08:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I I think the U11, the U12 girls it's ideal.
1:08:51
SPEAKER_00: I can't I can't speak for all of it.
1:08:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, like there's a a group of coaches, there's a small group of coaches and club leaders from around the the region of middle America that are are working together to really get it off the ground.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_00: And and I've been lucky to be working with them in the process and learning from them and getting their perspectives.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_00: It's actually been great settling in here to Michigan and actually be on the phone weekly with other coaches from Michigan and Ohio and just getting to know it all.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_00: But um I think the the build out of it is is from an appropriate environment.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_00: Again, when I say appropriate, meaning like players are playing meaningful minutes, players aren't sitting in a car for extended periods of time.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_00: They're playing competition that's gonna be challenging for them, but not too challenging and also not too low, right?
1:09:42
SPEAKER_00: So it's developmentally appropriate.
1:09:43
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's gonna be a great thing.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's still in year one, you know, we got to get it off the ground.
1:09:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's in kind of the final stages of planning.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_00: But when I think about our current state offering where we have to play at those U11, 12 ages, our families are going to the east side.
1:10:01
SPEAKER_00: Our families are going as far north as Potoski, right?
1:10:05
SPEAKER_00: So there's two hour trips in our local quote unquote league.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_00: Maybe some areas of the country don't have that problem where they have a huge population center and they can drive 20 minutes and play five different clubs, you know, of good standard and developmentally appropriate standard, but we don't have that, you know.
1:10:23
SPEAKER_00: So our our league, our the structure of our league, it's all being designed to mitigate the expansive travel and still get meaningful games.
1:10:31
SPEAKER_00: Like I think it's gonna be great.
1:10:33
SPEAKER_01: For those teams, are you also gonna do like uh well, what are they doing at U11 and U12 here now?
1:10:40
SPEAKER_01: MS PSP the Directors Academy, directors academy.
1:10:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:10:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
1:10:44
SPEAKER_01: And then you're are you guys are in that?
1:10:46
SPEAKER_01: We are, yes.
1:10:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's a that's pretty good local.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_00: It's great, yeah.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I I I think it's evolving um with with kind of the the rise of the the pre-ECNL, the rise of the GA Inspire.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I don't know what the Directors Academy is gonna look like in two years' time.
1:11:04
SPEAKER_01: Especially when there's how many I mean, everybody's in either the RL or the ECNL or the GA right now.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_00: So you know it's hard to say what it's gonna look like, but for a long time, uh it's it's been I haven't been a part of it, but on paper at least, it's been a good thing for the state of Michigan is to play within the state of Michigan.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, yeah, you're dri you have to drive two hours for a match because that's just where you are.
1:11:29
SPEAKER_01: And they have those standards that you talked about earlier about the the coaching uh, you know, standards.
1:11:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and and one of the, you know, it's been a it was announced with the Inspire, you know, their their competition frameworks and structure was you know at U12.
1:11:45
SPEAKER_00: It it will be the three periods, and players would be required to play one of those three periods uninterrupted, just like U13 MLS next.
1:11:54
SPEAKER_01: How long are the third uh the periods?
1:11:56
SPEAKER_01: 25s.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_01: Three twenty-fives.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I got into it.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I said that there needs to be subbing restrictions, and people immediately jumped down my throat and thought, oh well, you you don't want kids to play.
1:12:10
SPEAKER_01: And I go, no, that's not what I'm saying.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_01: If a k if a game is 60 minutes, we're talking youth, right?
1:12:19
SPEAKER_01: And I think that two stints of 15 minutes unimper interrupted, if the kid is gonna get 30 minutes, two two um stints of 15 minutes uninterrupted is better than six six shifts of five minutes, yeah, where they don't even touch the ball, maybe.
1:12:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:41
SPEAKER_00: That I I think that's more of the intent, right?
1:12:43
SPEAKER_00: Like it gets lost on the and again, it's all a matter of perspective, right?
1:12:47
SPEAKER_00: As a perspective of somebody that maybe was was a 15 or 30 minute player in a game, they would look at sub-restrictions as being restrictive, right?
1:12:57
SPEAKER_00: But for a player that, you know, then went a 60-minute uninterrupted span out of a 90-minute game, it was developmentally appropriate for them.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_00: And so if we're talking about the elite environment and developing the elite player, I think the substitution restrictions actually promote that more than they take away from that.
1:13:15
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:13:15
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:13:16
SPEAKER_00: Because it it's prevents that in and out churn where six minutes on, 10 minutes out, five minutes on, or opposite 10 minutes on, five minutes out, that churn where the game just gets chopped up.
1:13:28
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:13:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:13:29
SPEAKER_00: Where just give a longer uninterrupted span and you know, let that player get as many actions in that period of time as possible.
1:13:36
SPEAKER_00: And and that should, when you think about frequency of actions, should help in their development.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_00: So with this model at U12 of having three periods, one 25-minute period uninterrupted minimum, that means no matter what, every player is gonna get 25 minutes of uninterrupted play.
1:13:53
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
1:13:54
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
1:13:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, and credit to MLS Next because they piloted it at U13.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_00: Like they've been doing that at U13 all year, and yeah.
1:14:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_01: Good.
1:14:06
SPEAKER_01: I like that.
1:14:07
SPEAKER_00: I think it's great.
1:14:08
SPEAKER_01: Man, thanks for doing this.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no problem.
1:14:11
SPEAKER_01: You had to, kind of.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's a you know I always wish I was always gonna have you on at some point.
1:14:16
SPEAKER_00: No, it's it's been great.
1:14:18
SPEAKER_00: I I I watch and I listen.
1:14:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you've had a lot of of guys on the show that that I've had direct experience with, and they're great guys.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're good people, and there's a lot of good people here in Michigan.
1:14:28
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully you're just seeing that.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_01: Like you talked about like getting a beer after it's like just everybody, yeah.
1:14:34
SPEAKER_01: Everybody is there's they call it the Michigan Mafia, right?
1:14:39
SPEAKER_01: And and and it is for the most part, you know, there's always some some friction, but I mean, for the most part, it's a great place to be.
1:14:46
SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm moving, that's why I moved back.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:14:49
SPEAKER_00: No, it's it's been awesome so far.
1:14:51
SPEAKER_00: The people have been welcoming, the staff and and the club have been great.
1:14:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, like I I have a hard time other than the fact that maybe I gotta drive a little bit, I I have a hard time finding anything negative about my experience over here so far.
1:15:03
SPEAKER_01: Awesome, brother.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_01: So we'll do this again.
1:15:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have to.
1:15:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_01: All right, man.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, brother.
1:15:08
SPEAKER_01: No problem.
1:15:09
SPEAKER_00: I hate soccer.