Latest / I Hate Soccer with Jason Collinsworth / I Hate Soccer #115 - Sarah Plymale on how we can get more women coaching soccer!

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I Hate Soccer #115 - Sarah Plymale on how we can get more women coaching soccer! · I Hate Soccer with Jason Collinsworth

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This episode will be the first of five episodes that I recorded at North American Soccer Expo this year.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Last year there was one presentation that I missed that I wished that I saw, and it was basically the women in soccer uh panel that was on the first night.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I made sure that I got one of the panelists on this year, um, Sarah Pyman, who has been uh at the Michigan Tigers for uh the last several years.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Previously, she was in Portland, and she was actually part of the Rose City futsal crew that really built a culture of futsal in the Portland area.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she's trying to do the same thing in Ann Arbor, and uh we get we get heavily into the a futsal conversation, and we also talk about women in soccer and what we can do to make sure that there are more female coaches.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: At the time of recording this intro for Sarah's episode, on YouTube, I currently have 4,817 followers.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: We I want to up that.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get to 5,000 by Christmas, and I think I think we're gonna do it.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I need you to make sure that you are subscribed because for some reason, 70% of you that watch on YouTube aren't subscribed.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So please hit that subscribe button.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: It pushes out the video, it makes sure that you guys don't miss an episode, but also it just helps grow the show and and follower count does matter when I'm trying to interview guests and and try to schedule guests.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for watching and enjoy my episode with Sarah.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: I hate soccer.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so everybody thinks, like, oh, ECL is the best.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, or Flash is the best club ever.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, it's not, it just has all the best talent.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And clubs or leagues really are it's all club by club based.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like the Jags is different than Midwest.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Midwest is different than the Tigers.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Tigers is different than R N Y F C or whatever.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: But what okay, let's continue the conversation in there.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I asked the question about how not let's I don't think the Flash, if the Flash put on a event like this, yeah, I don't think they come out and say we're gonna have a women coaching thing.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so frustrating to me.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like part of the problem is maybe it's club outreach, but part of the problem is a lot of girls don't want to coach.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see that at all?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I don't think it's that girls don't want to coach.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a structural systemic problem.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's kind of deeper than just females not wanting to coach.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's um, you know, uh like I just presented, um, you know, we're we're catching females in the game um at the grassroots level, but the retention just isn't happening and uh the mobility isn't happening to the elite level.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what's happening.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a drop-off when you look at grassroots numbers of female coaches into elite level coaches.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: There's a drop-off there, there's a disconnect.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I wonder the pipeline problem.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so in my training company in the last 11 years, yeah, I think I've hired six people, five of them have been women, but all of them have been former players of mine.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And is that a problem?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, am I the problem?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think about like I was thinking about it after I asked that.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, wait a minute.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: If I only coach players that I've coached, or if I only hire coaches that I have trained and they were a player of mine, isn't I isn't that me doing a disservice?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like a lot of club directors and stuff, they would only hire women if they played for that club.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I do think I think it's a it's an easy pipeline, right?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: You have a player that plays for your club.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it is you already have that connection, that relationship, and there's a safety element.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of women don't stay in the game because they don't feel safe in the game.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: They don't feel safe in the environment.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just as far as a coach, there's just so many obstacles we have to face.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, whether it be just the gender biases, whether it's um equality of pay.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: I know that was something I faced.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: When I was a young coach, realizing the guy I was dating, um, we worked the same exact camp.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually worked longer hours and we got up our paychecks, and his paycheck was three times as much as mine.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that was my one of my first coaching experiences.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: So these are the things that I think same qu same qualifications, same exact qualifications.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, same exact qualifications.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: I actually was look worked longer hours in that camp.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I was maybe 18 or 19 years old.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: So early in my coaching years, but at an early age, realizing for the same exact work almost actually, I'm doing a bit more because I'm one of the only female staff.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that, you know, the my male counterparts are getting paid more and compensated more for the same exact credentials.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: So this is something that is really frustrating for females that that get into the game.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: You notice it pretty um, you know, right away early on.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I'm talking about this was 20 years ago, 20 plus years ago for my experience that I just talked about, but I think it still goes on and not in not in every club environment, but um I do think the inequalities are still there.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I never even thought about that because I I'm only speaking on my own experience that my highest paid coach at my camps was my number one trainer, and she was basically like a co-camp coordinator.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, do men have to think like it's so frustrating.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I that's why I sat in that entire thing.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's because it's so frustrating, it's a topic that I care about because Laura Hamlet at Detroit Country Day just won a state title.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I could use a coach with her.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and I've always coached with women for some reason.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, it's just how my career has gone.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I respect them more, maybe.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I Laura wins her second state title, and she's already the winningest uh female high school coach in Michigan history.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how is that possible?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of coaches, and I've I've heard directors of coaching say this verbatim we don't want to hire women because they will leave because they want to start a family.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you had a slide in there saying that's a lie, it's a misconception.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you are an example, and Trisha's an example of yeah, that's not true.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: She has three kids.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: You have a son.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: It we want to be in the game.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Do we need flexibility?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: We need, are we gonna have to have days where we're home with our son when they're sick, our kids when they're sick?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Are we gonna need flexibility to miss a day to go to our kids' game?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: To be a present parent, absolutely.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so there has to be flexibility when you are um creating again a safe environment for women in the in the game to work for an organization.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's creating safety, flexibility.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um part of the reason why I think I was successful at getting some of the women is because some of the women wanted to coach, but they didn't want to coach club.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to have to wake up at 6 a.m.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: on a Saturday in Ohio for a for a tournament game or something like that.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I run ran my own training company and they were able to kind of like make their own schedule.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and then uh they'll also do high school.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's usually their old high school.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so they love it.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And they're still coaching and still in the game, but maybe it's the club crazy because you I have it's hard.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I left club 11 years ago, yeah, and I don't think I'm ever going back.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you just left club.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't are do you think you'll ever go back?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny, it's a great question.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: I uh miss it a lot already.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's only been a few months.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna lie.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: There are so many things I miss, and especially just the kids.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: The girls.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: The kids.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: You miss the kids so much, but um how many teams were you doing?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: I had four teams.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: You were doing four teams at Tigers?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, four teams.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all girls' teams?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: All girls' teams, yeah.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And did some assistant work with the GA teams and stuff as well.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a lot.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: How'd you do four?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that schedule is very, very difficult to manage.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, often you're working certainly six days a week, if not seven days a week.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think you know, a lot of people who work in this industry, men or women, that's kind of, you know, uh par for the course, but it's not easy.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm um, I'm a single mom, so it is uh even more challenging, um, you know, trying to navigate who's gonna take my son to practice or where is he gonna go when I'm on the field.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: And often this last year I've just had him with me.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's just been or I'll throw him into the session that I'm coaching.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually like the best development for him.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: So um the fact that they allowed me to do that was incredible.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of clubs may not allow you to do to bring your son um or kids to the field, which is ridiculous.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it would be ridiculous.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I do know of certain people that have had have run into that barrier.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: But so do I.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I think it's it's the club world, the schedule specifically.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: And as we go on, this idea of time, you know, an off-season is almost non-existent, right?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: So the off-season keeps shrinking.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the off-season isn't just for the players, it's for the coaches, right?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it's for to rejuvenate so you can come back and and really go full in on your intentional coaching um your full self and being able to give your full self to your players if you're not getting the rest that you need.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we need to reach me personally, I needed to recharge my batteries, yeah.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like every three weeks.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like I need just a little break.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then even just one day off.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: But four teams, you can't.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have games or did you have weekends where you had 12 games?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: There was a couple stretches.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, certainly tournaments.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: If I had three three three teams in a tournament, I had that.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: But um, there were a couple of spring seasons where you know you have Friday, you have two games on Friday, you might have four on a Saturday, three or four on a Sunday.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: So do the math.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're getting up there into 10, you know, plus plus games.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's just crazy.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: When did when did you get to Tigers?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I started at Tigers three years ago.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you came directly from Portland?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And where did you coach in Portland?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was working for a club called Soccer Champs Academy.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they actually just joined the GA.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: They are um MLS, MLS two, um, LSX2.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: They're doing amazing things out there.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: That club is one to be studied.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, really, really doing brilliant things.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then okay, so that club wasn't part of the girls academy before, or girls development academy.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: No before you moved out here.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: No, we fully we actually launched, gosh, that might have been 20.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: I helped them start the club.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that was okay.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: I was like one of the you know people in the at the very beginning um when it was just an idea.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then um you have Joe Smith, Dan Ferguson, um Ben Hanley.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's their brainchild.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was just part of the leadership team and bringing in the girls and running the girls' side.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was director of coaches, coaching on the girls' side.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of my most cherished club experiences was when I was with a club that was just starting out.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I and you get to help build it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like anything else that I've worked at has put a sour taste in my mouth when it goes to club.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, maybe I just need to start a club.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm never, I'm never doing that.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: When you can start from the like just scratch, you get to do whatever you want.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is really kind of amazing.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now you you get up against the obstacles of you know, other people don't want you in that space.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of platform are you gonna be in?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because that matters more than anything right now.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really about the first few years are just like proving that we're doing the right things and proving to the community that you're there for the right reasons, you're doing the right things, you're developing players.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And how many try to keep you out?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's gatekeepers and stuff like that.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was awful.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty awful.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I had a parent from Portland actually.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: He was on my like my side podcast that I don't really do that much anymore.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but he was on uh I put it like on Patreon and stuff like that behind a paywall because it's parents.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna put a parent on here because all these coaches will just say, I'm cutting their kid because of what they said on the podcast, so I don't do that.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: But they said that they were with a technical trainer, and then the technical trainer started their own club, and then the state association blocked them from getting into you might know the name.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Is this in Oregon?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's in Oregon.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, the state association, we were not allowed to play in that league.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: We had to play in Washington, so we would drive every weekend to Seattle to play games.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um was it club based that was keeping you out, or was it the association?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was the state association and all the clubs.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think there was chatter from the clubs to try to not let us in.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that was my understanding in the situation.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's so frustrating because all we're trying to do is just like grow the game, grow the game, compete, maybe have more players.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we take a kid that you wouldn't have taken, you were gonna cut her anyway.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: But the city is a good one.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you want to put three teams together and just have 60 teams?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: No, the the reality is that some of these clubs were growing so big, they had so many teams in an age group, and um, we were really offering a different type of service.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: What we were doing was totally different.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: So um, you know, I think in Portland itself was growing in population.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: So adding a new club makes sense um in that in that piece, but yeah, we got kind of blacklisted for the first two years, I think, maybe even three years, and then finally the state association let them in.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was the year I left, was when the state association um let them in and let them into the league.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you originally from?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm from Michigan.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you are?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up in Canton.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then what your what husband took you out there?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: So my ex-husband and I, we met here.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he was living out there when we met, and then I decided to move out west.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um and Portland's incredible, just as far as it being such a soccer city, like the whole city on game days, whether it's the thorns or or the timbers, it's like it just transforms into just soccer city.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: And everybody is wearing their jerseys, everybody's celebrating.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: It is such a special thing that I wish we had here in Detroit.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I wish, you know, I do.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: I wish we had NLS.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: I do I do too.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: And NWSL.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, okay, so that's why I went to F uh the Flash in the to begin with, yeah.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: To go coach in the NWSL when they still have the team.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Buffalo is really a really good girls' soccer city, it's not really a men's soccer city right now, and it's they're having trouble putting a USL team together, yeah.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And because, well, part of that is investment, you have to have an insane amount of money.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: But how is the youth in Oregon though?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel I I get some emails and stuff, and a lot of kids have to go up to Washington to get into the ECNL platforms or GA.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah is there a lot of ECNL and GA there?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: There is not.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I can't I don't know now because I haven't been there for a minute, but there was only two ECNL teams there when I left.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: So um what's Thorns?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the Thorns are ECNL.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: They're ECNL, yeah.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's Thorns and Oregon Surf.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Surf.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a surf branch.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um and yeah, there isn't as many opportunities, but I will say that development-wise, from what it was, because I lived there uh 15 years ago when I started there to win uh to what it is now.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was three thorns, really.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: So much development has happened with players.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think part of that was Rose City futsal opening and creating a futsal culture.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I I worked for them for many years.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: You did work for Rose City.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: I was academy director with them.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: I have again, they opened the building.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: I helped them open and get started.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, was there for four or five, maybe even six years.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot it at home.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Are you here tomorrow?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I have a gift for you.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I have okay, so I have a new sponsor.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's Scopro.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know like the dry erase boards?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: They have futsal boards.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do you need one?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: I would love one.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would love one.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And next time I see you, I'll I'll make sure I have it.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but um, yeah, and now you're with Michigan's uh what is it?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Michigan Futsal Um I'm with Futsal Factory, yeah.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Michigan Futsal Factory, yeah, and you're with them now.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, yeah.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was running the futsal program at Tigers, um, but now coaching with uh Futsal Factory.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just coaching, just taking a couple of teams.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just like okay, so what is their schedule look like?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's just a typical futsal schedule, October to uh maybe end of March, I think, is when we end.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um so typical futsal schedule, much different than what I was doing in Portland.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Portland Road City Futsal, it's it's year-round.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: We were doing futsal with you uh under 10s three days a week, year round.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: We had our own leagues, everything.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Would those kids not play club?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: They were playing club, no.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I will tell you that entire class of kids that we had at Road City Futsal, every single one is either playing for an academy, um, an MLS academy, or the girls are all playing D1, or they're, you know, on pro trials right now.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: So this is the 2009 class, and these are the kids that came up just doing futsal under 10.
• 19:42
  unknown: Okay.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: When they got older, they did go to outdoor foot.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: That was my question.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is like, okay, so you got them around nine or 10.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we got them in futsal, some of these kids at six, so they were doing futsal only two to three days a week with a game on the weekend year round.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then they would go until like 14, maybe.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: So the the idea was under 10, footsal only 10 to 4, uh 10 to 12 um hybrid.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: So they still do um, and then you know, a little bit older, then they can kind of start choosing what they want to do if they want to go off and do outdoor.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: That was the idea.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't executed finally.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, in the final stages of it, because the director had left.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Brazilian guy, he went to to travel the world, did that, did his whole thing.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: But um what we built there was incredible, and you're seeing now, because this has been 10 years ago or whatever it is, these kids coming out of there.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: You have Aries Frive, she's was at UNC.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: She um now she just transferred to TCU.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Incredible player.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: You have um, gosh, there's so many kids like Macy Barlow.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I believe she's at Stanford or UCLA.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember where she's going.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's just all of these, all of this talent pool that came out of that class of kids.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you have the on the boys side, every single kid is in an MLS academy, like a proper MLS academy.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Real Salt Lake, Timbers, uh, Seattle Sounders, all of them are in that um that pipe pipeline.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Would you guys just travel and just go to just tournaments around the country?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we would do tournaments throughout the country.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: We would do in-house, sometimes overseas.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there I know they just took teams to Argentina a couple weeks ago.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: What would the what would like the leagues look like?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: The leagues were amazing.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: So we built this kind of futsal culture there, and like not only youth, but the adult leagues were crazy and so fun.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so fun.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: So the facility had three um courts on it, a bar up top, uh, with a full restaurant, good food, you know, and you can watch the games from above, but after you're Game, your your game is actually recorded up at and it's played at the bar, so you can go and have a beer.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: You can have a beer and watch yourself back.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how cool is that, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just went to a bar last week where uh I was watching my buddy's uncle's band, and they had the same type of thing where it was like they had cameras on the band, and then you see it all around the bar.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's pretty cool.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you're at a big bar, you don't always pay attention to the band or whoever's playing.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I love that.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think personally, if I ever do another soccer facility, because I had my own in Buffalo, I want a like a liquor license or at least a you create a vibe, you create the whole energy.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's a culture.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a culture.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's somewhere, it's almost like a social club you're creating.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Not it's something to do other than like go to a bar, you go play, and then you hang out with people from the community, you watch other people play, you listen to music, you have a beer, you know, you eat dinner, your kids run around.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a community.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: When some of those kids would go and leave Rose City and go to the clubs, yeah.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: What what was the feedback from the clubs?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they're the best players on the on the yeah.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: The these kids were top-notch.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I took actually the entire girls' team and I took and coached them in outdoor, and we had we were so good we had to play in a boys' league.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: We just couldn't find competition on the girls' side.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: How big or how different was your like curriculum, footsall curriculum versus what you would do outside?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it's bigger.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, obviously, you know, it's 11 v 11 and the numbers are bigger.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but like, is it I I loved training on a gym floor back in the day when we couldn't when we didn't have turf facilities and um we couldn't afford uh we'd have to put six teams on it to make it financially stable.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we would get the local gyms, and anything that I would do, like any kind of passing sequence, I always do with a footsall ball.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then we would play inside the basketball lines, which is the futsall lines, yeah, and everything was in tight spaces, like a rondo, a rondo with a footsall ball on on a uh court that translates because when you go outside, yeah, you have so much more room.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the game is so much slower, yeah, that like it's everything clicks.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I had a coach, I had an assistant.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen The Matrix?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: Of course I've okay.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was just checking.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you remember the scene where like he's like getting shot at, and then everything kind of clicks, and then he's like those and everything and he can stop everything.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what going from futsal to the 11v11 field because you have so much more time in the butt, and you don't even realize like, oh, I have a lot more time.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so go into how like different yeah, yeah, the curriculum's completely different, and I think this is a piece like you see a lot now because footsal is popular, which is a great thing, but you have a outdoor being coached on a hard surface.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's like outdoor like styles coached on a footsal in a futsal environment, which is not futsal.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Futsal is dualities.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: You got your 1v2s, 2v1s, you got your 2v2s, you have just um the smaller moments of the game and how to and the details of it, like you know, specifically in a 2v1, engaging an opponent to take them out of a play, uh drawing them in to then make your pass and get in behind these little details that in a tight space, if you don't do that, you cannot maintain possession.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so a lot of the curriculum is is focused on that rotations, positional flexibility.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's more principle-based than it's not positional.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's not positional.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't teach positions at Rose City at all.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there are positions in futsal.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't know, they're called the two wingers are a la.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: You have the fixo, which is the um like the defender, and then you have the pivot up top, but they're always rotating.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's more of like a holding space.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's more of like a shape.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like this is where you're staying.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like the fixo and pivot may or the fixo and ala may rotate out into a you know, rotate positions.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're teaching kids about how to see space, how to understand space so that it's not this rigid, I only play one position, it's up and down.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: It is fluid and it is um, it's about teaching players how to recognize space, making their own decisions on the field to uh upon recognizing what's space and what their shape is like and all that stuff.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's totally different game.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Totally different game.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Was Portland your intro into futsal, or were you into futsal here before you went there?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: I played a little futsal before moving there, but it was a it was a crash course, yeah.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I did futs all only specifically for six years.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I trained through Atletico Madrid.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I took three courses, three levels just athletical.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't play for them.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, coaching training.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you went to Spain.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: No, they came to us, they came to us, they sent coaches to us.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is in Portland or yeah, Portland.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I we had three courses that over the series of six years that I was there, that they offered to our staff and other people in the area that were interested in.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: We have people flying up from California and things like that to take this course as well.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Does anybody provide licensing here full-time?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh soccer doesn't really.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: There was there used to be like a level one footsall.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think I did take it for years ago, but it you really need to, it's not an online thing.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: You need to be on a court, you need to be running through sessions because it is such a nuanced, detail-oriented type of game that um it is really, it's it's just it would be challenging to do a course like that remotely, I think, um, and really understand.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, that's my my thoughts on it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you coach here before you moved out there?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did you coach?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: I coached, gosh, with Waza guys.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: I had my own little yeah, I had my own little Dom or Tino?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: So Dominic and Tino were my coaches and Mario.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: They were all my coaches.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: So they got me.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: What year were you coaching?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I graduated in 02.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh two.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Graduated high school in 02?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: 02, yeah.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was Waza then around right?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, they were just starting out.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: So just starting out.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you grew up in Canton and stuff like that.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Lake Orange.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: They were I didn't play for Wazo.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: They were like hired by certain clubs to like run their programming.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's what wasn't.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: I played for Canton for a while.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Massive tournament, always has been.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is it still?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: I actually I went with my son like a while uh two years ago, and it looked big still.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: I could get in trouble for saying this, but okay, so a few months ago, Jags tournament was going up.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I always took my teams to Canton and Jags, right?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I just remember them being so massive.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought at the time, like the level's really good.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Level's awesome.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: I go out there and watch, and maybe I've just been exposed to higher level now, and I'm like walking the fields, and I'm like, well, you just And this is even at the younger ages.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Before they're platformed out.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's you got the platforms that are separating that level out now, and they have their own events, and so close and you're traveling however many miles to get there, spending so much money to get there.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: So what's your schedule now?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like at Michigan uh the Futsal Fest.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it that's just start part-time.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: I work part-time for them, so that won't start until October.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: We actually have tryouts in Ann Arbor this weekend.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'll do a little plug.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but no, we uh we don't start until October.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I work for ACT uh football now as well.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into that in a second.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: In a second, though.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Because okay, we'll talk a little bit about it.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to go too too deep into it.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so are the kids here in Michigan are they full-time futsal yet?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, or you gotta build up that culture, and it's in Ann Arbor, right?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: You mean could you do that?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what you're saying?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Could you could you do full-time futsal here?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: My question was really, are you doing that?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, could you?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Could you?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I you gotta sell, you have to and you have to have educate and sell.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: That is the number one.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: We had to do that at Rose City.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: It took, it took well, you almost have to have a full class doing that to prove you do my my dream because uh going through like playmaker training and my old company and stuff like that, is that uh when everybody would say, Hey, start a club, start a club, start a club, and I'd be like, I'm only gonna do it one way, and it's gonna be the Russian tennis way.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: I read it in a in like Malcolm Gladwell book or something like that.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Russian Russian tennis academies, they make you train for three years before they ever put you into a competition.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's brilliant.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I was like, give me a 10 six-year-olds.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, give me 10 six-year-olds, make them train with me three times a week for three years.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: They never play a game.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see what they look like against nine-year-olds that have been in a club system, and I guarantee you we compete, might be able to be it's similar to what we were doing at Rose City Futsal.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: That is very, very similar to what we were doing.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it's, I mean, not as rigid, but you know, um we saw the results of that.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think um, gosh, I wish there was more science or or attention around what we did.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: It was a I mean, an incredible test sample of like what you can do uh with futsal, uh, if it's done the right way.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: And um I mean, you just look at where those kids are right now, like some of them will be on the national team.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them have already made youth national teams and things like that.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of them are in that circuit as well.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: How do you educate?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: How did you educate them?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Other than just like saying, Yeah, like how did you educate them?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And other than just saying, Yeah, we've had her for five years.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are the what like I feel like that's how every club markets now?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like yeah, just who goes to college.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's hard.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: I remember even educating people around futsal in general was hard, even getting people like coming into the game and who had never played and adults creating an adult league, educating them on it.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: We kind of were just educating the whole community on how fun futsal is, adult kids, but also just like um really the outcomes, like talking about the outcomes, talking about countries that do this, you know.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: When you talk about you look at structures of, I know a lot of countries in South America, some of them, I don't know exactly what they do now, but they used to have a structure um where in in Spain, I don't know if they still do this or not, but um where you know, under 10 they do futsall and then it's hybrid, and then it's outdoor, or you pick, right?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it separates.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it was modeled off of that.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember which countries are doing that currently, but um that's what it was modeled after.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: In your experience, like just in multiple areas of the country, yeah.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: How many clubs or companies do futs all the right way, and then how many just do that to tick a box?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, majority are doing it to tick a box, um, unfortunately, which I think I think that's what US soccer did with the DA.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Remember when they had that back in the boys' DA back in 2010 to 2013?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was a huge proponent, yeah, but it wasn't taught like you teach it, it wasn't it was outdoor soccer on the was it a part of the DA?
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even remember that.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because there's a big movement of just the European development model and how many other countries, and we're always trying to copy other countries, yeah.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like there's things that we could do, and there's a lot of more empty gyms than empty turf.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's easier to get it.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's easier to get a gym than turf.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then grass is a whole other issue in Buffalo and Detroit.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the there's talk about, you know, after the World Cup, we can go into this subject, but all the initiatives that are being talked about to help the game in the United States, right?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there was um an article that came out just recently.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'll have to send it to you, but it was talking about the investment that our tax dollars go into building local football fields like American football fields or basketball courts.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: And there's not a lot of money allocated to soccer, not even vocal.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so imagine a world where um we get street soccer courts in every city.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like imagine what that could do for the game, right?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that that could be um, you know, something that cut some of those tax funds are allocated to.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: That would be imagine a world, you know?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right, yeah.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that is so missing in our culture, too.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because in my facility, it's perfect for five aside.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so I would do five aside, and you can tell there are players that do not know how to deal in tight spaces, yeah, they don't know how to move in tight spaces, they aren't good enough on the ball in tight spaces, and they just really stood out like a sore thought from because this game is way.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: It exposes your flaws for sure.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what the boards used to do that we used to play on growing up.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the boards nobody can hide.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can't hide in futsal, yeah.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can't hide in street soccer, and you can't hide in indoor boarded fields.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: That was my always my two sounds.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like we don't develop the as good a player as we used to on the boards.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if we brought back footsall, yeah, if we or or we attacked footsall, but don't do it just to tick a box.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, no, do it the right way.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: I agree, because the the benefits are not necessarily in yes, the surface helps, yes, the smaller ball helps, heavier, yes, the smaller space helps.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: But the real benefit is the the small-sided tactical detail that you get in footsal.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: That is the benefit of futsal.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: So and the rotations, the positional rotations, transitions.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that is where you see players who are not just skillful and technical, but they know when and where and what to do.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um during the World Cup, I saw Thierry Henri uh it was like pregame, and he was comparing how Spain plays to like how Phil Jackson of the Bulls used to play with the with the tri with like the triangle offense.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we would be so much better off without all these curriculums, without rushing to 9v9, without you know, uh I mean I did this as a coach, and I'm guilty that like I had a really good U12 girls team.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and play 11v11.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that was i idiotic.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I should have stayed at a 9v9.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what I mean?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know, but but I was when I was a young coach, I just wanted to go and teach the game.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because that's what all these idiot coaches think.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like sorry, this is gonna air out after the the expo, so I can say whatever I want about them, but no, everybody just wants to skip steps, and you're talking about females in the game, yeah.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody boys, men, they want to, when they start coaching, they want to coach the ages they just left.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, does that make sense?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so if they left college and that's their highest day they went, yeah, they want to coach college.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: They don't care, they they think it's an obligation to coach seven-year-olds, eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I after coaching at every level, college, pro, e CNL, DA, I realize all I care about is just individual technical development.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I feel like footsal is more individually focused because of it's principle based and not positional based.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's smaller numbers.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just a tangent.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: When you brought up foot, when you we went off.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: When you brought up footsal, it just took me down a path because I for completely forgot about your futsal background.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I wish you I wish US soccer would do something more or build your own platform.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: You ever thought about that?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, I feel like running a futsal club would be cheaper than running a full club.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: I had my own futsal club.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um in Portland.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so after I worked at Rose City, I had uh new era football.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: That was the name of it.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: And um yeah, it was pretty easy to run.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, there was challenges, but it was uh yeah, it's there's always the option to do do the thing, right?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, there's not enough really well-taught, well-coached futsal in the country.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of clubs are doing it again to maybe perhaps check a box to not lose players, to just cover all bases, but it's not being done the right.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, they do this in Spain, we do it too.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was saying, no, it's a it's a completely different animal.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, acta.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're the the star uh or who the oh who's the owner?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: Garrett's Garrett, yeah.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Garrett reached out to me a couple months ago and he just he didn't know that I'd only do in-person.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't do in-person.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm about to like go on like some roadshows or tours and stuff like that.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I want to hit all the different hotbeds and stuff like that.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Pacific Northwest is one of them where I want to go.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have family up in Seattle.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh what is it?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: Acta.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, acta.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: We do, you know, cognitive training for players.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's it's one-on-one individualized training.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it's essentially, you know, there's a lot of a lot to it, but it's um teaching players how to make decisions um within the game, how to to um a lot of it's neuroscience backed, um, the way we teach and everything.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: But uh yeah, in a nutshell, it's working on decision making with with players.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: Individual decision making.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is it through simulation or is it through just taught like teaching?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, on the field.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is it on the field stuff?
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: Not really.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's all everything's done remotely.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um that will that we do.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: We do have camps that are in person and stuff like that.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you just have one in San Diego, right?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um really cool camps um that are touch on so much more than just soccer.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, I can go into that in a minute.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, they uh we do like it's just cognitive training for players.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: One-on-ones, you're going over individual detail of your decision making.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: The way in which we do it is different.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to go into too much detail about it because that's a secret.
• 41:52
  unknown: Secret.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: No, is it uh you guys got social media?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: What are we talking about?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: We need to blast this to the heavens, yeah.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: But um, we have a lot of we have high a lot of high-level players in our our program, players that play for national teams.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um we have some some semi-pro pro pro players as well.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, yeah.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of just started, or is it been it's fairly new?
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's been the expansion is new.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: And how is it like I'm fascinated about how what it what it is?
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is really um, it's tricky to explain.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is it remember those old coaching, like okay, here's A, here's B, here's C.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: You are A and you're on the ball.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: What's the better decision?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: B or C, and explain your answer.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is it tight?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is that type of stuff?
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: Not really.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's a lot more complex than that, but it is um it there is some modules, online learning modules.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like there's a portal we use.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Then we're also the chunk of it is we're going over actual game film with players.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: We have um data, uh data um that's analyzed from their game.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it pumps out uh a report that gives us scores on different areas and player actions from the game.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: So we can really, really um customize exactly what the player needs to work on and go over.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then we pick those moments out in the game film, and we through pattern recognition, through um a process of you know, guided discovery is how we coach.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um Is that how you coach on the field too?
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: Field is trickier to coach guided discovery.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: When you're in a game and you're coaching on a game, you cannot do guided discovery, right?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: You can't be like asking questions.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: In the middle of a game.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: You have to be kind of like calm.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: I wish I could coach like that all the time, but you just don't have time on the field, right?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know Dan Rabin at all?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's here, he's from LAFC, but he's you he's a Michigan guy.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: He went to Michigan State.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: I forget.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: Years and years and years ago.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: And a player had a player right wide open, and the player on the ball didn't pass to him.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of saying, John, why don't you pass to Andy?
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, John, did you see Andy?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the quest the answer is always no.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then the coach should always say, All right, maybe next time you're in that situation, maybe look for him.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: 100% of the time, the next time that situation or something similar happens, the pass is made.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a little guided discovery, isn't it?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: It is a little bit.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, more questions would be we would we would ask through a series of questions to get them to that answer.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's uh yeah, it I mean that is, and I I have done that in games when you have if maybe if it's a player on your side or whatever, you can you can kind of hey, what were you trying to do there?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: And have them break down how could you have done that differently?
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can certainly coach sometimes like that, but not all the time.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's gotta be oh yeah.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: How much how much of it is vision and awareness?
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Checking your shoulder, how often?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like just like just always.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, right, yeah.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, when you're looking at a high-level player, that's what you're looking for.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Are they do they have awareness?
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: Do they are they thinking about their next action or are they um playing reactive and uh you know only reacting when they get the ball and that's too late, or you know, so yeah, having proactive like actions, like scanning, sh repositioning, body shape, all those things, so important.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: How okay, how all right, you've done the futsal stuff.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know you've done the US youth the US Federation uh scouting.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what other licenses did you do?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, um, I did a leadership license with US Soccer, so that's uh the technical leadership thing?
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, it was uh the the women in leadership license.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's like it's a license, but it's more of a mentorship group than one of those that we talked about.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there was some learning in there.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: That was really interesting.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: We worked with an NFL um former NFL player that created this program that he now um does for um he does for high-level, high pressure professionals.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: So uh he works with a lot of NBA coaches, NFL coaches.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: He does these trainings with them.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's really like mental health training.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's like which we all need is, but it was an an incredible course that like got me into some really good habits, like daily habits that I do now.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: What else did you list out?
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: You listed out something Atletico Madrid, one, two, three.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is in your uh presentation.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was like mace something or darn it, it was where you said the the person that's donating fifty thousand dollars or whatever, but then but then there was the one above that, it was something that you attended.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: She champions she champions.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: What's that?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what that was.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: So uh the women in leadership course is uh it it is um it's also she champions, it's the same kind of thing.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you get in, you take the course, and then you go to these events with other women across the country that are either B A pro and you're matched with one of the higher level people as a mentee.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then offering it.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of like auditing your A kind of or something like that?
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not really.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, it is like pure social network, professional network.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um got it.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, but then but the training itself is mental health.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: How do you deal with a hard job that we all have because we work in this industry?
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: This this stuff is hard.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: How do you manage yourself through self-care, taking care of yourself, de stressing, all of these things that we need to do?
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like exhibit A.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of coaches don't take care of themselves because we're too busy.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're we live in a car.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's still like that type of stuff, right?
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's hard.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: It is not easy.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how do you attack mental health of players?
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you, if if you don't have a good relationship with those players, you have to have the relationship underneath.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was talking to somebody else about this the other day and like talking about the power of trust and building trust in players.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because not only does it help for situations like that where kids are actually really struggling with mental health stuff, but it it allows you to dig deeper in feedback, in criticism.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: When they have trust built with you, you can actually go way deeper into their development aspects because they trust you.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: So they they shoulders down, they feel they can feel vulnerable around you, and they can really go deeper into their development.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, I we were talking about that in the um classroom, just about how we communicate, how we build trust.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's the biggest thing coaching kids is like build the trust first.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever I'm taking a new team, it's about building trust first.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then you can start digging.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: You can start doing the digging and like, you know, pushing and fine-tuning, but you gotta build the trust first.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was lucky in my role in Buffalo with my training company.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: I spent a lot of one-on-one time with these kids.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we talk.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and these and when they get a little bit older, it's a it's a as much a therapy session.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I get the college girls in and they're all like just talking about their situations that they're going through at their universities or different stuff, and it's all just open, it's open dialogue, it's knowing each other, and that's the number one thing that I miss.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: But it what I is the relationship with my players.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: But what is what sucked is that because I created that environment, they said that the only time that they enjoy soccer is when they were with me.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and like some people would take that as the biggest compliment.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was like, that sucks because that tells me how toxic your environment, your everyday environment might be.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I just wish all of our coaches and all of our clubs would really take control or try to fix that.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: And no club is perfect.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the reasons why I love this podcast, is because I take a little bit from every conversation and be like, maybe someday somebody that's gonna listen to every single episode is gonna build the perfect club.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, and like you were saying too, like leaning in on the human side of coaching, like the human element.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: We get really, really caught up in winning, losing, the outcome.
• 51:32
  unknown: Yeah.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_02: But the human side how many girls I've put into college, yeah, nobody cares.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um taking care of the full human when you're coaching players is I mean, that is really what we're doing because most of these kids are not gonna go pro.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: Most of them are not even gonna play in college, actually.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_02: So, but they are gonna go on to be in the workforce and create a business or this, that, whatever, be a good member of our community, you know, like all of these things and getting around and being able to model that is hugely important.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like as a coach, as a coach, yeah.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: Vulnerability, my like I, you know, before I left club, I I cried a few times.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it was one of the times my team was playing so good, it brought me to emotion, right?
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: It brought me to tears, and they did this playing out of the back sequence and and then scored a goal.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: And this was my U U8, U9.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm going like, and and I had a moment where I just started crying, and they're like, What's wrong?
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm just so proud.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so proud of you guys because it took all season to get there and many goals being scored.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, um, this is a kind of vulnerability we need to model more for the kids, like, and even like I had a hard day, you know.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: I went through a divorce last year.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: I had hard days showing up to work, and I would just tell them like I'm I wouldn't tell them what exactly the details, but hey, I'm having a hard day today, and they would just get around me and lift me up and understand that I'm a little on edge, you know.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm it's so if we talk about it and we just say that there's a vulnerability there that builds trust both ways.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think when you model that as an adult, like the kids will then feel comfortable to do it too, you know.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: And especially when you're talking about the young ones, it's also the the parents too.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey guys, like you guys, you I know there's like client, uh, whatever coach or player or parent coach relationships, you want to be careful, but that needs to be part of it too.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can get burned.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've gotten burned before of being too close to parents, and then they want to go to a better club that's in a platform, and that sucks.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's another reason why I don't miss club soccer, is seeing them wave goodbye.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, but it's not you, it's just this club is just better.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like how, why, why is this club better?
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because they have a bunch of letters over there, whatever.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, so yeah, how do you do that with the parents?
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it part of it?
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is is educating the parents or not educating the parents, but being vulnerable with the parents.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: I am um vulnerable.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm an open book though.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm pretty authentic when it comes to how I present your arm to get on here.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_02: I get nervous.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: I really figure nobody's watching.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: I know, but I'm just this is gonna get tens and tens of views.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_02: Tens and tens.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_02: Are we done yet?
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, but like uh so yes, you have to you have to develop, yeah.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're almost done.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: I do have one more thing to get back to the women thing, but yeah, let's talk about it.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think like just the relation with parents is huge.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, massive, and you have to be honest and you have to do it.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_02: Building trust and and also like helping educate them too, like building trust enough where you can say, Hey, you need to stop having that talk on the way home from the game.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_02: But if you go to a parent who you have no rapport with and you say that to them, what is gonna happen?
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: They're gonna get defensive.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be like year two, year three, stuff like that.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_02: You have to build the rapport.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I think it's it's hugely important.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I always say, you know, I had a parent presentation that I used to do prior every preseason, and it was parent education talking about um, you know, you have the parent, you have the player, and you have the the coach.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_02: And they all have to be in sync, right?
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: And all in the lines, all on the same page.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: If you have one of them that is not, then everything kind of falls apart.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like the pyramid tumbles, right?
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really, really important to have all of them kind of on the same page.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_02: So there's this, you know, some oh in this old school mentality, but kind of like excluding the parent from things.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: And no, you've got to kind of bring them in and make sure you're using common language that they're using common language, they know their role.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it's super important in in youth soccer.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: And bringing them in and showing us is like, okay, this is yes, this is your why we're doing this is your parent, this is your player's pathway, but we're all part of it.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like if we develop if if we split up development in a pie chart, it would be the player has the biggest piece.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think the family and parent situation has the second biggest piece, and then it's coach, team, teammates, club, and competition.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_02: You have all the the micro stuff as well, you know, you like the little stuff, but yeah, absolutely.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's um, yeah, and uh everything has to be aligned in order for it to really work well.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, yeah.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, two questions.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have your A license?
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: I do not.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: I have B license to my A.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, your B license.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the A, I want to do it.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: Were you able to take any licensing where it was just women?
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I did.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: But my B was the first ever B women.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: And my opinion this could be super sexist.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of the licensing should be.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think I I took all of my licensing and in every course it was a hundred guys and two girls.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that cannot be easy.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, or healthy.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you a funny story about that.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I actually did not want to be in an all-women's course.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, right.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: I applied for, I can't remember where I was at, maybe I don't remember, California or something.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: And they shifted me to the women all women's course, and I was mad about it.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_02: I was not happy about it.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: But then once I got in, that was like groundbreaking because it was the first time I was in a room with, and I looked around and I was like, every holy cow.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_02: There are 35 women here that are going exactly going through exactly what I'm going through right now.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: And they have kids, they're struggling to maintain a how home life, plus doing this crazy job that we love, and and they struggle with, you know, being a female in the industry and um maybe not feeling as valued as their male counterparts.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: All of these things that I struggle with that I have felt on an island about.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a really powerful thing to cannot force with, and I they're still my friends to this day.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: All of them.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then your C, it wasn't that way, obviously.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was just the normal, you're the only girl.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I I took all the NSEA courses back before it was USC.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, coughing smell.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're good.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh there was probably like three women, and every single guy in the course would hit on them.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well and then okay, and then one year I don't want to see one year there was some scandal because one of the women were married and then slept with a younger guy.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was nuts, and I was like, Oh my god, if I ever marry a soccer coach, yeah, I'm scared, terrified of her to go get her C license or B license because it's like hounds.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it is all eyes are on you.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying I have been in this situation, um, but no, all eyes are on you when you are one of two females in a class of 35 men, it's uh mostly men.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: It is it's tough and it's intimidating.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna lie.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: It is hella intimidating.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I got used to it.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: Those courses are intimidated for men too.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: I will say though, I got used to it because I had been working in the field for so long that I was always the only woman in the room.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_02: So by the time I took my C, I was like, I have already been, you know, it didn't bother me as much.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: What I remember taking like, I think I took my E, like, you know, 20 years ago or whatever it was.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that was like, I remember being scared because it was all men, but um, the older I got, and just probably because I'm now so used to being uh the only woman in the room that it didn't bother me that much in the C.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: I felt okay.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, my last question.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I asked somebody after uh your presentation and how do we get more women involved and stuff like that?
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then I look at the men's side, and I see Xavi from Spain coaching.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: I see Set Fabergas coaching, I see Michael Carrick coaching, I see all these world-class top players coaching.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: Where's Mia Ham?
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: Where's Julie Fouty?
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: Where's Abby Wombach?
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: Where's Alex Morgan?
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: Where's Tobin Heath?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: Where is Kristen Press?
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're all podcasting, they're all doing what I'm doing.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they should be coaching.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: None of them are getting involved in the game.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think that'll change.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think that'll change.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is Trinity.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_02: I I think maybe that'd be sweet.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it would be.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: She would be an absolute character as a coach, right?
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, no, I I think, you know, I just don't think there was enough going on around the education when they uh kind of retired.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think it you do see it now, even the national teams.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a few pro players that are getting into the national, the youth national teams um that are doing that.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really the pipeline to the the first team.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_02: So um it's starting.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it is starting where players are tuning into coaches.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: Can we touch on that real quick about the FIFA or about FIFA making uh you guys brought it up?
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, about the two.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know it was two positions.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_02: I thought there's just one clear, but you have to have another female on staff, apparently.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_02: That makes sense, yeah.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: But okay.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think it can be like an athletic trainer or something like that, but it has to be like another mental health, yeah, nutritionist, something.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you said I have a lot of thoughts on that, and you didn't say anything.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the the FIFA mandate is tricky for me because I am that way where I have had to fight and claw, and I like to fight and claw for my seat at the table.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like I wanna be, I want to feel like I earned it, you know.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't ever want to be given something as a token.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, to be a token female in this role.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or tick a box.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_02: Or tick a box.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't, it's not a good feeling.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, if those pathways aren't there, we are, I don't know if we're ever gonna get there.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that mandate doesn't happen.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure we ever get to that point where we actually have women in those roles.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because how are we supposed to?
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_02: The problem is how are we supposed to get real life experience when we cannot even get a foot in the door?
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_02: You can't, you can't get the experience.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: So this is giving a way to give uh females a foot in the door, get the experience, and then hopefully create that that pipeline for other women to come in to those kind of roles, which is hugely important.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_02: Hugely important.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_00: What it reminds me of is the Rooney rule in NFL.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are you familiar with that at all?
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the Rooney rule is every NFL for any GM, head coach, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, you have to uh interview at least one black candidate.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, before you can hire anybody.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you decide to hire the black guy, uh and then like a lot of black coaches say we don't like the rooting rule, yeah, because of exactly what you said.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_00: And who is the other person in the panel between you and I?
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_02: I have heard that.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um heard about that rough.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: Who's the other person on the panel between you and Megan?
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sitting right next to you.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's her name.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, um, but uh yeah, and they're like, hey, I don't want, I don't yeah, we want to feel like it's earned, not like, oh, how'd she get that job?
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: So dumb.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_02: No, agreed.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's it's a tough one though, because at the end of the day, you don't know if there is a way to get us into positions like that without a mandate like this, because there is such a like a wall, a barrier.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: And and like the reality is when, say, a man, you know, various, whoever it is, gets into a head coaching position, he's gonna go hire his buddies, like and of course, that's what they do, or like the former players, and it's not a qualified women into those roles, and the qualified women are actually out there now.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_02: We have educated, qualified women to do it to do those roles and going back to my first question was like, Am I part of the problem?
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'd only hire players that I coached.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I feel like a lot of directors have only coached men's soccer, and so they're only coaching their former players, and so that's part of the problem.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, do you think it can change?
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think we're I think I think Emma is showing us that it can change Emma is changing the game and I love it.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um I just hope she stays.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think she will stay.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_02: I um I have I just have to I have to applaud her because she's already just behind the scenes doing leaps and bounds and things and like Caitlin.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: Told me a little bit of stuff the initiative that's coming out, kind of about like, and we could cover this off air, yeah.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: But um, basically, you you as a scout, you have to like abide, and and she brought it up is like and I'm gonna say it now because she's not gonna watch this, and then um basically the initiatives of what you're looking for in players isn't your own initiative, it's not your own type of player, yeah.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's Emma's type of player, and she wants to see everything from the top down, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_02: And she's making a lot of changes, so many changes, especially around um early maturation, late maturation, and early maturation.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_02: So when players um develop physical.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_02: Being able to identify players' um talent level that takes that out, so their their physical maturation out of the equation, um, which is things we we were learning a lot about in the talent ID license.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that was one of the biggest takeaways I would take from that license was to keep in mind of is the physical maturation of a player skewing your actual perception of their ability.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_02: And often I would find what's funny to me is I actually was always drawn to the smaller players.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like because I was a smaller player.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because I like the technical.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're usually more technical and they're quicker and they have to make quicker decisions because they don't want to get wrecked by the big kids.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_02: But these are the bias that we have.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and everybody has their own set of bias, and you have to be really, really careful when you're doing um any kind of talent ID, um, you know, evaluating players is making sure it is it the physical that I'm seeing that's just overweighing everything else.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: And and is that going to change in three or four years to not serve them as well in three or four years?
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's not about today's performance, it's about long-term potential.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: One of the best players right now out of Western New York Flash, she's I would say on the small side.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she just signed to go to Florida State.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she's on youth national teams, and she will be in the NWSL, yeah.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_00: 100% guaranteed.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, yeah, it's crazy.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your time, though.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_03: No, thank you.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_03: See, it wasn't it wasn't bad.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_00: It took you so because I've like I've done a DM'd you, and then I'm like, oh, should I do this?
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was avoiding it.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna lie, of course, but now you can now you could tell Trisha, like it's okay.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, is she she avoiding it too?
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because because I partnered with Jack's.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I partnered with Jack's and um she is supposed to be like next, and then it's like and I'm late on their episode because she keeps on dodging me.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: Jerk.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's so funny, but uh yeah.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, why don't you just have her come sit down next to me?
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_02: And we could have tagged him for a second and then step out.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_00: I only have two mics.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, two no, like I'm gonna do I'll do hers at like the Jags, which we'll call it.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_02: So did everybody leave?
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're all downstairs at the thing, and then and then the presenters and the podcasters or whatnot is all gonna be outside like we were last year.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, at the down at the hotel.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, thank you so much.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, of course.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_00: I hate soccer.