Latest / I Hate Soccer with Jason Collinsworth / I Hate Soccer #135 - Chris Baer & Gus Teren from Ohio Premier

Transcript

I Hate Soccer #135 - Chris Baer & Gus Teren from Ohio Premier · I Hate Soccer with Jason Collinsworth

0:00
SPEAKER_06: Ohio Premier was part of the fucking Hoosier tour.
0:03
SPEAKER_06: I had to go check out their amazing facilities.
0:06
SPEAKER_06: When I got there, though, uh, I couldn't find their office.
0:11
SPEAKER_06: I didn't know where to go.
0:12
SPEAKER_06: And turns out it is a house that is right next to their turf fields and their grass fields, and they have they have like three turfs, three grass fields that are Kentucky bluegrass, and then they have another that is Bermuda grass, and there's reasoning and there's logic behind it, which is actually brilliant.
0:32
SPEAKER_06: Uh more teams and more clubs in the Midwest have to do this, but also every club needs a house.
0:37
SPEAKER_06: Every club needs a house.
0:38
SPEAKER_06: I will post some pictures of the house uh on uh my Instagram page.
0:44
SPEAKER_06: This one, this is Gus Karen, who's the sporting director, and it's Chris Baer, who is the executive director.
0:51
SPEAKER_06: And what they're doing with coaching education, I absolutely love.
0:56
SPEAKER_06: I actually sat in in their technical uh meeting with uh with some of their staff members.
1:02
SPEAKER_06: And Gus has his French formations uh license.
1:08
SPEAKER_06: He was part of that 60 to 100 coaches, I think, nationwide that has this license.
1:13
SPEAKER_06: And OP actually has two coaches.
1:16
SPEAKER_06: In a couple months, there's another episode with the other coach that has that license.
1:21
SPEAKER_06: And just it kind of blew my uh mind.
1:24
SPEAKER_06: And after sitting in the meeting with their with their staff later on, I watched the Columbus crew game and I looked at the game a little bit differently.
1:33
SPEAKER_06: You know, just uh just in simple combinations uh that they were breaking down.
1:38
SPEAKER_06: Enjoy this one, we get into it, we talk about everything, uh, player development, club development.
1:45
SPEAKER_06: Are we behind?
1:47
SPEAKER_06: How do we catch up?
1:49
SPEAKER_06: Enjoy this episode.
1:51
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1:57
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2:10
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2:16
SPEAKER_06: Thanks for watching.
2:17
SPEAKER_06: I hate soccer.
2:19
SPEAKER_06: We can't just copy other nations without having the culture.
2:26
SPEAKER_06: That's uh we don't we lack a culture, and then we blame youth soccer coaches like Landon just just blasts all youth soccer coaches like, well, go coach youth soccer.
2:38
SPEAKER_06: If you're gonna fix everything, why don't you just go coach youth soccer and help us?
2:45
SPEAKER_01: But they well, the the hard part is getting the right people to coach in youth soccer.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: Now, maybe Landon Donovan, as we all well know, has the playing background and the understanding of the game at a high level to be able to impact youth soccer.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: But too frequently we get moms and dads who go, Oh, well, I'm I'm gonna hop in and I'm gonna coach youth soccer, and the lens is through winning versus player development.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: And now we're making sacrifices with regards to how we're treating the players, developing the players, and it's not ultimately paying dividends because the priorities aren't aligned.
3:17
SPEAKER_06: Do you think that we're kind of abandoning who we are as a nation when we try to copy like a Spain with the rondos, rondos, rondos?
3:26
SPEAKER_01: I I wouldn't say we're necessarily abandoning who we are.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: We're a young soccer nation.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: So ultimately we have to determine what like we were discussing previously, like what's in our DNA, what's the fabric of who we are, what culturally who are we as a people.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: And then we we have to start to take the smaller components from the Spanish, from the French, from the Dutch, whatever those influences are that contribute and are aligned with who we are uh in a DNA perspective.
3:54
SPEAKER_06: Right.
3:55
SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's always it's I mean, look at what the women went through the last three days against Spain or four days.
4:05
SPEAKER_06: You know, last night we tied, but I mean, they don't even have their best players.
4:09
SPEAKER_06: Like Bonani wasn't what didn't even make the trip.
4:12
SPEAKER_05: Right.
4:13
SPEAKER_06: And it's in their culture.
4:15
SPEAKER_06: It's not like when you when you go overseas and you go and watch uh Athletic Big Bao or you go to anywhere in Europe, everybody comes back, they don't talk about the drills.
4:31
SPEAKER_06: Because we do they do the drills that we do.
4:34
SPEAKER_06: The difference is the intensity, the intensity of the players.
4:38
SPEAKER_06: And that, like you said before we started, they're trying to uh provide a better life for their entire family.
4:45
SPEAKER_06: Our kids, if they lose a U-17 World Cup game, they're still going to Duke and Clemson.
4:52
SPEAKER_06: Or they've signed a homegrown contract already, or they've already started signed a homegrown contract, or they're already overseas playing professionally.
4:59
SPEAKER_06: It's just like it's just different.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: And I have two components to to add to this conversation.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: So one is we're a huge nation, uh well, it's 400, some odd million people now, maybe, and we're we're a diverse population, right?
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Like you look at the Spanish and you're like, oh, a Spanish person.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: Here we've got influences from Central America, South America, Europe, uh over people from all over the entirety of the world.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: So now it's not as simple for me as, oh, this is the type of football that we want to play because you have this influence from all these different cultures that exist here in the United States.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: So it's trying to take a little bit of all right, who Kevin Sullivan is, but then you've got Johnny Cardozo as an example who plays in Spain and has lived in Europe.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: And now how do you take his background and his influences and inject them into the national team to create a cohesive unit?
5:53
SPEAKER_01: One.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: So it like I think that's that's a pretty big challenge.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: And then yes, we have kids that that play in national teams and they go have these experiences.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, maybe in some capacity they're participating in similar activities uh to kids that play for Benfica or Barcelona.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: However, then for me, where where those countries are different is yeah, of course, the environment and the intensity of which those kids train at is a super high level.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: However, it's the information and how the coaches actually bring those activities to life to bring the players the information that are going to make meaningful strides in their development and what that looks like and how they impact matches on the field.
6:35
SPEAKER_06: Right.
6:36
SPEAKER_06: And you talk about how big this country is.
6:38
SPEAKER_06: I did not realize that Columbus is two hours from Cleveland.
6:42
SPEAKER_06: I was like, wait a minute.
6:44
SPEAKER_06: I didn't realize okay, if we're in, I don't know, if we're at Bayern Munich and we drive two hours, where are we?
6:53
SPEAKER_06: Are we in another country?
6:55
SPEAKER_06: We might be.
6:56
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean Well, you see these maps on on the internet or Instagram where it it overlays the United States with Europe or vice versa, so you can see what the travel looks like if you were in Europe, and it it really puts it into perspective for you.
7:12
SPEAKER_06: Luis a couple months ago I had uh launch with Luis Roblox and he showed me that.
7:19
SPEAKER_06: And he's like, if you put Washington State where England is, Florida is in Yemen.
7:26
SPEAKER_06: Guys, but you know what?
7:27
SPEAKER_06: Prorel is gonna fix everything, and we're gonna get rid of pay to play.
7:31
SPEAKER_04: Correct.
7:32
SPEAKER_04: Well, you talk about diversity.
7:34
SPEAKER_04: Diversity is our greatest asset, but it's also our biggest challenge.
7:37
SPEAKER_04: It's like, how do you the melting pot is awesome?
7:39
SPEAKER_04: It's always brought great ideas, like cutting edge stuff, pursuing excellence, but then how do you do it in a way that builds continuity and and to where you get to a point where instead of a preference, it becomes I'm out, I don't agree with you, I'm gone.
7:55
SPEAKER_04: And I got to see a little bit of that in the 80s with the nomads and what Derek could together as a staff.
7:59
SPEAKER_04: I had an Italian at U10, I had a Filipino at U12, I had a Brazilian at one point.
8:05
SPEAKER_04: Like he was good at managing a staff about the principles of play that he wanted.
8:09
SPEAKER_04: And he's an Englishman who loved, who was fascinated with South American football.
8:13
SPEAKER_04: The number one word that came out of his mouth was Tiki Taka as a kid growing up.
8:16
SPEAKER_04: Tiki Taka play.
8:18
SPEAKER_04: He loved um, oh shoot, was the Bolivian group, um Taichi.
8:23
SPEAKER_04: He showcased Tuichi to us at 14, 15 years old, going to Dallas Cup and all these events.
8:27
SPEAKER_04: That's what we want to play like.
8:29
SPEAKER_04: Who says that?
8:30
SPEAKER_04: As an Englishman in America with a totally diverse group of kids, but that was the vision they cast.
8:35
SPEAKER_04: And if we can get more of those, we're in a better place.
8:38
SPEAKER_05: Right.
8:38
SPEAKER_04: But what we do is we fight over my way.
8:41
SPEAKER_04: And you you can it even in your own staff, you get to a point where you go, Well, I don't agree with that.
8:46
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna break off, do my own thing.
8:48
SPEAKER_04: So part of the diversity and element of a big country is that you can go do your own thing in this country.
8:53
SPEAKER_04: And so we're ebbs and flows of growing the game, and then we we kind of get to places where we butt heads and go, nope we're gonna divide, we're gonna do something else.
9:00
SPEAKER_04: And that's endemic of youth.
9:02
SPEAKER_04: Uh, I think college games have been through massive shifts of that.
9:05
SPEAKER_04: Uh, the pro game, uh, the ebbs and flows of starts of leagues and what worked, what didn't.
9:10
SPEAKER_04: Well, you told me MLS single entity.
9:14
SPEAKER_04: Single entity.
9:15
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, that's a communist league.
9:16
SPEAKER_04: No way that's gonna work in America.
9:18
SPEAKER_04: 30 years later, I'm looking at a state in Ohio that has two 100 million dollar stadios, one in Cincinnati, one in Columbus.
9:24
SPEAKER_04: I'm blown away by how quickly it's grown, but yet it took 30 years.
9:28
SPEAKER_04: It's not one quick, it's a long haul.
9:31
SPEAKER_04: And so to Gus's point, I think there's enough quality people to do this and get that movement.
9:36
SPEAKER_04: We just gotta connect those dots to kind of encourage because the noise these days about what isn't working is the hardest part to overcome because on a daily you can get hit with you're the problem, not the solution.
9:47
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, and I'm always that lit, but we can always be better, we'll never be perfect.
9:52
SPEAKER_04: But give me solutions, give me give me some ideas, let's be creative, let's solve it by being creative and get those people in the room to say this is where we need to go.
9:59
SPEAKER_06: And then you push back on some of these people with their solutions, and then they get defensive and they don't like talk through their uh solutions.
10:09
SPEAKER_06: And it's like I I'm just asking questions uh literally what I do for a living.
10:14
SPEAKER_06: I just ask questions.
10:15
SPEAKER_06: It's like, and if you can't have like a legitimate uh back and forth about your philosophy and about your your beliefs, uh do you really believe in it?
10:27
SPEAKER_06: And do you guys think that we could have a single identity?
10:31
SPEAKER_06: Because like when we are all trying to copy Barcelona in 2010, that pissed off a lot of like the English coaches here, and they would just rip on Tikitaka, right?
10:44
SPEAKER_06: And then and then obviously the Brazilian uh push back and they were like, Well, that's not as beautiful, uh you know, it's not as much flair and everything.
10:54
SPEAKER_06: And it's like, can we with a with the different influences in this country of all these different nations?
11:01
SPEAKER_06: Can we ever have a single identity?
11:04
SPEAKER_06: Everybody's gonna play 433.
11:05
SPEAKER_06: That's what the DA tried to do.
11:07
SPEAKER_06: Everybody's gonna play this.
11:08
SPEAKER_06: You can't you can't bunker, you can't do this, you can't do that.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: How how far down this route?
11:16
SPEAKER_04: I was gonna say, careful, careful what you ask.
11:19
SPEAKER_04: We can go we can go hours on that, but I my answer would be no, you can't have a single one.
11:24
SPEAKER_04: Now, where do you start from is important, and that's where uh when he when when Gus first came in and started outlining this, we're gonna start with this as our foundation, our starting place.
11:33
SPEAKER_04: Now, to roll out can get a coaches equipped, be able to go, I don't have a traditional 43.3 makeup.
11:38
SPEAKER_04: Okay, what's the wrinkle we can add in with your group?
11:40
SPEAKER_04: Then you can build, but you have to have you have to have some semblance of a starting, starting uh platform or place to work from.
11:49
SPEAKER_04: And that that's where his expertise comes into play in a way that my education through US soccer in the 90s and where I get to my A license, and uh I continued on for a few years in renewal on that.
11:59
SPEAKER_04: But the stuff now is just so much weightier and meatier and and better for our coaches.
12:05
SPEAKER_04: I'm super excited about our staff getting invested in uh in a way he can.
12:09
SPEAKER_04: It's gonna take time.
12:10
SPEAKER_04: It'll take three, four, five more years before it really is can be fully implemented.
12:14
SPEAKER_04: But to answer your question on that, do we have A style?
12:17
SPEAKER_04: I I don't think so.
12:18
SPEAKER_04: And I don't know if that benefits us.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: I think it it I think as a country, yes, we have a way that we want to play.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: Now, maybe I'm unique in the sense that I I work in uh the youth national team.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: So I know at a national team level uh where the starting position is, what the principles of principles of play are, um, the system, uh player task versus team task within that setup and how we want that to be brought to life on the field and and how the players take responsibility of it.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: Now, at the end of the day, it also depends on your playing personnel.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: Barcelona is not going to be Barcelona if you don't have Xavi and Iniesta, Bousquets, and Messi.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be a completely different team if you don't have those guys because they're able, they have the qualities, they have the brain, the soccer IQ, the intelligence to be able to solve those problems and and find success uh and develop relationships with their teammates on the soccer field.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: Whereas the United States of America doesn't play the way that Barcelona does because we don't have those playing qualities.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Now, at a national team level, they have a way that they want to play with the players that are available to them, but you have to be um what's the word that I'm looking for?
13:30
SPEAKER_01: You have you have to be understanding of who you are, you have to be realistic to that, and then use the playing personnel in ways that is is going to be conducive to them finding success on the field.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:41
SPEAKER_06: Help I just had Caitlin Young on, who is a U16 and U17 national team.
13:49
SPEAKER_06: Utah Utah Celtic technical director.
13:53
SPEAKER_06: And she said that she'll spend one week with the national team and they're looking for this type of player.
14:00
SPEAKER_06: This this specific type of special player.
14:03
SPEAKER_06: Then she'll go into coaching ed the following week, and she's not teaching how to develop uh the special player that they're looking for.
14:14
SPEAKER_06: Do you see that on the men's side as well, on the boys' side?
14:20
SPEAKER_01: I think coaching ed at a broad spectrum level where the Federation is concerned, isn't necessarily designed to equip coaches with hey, how do we want to create the next Neymar?
14:34
SPEAKER_01: Or um how are we going to develop players within a positional profile?
14:40
SPEAKER_01: The I'm a B course, I'm certified to coach B courses.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: That being said, for me, in my opinion, the course is designed to equip coaches in how to manage all the different facets of being a coach.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: Managing the players, managing the player environment, how to properly execute training sessions, how to coach games, how to manage everything that comes along in a club environment.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: So then it's a coach's job through experimentation, through reflection, through spending countless hours on the soccer field, supplemented with the appropriate support of club leadership, depending on where they are, to then really hone in on, okay, because you're going to start somewhere and you don't really know what you're trying to coach or what you're looking for.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: I know that was my experience when I first started coaching.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: Then, as you get the appropriate guidance and expertise to support you, okay, now I I've got my team playing the way that I want, but I've noticed that Chris isn't effective in the way that he receives the ball between the lines.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: He's always playing negative.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: So now it's my job in a training environment to create activities that address that specific behavior.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: We want to improve his ability to receive and play forward between the lines, or at least look forward between the lines.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: So then the coach now has to have a greater understanding of how to impact the individuals.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: Player task versus team task.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: What is the player's role?
16:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what how how do the cogs and the machine come together to operate effectively?
16:09
SPEAKER_01: And if Chris isn't doing his job, now my job as the coach is to be able to address his developmental developmental needs, excuse me.
16:16
SPEAKER_06: Do you think that coaching's better than it was like 20, 30 years ago?
16:19
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: Still, we still have as a country a long way to go.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: But it's way better.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: And it goes back to our conversation earlier.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: So Eric Dutt, our director of player development here at OP, and myself have both been on the elite formation coaching license.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: So for your viewers that are unclear as to what that is, it's a coach education um course.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: It's a partnership between MLS and the French Football Federation.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: So they're taking experts who have coached Kylian Mbappe, Marshall Pogba, Dembele.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this list is extraordinary.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: It goes on and on.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: But these guys have information that I still don't possess.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so to be able to now, I maybe I was fortunate or misfortunate, unfortunate, depending on how you look at it.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: My course started right before COVID.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: So I was on the course for three years compared to the normal 18 months.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: But to be able to spend time with these guys and um then be able to impart the information in terms of uh how to impact players, how to appropriately design effective training activities uh is remarkable.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: So even through that experience alone, the expertise that these guys possess uh compared to what coaches in this country possess, there's a real disparity there.
17:37
SPEAKER_06: When so when I had my training company, I had this pie chart where this is this is who this is how it's broken up player development, individual player development.
17:51
SPEAKER_06: And the biggest piece was the player, the second biggest piece was the parents, and then the other half of the chart was split between coach, club, teammates, and competition.
18:05
SPEAKER_06: And and somebody actually DMed me because I brought this up in another uh episode.
18:13
SPEAKER_06: Somebody DM'd me this morning and he goes, What is the biggest what which piece of the pie is the biggest neglected?
18:21
SPEAKER_06: And a lot of people or what which is most neglected, and a lot of people will say the coaches, the co you know, are we the we'll get blamed for everything.
18:32
SPEAKER_06: I blame the player, and the reason why I blame the player in this country is that they rely on the club to develop you.
18:41
SPEAKER_06: There are a lot of times in a lot of areas, they're relying on those three sessions and those two games on the weekend to develop them.
18:49
SPEAKER_06: And they trust, oh, the club, the club's got my development.
18:53
SPEAKER_06: But we all know the best players that we've ever worked with are the the junkies that are outside all the time trying to hit a ball to a like a fence or to a sign or learning how to a ball on a wall, those are the players, and I think that is the missing piece in this country for the most part, and it's culture, and it's just culture.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: Now, in today's day and age where every kid's got an iPhone and an iPad, and it's easier to sit inside and watch Neymar highlights versus going outside to actually cultivate that skill and and try to bring that to life is is the real challenge.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: Like I can remember early in my coaching career, coaching camps at DC United, and we're trying to work on highball reception and juggling, and kids are get frustrated and quit because they can't they can swipe on their iPad to figure out the answer on Google or they can download the movie or download the game.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: Like there's the instant gratification, whereas I quickly realized like they don't want to work for this.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: So, to your point, I I think it's a it's a combination of both.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: And we have this conversation with our players on the field.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: Right.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: Like we we we've started this a new initiative with our 13s-14s teams.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we call it station trains.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: We have three to four coaches.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, and through my observations over the past two years, we need our players to improve technically.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, we need to improve their athletic development, and then we need to impact the way that they compete day to day.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: So essentially we have different stations where they do technical work, they do athletic development work, we do a small possession game that's aligned with style of play.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: And then the last 30 minutes, we basically break the teams up and organize them into groups and compete.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: And we do a little bit of the competitive cauldron where Eric Dutt basically tracks the points individually and they don't stay on a team, they mix up.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: And I love that.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's awesome.
20:41
SPEAKER_06: Like Ant's endorance.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Throwback to that.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: So we're doing we're doing IDPs right now.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: So Eric broke down all of the data for our 13s, 14s, ECNL boys and girls.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, here were the top performers in terms of who collected the most points.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: Here's who started at the bottom.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: They didn't understand how to compete.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: And now then this is the most improved.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: Here's who started really well, but fell down the chart.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: However, we I've had conversations with our players where we'll do basically do three stations of 16 minutes.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: So I do 16 minutes of technical work with the players.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: Now, sometimes it's coach reliant, like they need to show up to a training environment here at OP with a coach in a field and training equipment, and we have to facilitate that activity for them.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: Whereas other times we'll do an activity where it's every single player in a ball.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: Guys, you can do this at home for 15 minutes.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: Who's got five yards?
21:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh who's got three feet of space?
21:34
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: Who's got a little space available in their kitchen?
21:37
SPEAKER_01: Who's got a backyard?
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Who's got a street?
21:39
SPEAKER_01: Like you don't need much room to be able to do some of this stuff.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: But they believe that showing up now, not everybody, however, especially in the younger, younger age categories 11s, 12s, 13s, 14s, probably into 15s and 16s in some capacity, depending on the level of the player.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: They think showing up to training three days a week plus matches on the weekend is enough to make meaningful.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Strides in their development.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: Whereas in my experience, like when I was a kid, I was outside playing every single day.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: Now there was there was no such thing as load management, but I was outside juggling.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: Um and we have kids at our club who I know are intrinsically motivated.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: They get home from school, they go outside, they're playing, they're juggling, they come to training.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, it there's there's there's many different facets that that I think connect to it.
22:28
SPEAKER_06: I mean you nailed it.
22:31
SPEAKER_06: I I and the do you post those publicly?
22:35
SPEAKER_01: Like the the no the no, so the the players the players have a general understanding because Eric because Eric tells everybody where they stand so that they have an understanding of here's where in the competitive cauldron I fall.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: And then our job as the coaches is to try to help them understand how to compete.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: So if you ask a youth soccer player, what does competition look like?
23:02
SPEAKER_01: It's working hard, it's tackling.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: Sure, those those are things.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: Being responsible with the ball and finding finding your target more often than not is being competitive.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: If your team's winning and the ball goes out of bounds, you walk to get the ball, winning your aerial duels, back pressing when your line has been broken, finding success in your individual duel in and out of possession, uh, organizing, communicating who's marking who, making sure you're making first contact on a corner kick, right?
23:29
SPEAKER_01: There's all of these different facets of competition.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: But if you ask the kids, which we have, uh, it's working hard, it's tackling, it's running, sure, that that's part of it.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: But now we use this platform to better educate them on the actionable items that we want to see from them in the training environment that then equates to success on the field.
23:53
SPEAKER_06: Okay, the running to go get the ball thing.
23:57
SPEAKER_06: So at my facility, it was perfect for five aside, but if I went the other way, it was good for like 3v3, and I'd have touch line rules.
24:05
SPEAKER_06: And one of my mentors way back in the day from uh Detroit Country Day and then ODP, he taught me that the reason why we call it a touchline is that the original rules was that when the ball goes out, whoever touched the line first, it was their ball, kind of like lacrosse.
24:24
SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah.
24:25
SPEAKER_06: La cross is kind of like that.
24:26
SPEAKER_06: And that's why it's called a touchline.
24:28
SPEAKER_06: So I would have touch line rules.
24:30
SPEAKER_06: It doesn't matter who go who it's off of, whoever gets to the sideline first, it's their ball.
24:35
SPEAKER_06: And we'd have like 10-year-olds like tackling each other to make sure that they don't get to the line first.
24:41
SPEAKER_06: It's like that's competition, that's competitive, and maybe that's our identity as a country.
24:46
SPEAKER_06: It's just uh that will, that grit.
24:49
SPEAKER_06: But then we try to coach it out of again, going back to our original conversation.
24:53
SPEAKER_06: It's kind of coached out of us because we want to play the tiki-tack and we want to be something that we're not.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: Right.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, and and another facet of communication, uh, competition for me is like how do players perceive information and make the appropriate decisions?
25:07
SPEAKER_01: Whether that's positioning, a lot of times you'll see kids run to chase the ball because they want the ball.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: And now you're killing space for teammates.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: They're not, they're not understanding the notion of time and space and reading cues of when to support the ball carrier versus when to stay away to create space for teammates.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: So it's trying to create that environment where now we as coaches can help drive not the decision making, but we can ask guided questions within that environment to help the players become autonomous and how they solve problems and ultimately encompass, not encompass, but uh embody is the word I'm looking for, competition on a soccer field.
25:45
SPEAKER_06: Right.
25:46
SPEAKER_06: Can we talk about this place a little bit?
25:48
SPEAKER_06: Sure.
25:49
SPEAKER_06: I mean, this is genius, I think.
25:54
SPEAKER_06: Having a house right next to your fields, and that's this is literally your clubhouse.
25:59
SPEAKER_06: And I want every so I believe that if somebody were to watch or listen to every single uh one of these episodes, they could take bits and pieces from each one and build the perfect club.
26:12
SPEAKER_06: I want every club to have a house.
26:14
SPEAKER_06: Seriously, this is this is unbelievable.
26:18
SPEAKER_06: And was this part of the reason why you came here in the first place?
26:22
SPEAKER_06: Or was this not a good one?
26:24
SPEAKER_01: That's a loaded question, Jason.
26:25
SPEAKER_06: Was this not here yet?
26:26
SPEAKER_01: No, it was here.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: This is where I interviewed.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: So in in short, um yeah, I I uh I was ready for a change.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, grew a lot in an M MLS environment over 12 years, but I I got a young family felt that uh I had made a sacrifice um that I wasn't necessarily seeing the dividends on and wanted to spend more time with with my wife and my kids, and um had a connection here to OP, and they were looking for somebody to to take ownership of the soccer side of things.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: And Chris and I had kind of crossed paths a little bit during my time at the crew and uh came in, interviewed.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: And part of the reason I came here is and I remember vividly in the interview, and I think I posed the the question directly to Chris.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: It was like, okay, what's what's the five-year vision?
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Like the facilities are great, we've got this clubhouse, but I I don't just want to be happy with what we have.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: Like, how are we going to continue to grow and evolve?
27:23
SPEAKER_01: And how can I utilize the soccer specific knowledge that I have and and help then build uh more of what we want uh this club to become and what the vision looks like long term.
27:36
SPEAKER_06: Anything to add to that?
27:39
SPEAKER_04: We were super fortunate uh in several different timelines of uh be able to get the space next door, which is the original 42 acres.
27:46
SPEAKER_04: Um, I'd be friended the neighbor here, six acres of land on the house, um, went on the market.
27:53
SPEAKER_04: Like there was a lot of pre-work that went in from board on to through that we were very fortunate.
27:59
SPEAKER_04: But as these things grew, my time and in being focused on the field was getting spread thin.
28:05
SPEAKER_04: And so I knew and I'd been thinking I I pitched it to the board probably a year and a half before we actually talked about it.
28:12
SPEAKER_04: I said, I'm gonna need help because it's and I'd had that the experience in my life before where I could do a lot, but I I kind I was getting that sense I'm doing a lot, but not nothing excellent or well.
28:24
SPEAKER_04: And you get to that tipping point where you're like, someone's gotta go.
28:27
SPEAKER_04: Um and the timing was perfect.
28:30
SPEAKER_04: So we had had all these assets, but we were kind of half executing on a lot of these things.
28:35
SPEAKER_04: So um I kind of had in my mind of like what that would look like.
28:38
SPEAKER_04: Having said that, it wasn't and what he what Gus brings is way better than I even anticipated.
28:47
SPEAKER_04: Um, from that MLS and French Federation component.
28:50
SPEAKER_04: Because we sat in it was actually kind of funny.
28:52
SPEAKER_04: You talk about an environment where you want to have the first impression, our furnace broke the day he comes in.
28:57
SPEAKER_04: So we're in our I don't know if you remember we're in like sub 30 jackets, like in the basement or in the back room here, huddled up.
29:03
SPEAKER_04: But what was really sweet is an hour into this, I'm like this is what we need, and that environment.
29:11
SPEAKER_04: So it was like, holy smokes.
29:12
SPEAKER_04: Um, because I I kept on paying them.
29:14
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, what about this?
29:15
SPEAKER_04: What about this?
29:16
SPEAKER_04: And he'd be like, boop, boop, boop.
29:17
SPEAKER_04: And he I'm like, your education's unbelievable.
29:20
SPEAKER_04: And then I became, well, how do we scale that?
29:22
SPEAKER_04: I said, how do we do that with 80 coaches?
29:24
SPEAKER_04: And that's what he's like, we'll we'll put a plan together.
29:26
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, okay, because I knew it was gonna take time.
29:29
SPEAKER_04: Um, and we're what three, three and a half years into this.
29:32
SPEAKER_04: Three we're you talk you'd ask the bigger question, are we better as a country?
29:36
SPEAKER_04: The answer is yes.
29:37
SPEAKER_04: But I think even just where we're at currently as a club.
29:40
SPEAKER_04: Um, I was super excited to hear the gal at Utah Celtic in that framework because a lot of her verbiage mirrors Gus's.
29:46
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, oh good, there's another one.
29:47
SPEAKER_04: And I think part of it's that is it's easy to send out the negatives and uh the hammer.
29:52
SPEAKER_04: I think we need to get a place and a platform where we can start encouraging the growth and the development and the like, no, we're way we we have way more going on for us than we do against us, and in regards to that.
30:04
SPEAKER_04: Um I've always been a glasses half full kind of guy, and I'm I'm always trying to find that silver lining, and I'm I'm really excited about where this country's going.
30:12
SPEAKER_04: Now, is it gonna be the next World Cup?
30:14
SPEAKER_04: Probably not.
30:15
SPEAKER_04: Right.
30:15
SPEAKER_04: Men's and women's.
30:16
SPEAKER_04: I'd love people are complaining about the women's game in Spain.
30:19
SPEAKER_04: I'm going good.
30:20
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I look at it as a game on that that's a challenge.
30:23
SPEAKER_04: Let's go.
30:24
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we we have the people, we have the players.
30:26
SPEAKER_04: Right.
30:26
SPEAKER_04: We just be committed to like let's solve it.
30:28
SPEAKER_04: Right.
30:29
SPEAKER_04: Let's solve it.
30:30
SPEAKER_04: It's not 1990 anymore.
30:32
SPEAKER_06: Like exactly.
30:33
SPEAKER_06: Let's move on.
30:33
SPEAKER_06: You said before we started that the funding for this out here started in like 2000s, 2005.
30:42
SPEAKER_04: There are families I cannot list that need to be thanked because they started the field development fund for us with all these fundraisers.
30:50
SPEAKER_04: And I bet there's families who walked away going, club's never going to be able to do anything with this.
30:54
SPEAKER_04: So when we had the opportunity to purchase the first 42 acres, there's about$300,000 we had in an account that didn't start it in like the early 2000s with these small little we used to do a casino night.
31:04
SPEAKER_04: I make 50 grand in that uh on a weekend or 25 grand on a weekend, and that over 10 years we started building that up.
31:11
SPEAKER_04: So there's families that never even came close.
31:13
SPEAKER_04: Now I always say, Well, brand kids, grandkids will be here playing someday, and that's actually coming true.
31:19
SPEAKER_04: There's talk about culture, our club is in a very good culture growth.
31:24
SPEAKER_04: My my mom and dad dropped me off at soccer at six and had no clue what the sport was.
31:29
SPEAKER_04: My kids got MLS experience.
31:31
SPEAKER_04: I was taking all my kids literally months after they're being born or going to a crew game.
31:35
SPEAKER_04: Now my grandkids, third generation, now we're cooking, and that's a hundred percent.
31:40
SPEAKER_04: You said when I think it when it's my grandkids are playing and enjoying the game.
31:46
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
31:46
SPEAKER_04: So another 20 years would be appropriate, an appropriate goal because culture isn't just talked about, it has to be established.
31:54
SPEAKER_04: And it uh who's the guy out of New York talks about uh culture because at home and the idea that the ball is in the city.
31:59
SPEAKER_04: Tom Bayer.
32:00
SPEAKER_04: Tom Bayer.
32:01
SPEAKER_04: Love a lot of his material on that because it's he's 100% right on that.
32:04
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
32:04
SPEAKER_04: And the first gift my kids got was a soccer ball in the crib.
32:08
SPEAKER_04: And I I have videos of them showing my kids all kicking their feet at a hanging um toy.
32:14
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, oh, he's a lefty.
32:15
SPEAKER_04: Oh, she's a right.
32:16
SPEAKER_04: Like, I was so excited about seeing what they would potentially get to do with the game.
32:21
SPEAKER_06: Well, think about it uh again, all the players, the highest level of players that I have are second generation, or they're a the youngest sibling that had that had uh you know older siblings play.
32:35
SPEAKER_06: But Wasatch in Utah as well, they're about to break ground on two turf fields, and they said the exact same thing.
32:45
SPEAKER_06: We've been saving for 20 years, and have the uh Pat, their uh executive director or uh technical director.
32:53
SPEAKER_06: He was like, I've only been here five years, but they've been saving and they've had forward thinking, and that's just what this it takes.
33:01
SPEAKER_06: It's like you have to be willing to sacrifice some other things and just save and come up with ideas because there's so many clubs that want this that have no possibility of doing it because they just don't put in you know, they're linking for exactly.
33:23
SPEAKER_04: It's the same thing with player development.
33:24
SPEAKER_04: Parish comes in at nine and ten, and we get this all the time where it's like, well, this isn't working, right?
33:30
SPEAKER_04: You're measuring it wrong, or like they won't trust us in that.
33:32
SPEAKER_04: It'll they're not it takes time, singularly.
33:35
SPEAKER_04: Let them fall in love with the game, let them do this.
33:37
SPEAKER_04: We'll get them to come, but we lost was good.
33:40
SPEAKER_04: Then they're gonna be resilient, they keep coming back.
33:42
SPEAKER_04: Like you you're building character in those years.
33:45
SPEAKER_04: Fall in love with the game, develop skills, develop some grit.
33:48
SPEAKER_04: I don't mind if a team struggles early on.
33:51
SPEAKER_04: I think that's okay.
33:52
SPEAKER_04: My my experience was that wasn't until like U12, U13, all of a sudden the pendulum swung, and all that investment in the early years turned our favor, and all of a sudden the interest became well, those guys are actually applying.
34:04
SPEAKER_04: Like, yeah, it but but it takes time, right?
34:08
SPEAKER_04: Same thing with building a facility, it takes time.
34:11
SPEAKER_04: You gotta have a vision and play and commit to it.
34:13
SPEAKER_04: What do you guys do in during the indoor?
34:15
SPEAKER_04: During rent early, and that's where I was telling you that next phase in a perfect world if we can get an indoor space.
34:21
SPEAKER_04: So expensive 100%.
34:23
SPEAKER_04: That's a big line item for us.
34:25
SPEAKER_06: What is it for an 11v11 field down here in Ohio?
34:29
SPEAKER_04: We don't have any.
34:31
SPEAKER_04: There's no 11v11 indoor.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: There is the proof.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, when they put their dome up.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: They put a dome up from like November through April.
34:40
SPEAKER_06: And are you allowed to rent it?
34:41
SPEAKER_01: You can.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: I think it's like$350 an hour or something of that nature.
34:45
SPEAKER_04: And the cool thing about Michigan, they'll put on the vents, they'll do one-off little things that they'll do 77 games.
34:52
SPEAKER_04: So it's been good, but it's not to that point where you can build a consistent winter indoor training program.
34:57
SPEAKER_04: That's what we want to do.
34:58
SPEAKER_06: Total soccer in Wixham, Michigan.
35:01
SPEAKER_06: 500, 600?
35:02
SPEAKER_06: $815.
35:05
SPEAKER_06: Where Vardar plays, Oakland bubble, a thousand dollars an hour.
35:10
SPEAKER_06: No, I talked to those guys over there, and and parents want half demand half a field.
35:15
SPEAKER_06: No.
35:17
SPEAKER_06: You're getting you're getting the 18 yard box.
35:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, you're getting a quarter.
35:21
SPEAKER_04: 20 by 30 be good for you.
35:23
SPEAKER_06: Exactly.
35:23
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
35:24
SPEAKER_06: And that's we were talking about that on our ride around is like soccer's changed too.
35:30
SPEAKER_06: It was like what the demands of the parents are.
35:32
SPEAKER_06: When we were playing and growing up, I was dropped off and like, have fun, don't get hurt.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: No athletic trainer, no precautionary measures, nothing.
35:43
SPEAKER_06: Now it's like, I want three sessions a week.
35:47
SPEAKER_06: I want an A-licensed coach.
35:49
SPEAKER_06: I want a half a field.
35:51
SPEAKER_06: I want this, I want that.
35:52
SPEAKER_06: And it's like, what in the world?
35:56
SPEAKER_06: It's crazy how professionalized we've gotten.
35:59
SPEAKER_06: And it's a good thing.
36:00
SPEAKER_06: It is helping.
36:01
SPEAKER_06: I never had, I never had a full-time coach.
36:04
SPEAKER_06: They were always like, you know, GM engineers or something like that up in Michigan.
36:10
SPEAKER_06: And then they coach on the side.
36:11
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
36:12
SPEAKER_06: I never had a full-time coach.
36:14
SPEAKER_06: My college coach wasn't even full-time, he was a professor.
36:17
SPEAKER_06: Oh wow.
36:18
SPEAKER_06: So you know what I mean?
36:20
SPEAKER_06: And now, how many full-time just soccer people do you have on staff?
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Is the executive director a full-time soccer person?
36:29
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
36:30
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
36:31
SPEAKER_04: So this is where it gets interesting.
36:32
SPEAKER_04: I I would say we have seven full-time people.
36:34
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
36:35
SPEAKER_04: That are just soccer people.
36:37
SPEAKER_04: But then they're going, you know what?
36:39
SPEAKER_04: I could take a shift here and do this and do that to something my income.
36:42
SPEAKER_04: And so I'm not on there going, you know what I'm saying?
36:44
SPEAKER_04: Like, yeah.
36:45
SPEAKER_04: And then I'm like, well, I haven't really taken care of you in that way.
36:48
SPEAKER_04: Now, when I started in 2014, I was the only one.
36:52
SPEAKER_04: The only one that was full-time.
36:54
SPEAKER_04: And again, taking this on the facility, like that's where again I went.
36:59
SPEAKER_04: We we've got to grow, we gotta change, we've got to have a vision for where this club as an organization is gonna go to be successful.
37:04
SPEAKER_04: And we're still falling behind in terms of I want to have that next generation, the people that replace me have more disposal in terms of health benefits, 401k, whatever 401B, I think is what they call it for a nonprofit.
37:16
SPEAKER_04: But like we're if we're gonna compete and try and get the best um moving forward, we we've got to expand some of those opportunities as well.
37:22
SPEAKER_06: Go into what you were doing before 2014.
37:25
SPEAKER_06: And what did you what was your very first role here?
37:28
SPEAKER_06: Was it executive director?
37:30
SPEAKER_04: And it was funny because the title actually it was what uh DOC.
37:34
SPEAKER_04: No, well, I I actually went into the meeting with the board to consult.
37:39
SPEAKER_04: I was working for U.S.
37:40
SPEAKER_04: Clip Soccer at the time.
37:41
SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, loved my job, uh-huh, had no desire, but my kids were in the club.
37:46
SPEAKER_04: And so I just went in to go, hey, FYI, in my role, I've seen a lot of good hires, I've seen a lot of bad hires.
37:52
SPEAKER_04: I loved the club, I had coached in the club for nine years previous to that from 2000 to 2009.
37:57
SPEAKER_04: This is now 2014.
37:58
SPEAKER_04: I'd stepped away.
37:59
SPEAKER_04: My I had a stepson who was 17, Nathan was six, Augre's four, Taylor's two.
38:04
SPEAKER_04: My wife's like, we don't need something metal income.
38:06
SPEAKER_04: I need to do more at home.
38:07
SPEAKER_04: So I stepped away for five years from coaching.
38:10
SPEAKER_04: I go into that board meeting, I knew all the board, or a lot of the board, and which I just was trying to help share vision where things are going.
38:16
SPEAKER_04: Big one was they were like, Oh, we need more tournaments out of my bull.
38:19
SPEAKER_04: The train does better leagues.
38:22
SPEAKER_04: Like better leagues, that's the vision we need to have.
38:24
SPEAKER_04: We need to mean better leads, and so that it just was a good conversation.
38:27
SPEAKER_04: Hour in, they're like, Well, would you do this?
38:30
SPEAKER_04: I looked at it and I said, No, and they're like, Well, why not?
38:33
SPEAKER_04: I said, Well, it the description was coach two teams manage the rest of the club.
38:39
SPEAKER_04: I go, look at the topics we just got because we did talk facilities in that 2014 meeting.
38:43
SPEAKER_04: We talked how do we could we have our own stuff?
38:46
SPEAKER_04: And we could.
38:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's you know, but that's a totally different job description.
38:53
SPEAKER_04: I not even that coach two teams manage the rest.
38:55
SPEAKER_04: I had coached two teams for seven or eight years.
38:58
SPEAKER_04: You pour so much into those kids and those families, you don't have anything left for the rest of the club or your own family when you get home at the end of the day.
39:06
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
39:07
SPEAKER_04: That's where I struggled.
39:08
SPEAKER_04: Is my wife would look at me and I'm still chewing over the game.
39:10
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I was present, but I wasn't present.
39:12
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you're not getting home until 10 o'clock.
39:14
SPEAKER_04: 100%.
39:14
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and it takes so much out of you.
39:16
SPEAKER_04: So I said, No, I said they spent a month, rewrote the job description, and I came back and said, I do that role.
39:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it was a lateral move for me, but it got me more to where my kids and local, I was still in the game, but not yet national footprint, but I could do something locally with a club that I was passionate about already.
39:34
SPEAKER_04: Right.
39:35
SPEAKER_04: So it worked out.
39:36
SPEAKER_04: Um, but yeah, I was the only full-time person at that point.
39:38
SPEAKER_06: And you you were part of US Club Soccer when the decision started in what?
39:47
SPEAKER_06: You said on the over the phone the other day, 2005.
39:50
SPEAKER_06: You guys were talking about the ECNL?
39:53
SPEAKER_06: I think uh because 2009 was the very first year of competition.
39:57
SPEAKER_06: Okay, no, it would have been like seven, two thousand seven when they meeting in Las Vegas.
40:01
SPEAKER_06: So it's when US soccer said, Oh no, our girls don't need the DEA because we're good enough.
40:06
SPEAKER_06: We're the best in the world.
40:07
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, how'd that work out?
40:09
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well, and that's that uh so delayed gratification, but the uh if you don't move and have a vision for being better, you will fall, it'll take 20 years to figure out what happened, correct?
40:20
SPEAKER_04: And that's where we're at.
40:21
SPEAKER_06: And that's okay.
40:22
SPEAKER_06: And you know, I'm so happy that we won in 15, and I coached some of the girls that at Flash that were on the 19 squad, like Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams and those girls.
40:33
SPEAKER_06: Uh, but I always think that we're one generation away from never winning another Women's World Cup.
40:42
SPEAKER_06: I'd worry about that.
40:43
SPEAKER_06: And you don't think so?
40:46
SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
40:48
SPEAKER_04: We'll we'll self-correct.
40:49
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
40:50
SPEAKER_04: He was talking about the idea of rondos.
40:52
SPEAKER_04: So again, amazing thing is I got exposed to rondos in the 1980s through Derek.
40:58
SPEAKER_04: Our favorite part of the day was 15 minutes our own, 5U2.
41:01
SPEAKER_04: We didn't call it rondos, we called it 5v2.
41:04
SPEAKER_04: That 15 minutes of warm-up before training started, guys were running to like get mom and like get me there at 3 45 if training started at 4.
41:12
SPEAKER_05: Right.
41:13
SPEAKER_04: Because I wanted to be a part of that.
41:14
SPEAKER_04: And the whole goal was to spend 15 minutes and not being in the middle.
41:17
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
41:18
SPEAKER_04: And we knew, and we we sometimes it's just the banter was great.
41:21
SPEAKER_04: You'd catch up on school, you catch up on girlfriends, you catch up on all these things, and then the training session started.
41:27
SPEAKER_04: So the idea that all of a sudden people 20 years later go, oh, this is the best thing in the world.
41:30
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, well, it always has been.
41:31
SPEAKER_04: It wasn't new to me.
41:32
SPEAKER_04: I should never call it a rondo.
41:34
SPEAKER_04: Same.
41:35
SPEAKER_04: Now that was given to us as a treat before the the training session started.
41:40
SPEAKER_04: Now it becomes the train, like if you can overcorrect, let's do 60 minutes of rondo.
41:44
SPEAKER_04: It's like too much of a good thing.
41:46
SPEAKER_04: And I think so we did that as a club.
41:48
SPEAKER_04: We got to a point where I was actually one critiquing it.
41:51
SPEAKER_04: I had a U13 team that wasn't nearly technical at all.
41:54
SPEAKER_04: I went to John.
41:54
SPEAKER_04: I said, John, what did you give me?
41:56
SPEAKER_04: I can't work with this group on building tactics, and we can't even trap a ball.
41:59
SPEAKER_04: Because you're right, I've been sensing that too.
42:02
SPEAKER_04: Next year, his solution would put me at the U8s and U9s because he wanted me to go fix it.
42:07
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, that's gonna work.
42:08
SPEAKER_04: Babysitting, I want to work with the X's nose.
42:10
SPEAKER_04: But it was one of the best things that happened.
42:12
SPEAKER_04: And you fast forward to where I'm sitting in front of a board in 2014, and I could tell him I've coached everything from eight-year-old girls to 19, 20-year-old men, everything between I went, Oh, that was my plan.
42:22
SPEAKER_04: I never thought I'd do all that just to become an executive director.
42:25
SPEAKER_04: But it was one where I could say I saw the whole scope of development, and you learn because we went heavy on the technical for so long, for like two or three years, where it was ball on a kid, ball on a kid, ball on a kid.
42:37
SPEAKER_04: Well, then we couldn't pass.
42:38
SPEAKER_04: We our kids' heads never came up and went, we overdid the technical.
42:41
SPEAKER_04: You know what I'm saying?
42:42
SPEAKER_04: So I think there's ebbs and flows, and I think part of it's if you're in an organization that can humbly go, we we we need to make a change, good.
42:51
SPEAKER_04: Now, I'm gonna pull the lines way back and go, that's what was the problem with the structure of this country in the 80s with US US.
42:58
SPEAKER_04: Nothing ever changed because it was set, it was this is the way we've always done it.
43:03
SPEAKER_04: If you wanted a rule change, if you if you wanted to change something for the better in the game, the answer was no.
43:07
SPEAKER_04: That's why US soccer got involved with EA.
43:10
SPEAKER_04: That's why US Club was birthed because the clubs got together and said, We can't deal with this.
43:15
SPEAKER_06: The the first co the first club that I worked for had to go US Club because of the archaic US YSA rules in Michigan.
43:24
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, so we uh because it was like three teams or something like that, and we only had like two teams at the time, but then we ended up having like eight teams, and it was it was wild.
43:35
SPEAKER_06: But it was LOSC.
43:38
SPEAKER_06: But if you remember the name Matt Pakovitz from he actually coached Brian Masonov, okay.
43:43
SPEAKER_06: So he was like one of my like first mentors, and he was all about technical, technical, technical.
43:49
SPEAKER_06: But we were having such a hard time getting into US YSA or even this the Michigan State Leagues, and then US Club Soccer, thankfully, yeah, was There because it saved us.
44:02
SPEAKER_06: We wouldn't have been a club without U.S.
44:03
SPEAKER_06: Club soccer.
44:04
SPEAKER_04: Well, and here's the thing it it your experience will dictate your opinion, right?
44:08
SPEAKER_04: As a starting point.
44:08
SPEAKER_04: And if you don't know the whole why, people get upset, like, oh, they made it worse.
44:12
SPEAKER_04: So look at we have five national championships now.
44:15
SPEAKER_04: True.
44:16
SPEAKER_04: But where it was when I started as a coach in 1993, and I sat in a meeting of really experienced guys, and I'm going, This is stupid.
44:24
SPEAKER_04: This is why let's go in, let's go tell them to change it.
44:26
SPEAKER_04: They all laughed at me and said, Nothing will ever change in American soccer.
44:29
SPEAKER_04: That was 1993.
44:31
SPEAKER_04: Go you go to 2003.
44:33
SPEAKER_04: I'm working for US Cope Soccer.
44:34
SPEAKER_04: Well, that was 10 years.
44:35
SPEAKER_04: I through my executive director that had kind of there was just so much he was sharing with me that I didn't even realize about the things we needed and how it was gonna be better.
44:44
SPEAKER_04: That I didn't have to be told how to go sell US Cope soccer.
44:47
SPEAKER_04: I knew it.
44:48
SPEAKER_04: I had it was built in me.
44:49
SPEAKER_04: So when I'm doing doing that in the Midwest, there was a sense of oh god, we need this.
44:54
SPEAKER_04: Now it created it broke things apart.
44:57
SPEAKER_04: Now we're in a reunification phase here where we do need US soccer, MLS, ACNL getting together and saying, let's what are the next 10 years gonna look like?
45:05
SPEAKER_04: Because we need a plan to make it even better.
45:07
SPEAKER_04: Do you think that's gonna happen?
45:09
SPEAKER_04: It needs to.
45:12
SPEAKER_04: It needs to, and I think there's good enough people at all those levels that I've related with and trust that it'll get worked on will be what I want, but maybe not a hundred percent.
45:23
SPEAKER_04: But my point is it's gotta be better than what we're currently doing.
45:26
SPEAKER_06: I know that there's meetings supposed to be happening and and happening between Christian and other people, and I hope because that's kind of what I want.
45:36
SPEAKER_06: Uh that's what I've wanted for the last at least ten years, really.
45:41
SPEAKER_06: I was like, this is back when the DA is like, why don't the DA just have all the boys allow every club in, but tier it out.
45:50
SPEAKER_06: Have a hundred clubs per tier, have pro rel, do all that.
45:55
SPEAKER_06: The first three tiers could be national, the middle four could be regional, and the bottom three can be can be state, or the bottom four could be state ran.
46:06
SPEAKER_06: And and then let the ECNL just do the girls.
46:09
SPEAKER_06: That's what I've always thought.
46:11
SPEAKER_06: Is that gonna happen?
46:12
SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
46:14
SPEAKER_06: Some people, a lot of people think that's gonna happen.
46:17
SPEAKER_06: Name another country that is this divided that has this many different competing bodies.
46:22
SPEAKER_06: Caitlin was talking about that from Utah.
46:24
SPEAKER_06: She was like, When we uh go overseas and tell them how our system is set up at the youth level, they're like, What?
46:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's crazy, but a a lot of it's dictated by money, of course.
46:38
SPEAKER_06: Everything, everything's dictated by money.
46:40
SPEAKER_04: It'll happen.
46:42
SPEAKER_06: Just in time, yeah.
46:44
SPEAKER_04: There's smart people up there that are working on it, and that's why I trust.
46:46
SPEAKER_04: I I don't need to know what the plan is today.
46:49
SPEAKER_04: I'm just hoping in brain that they I know they're working on it.
46:52
SPEAKER_04: Right.
46:52
SPEAKER_04: Um the one element that I'm fascinated by, because you talked about promotion relegation, that's always a and always you ask, okay, why and what's it gonna do?
47:02
SPEAKER_04: Because I guess at the pro level, yes, at the youth level, I love a club-based league.
47:08
SPEAKER_04: I'd love to be able to go walk out here and they do have five games going on.
47:12
SPEAKER_04: Five games in a row, yeah, and we now built it so the second teams are there side by side.
47:17
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I can we can go in and assess in an environment 150 kids in a day.
47:23
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
47:24
SPEAKER_04: Where back in the day, one team's in Chicago, one team's in Detroit, one team's in Louisville, one like we're all over the map.
47:31
SPEAKER_04: And I had it, you'd be like, How'd it go?
47:34
SPEAKER_04: And now it's in we're all fragmented and individualized.
47:37
SPEAKER_04: We didn't have video, we couldn't go review a game.
47:39
SPEAKER_04: So there's so much we've got permanent cameras installed here now.
47:43
SPEAKER_04: We just added them, we've got so much more to our disposal.
47:46
SPEAKER_04: I want to have some semblance of a club basically now.
47:50
SPEAKER_04: Then it goes, well, how do you get the individual team that wants to be a part of that in some way, shape, or form?
47:53
SPEAKER_04: And I think there's models outside of soccer that can help you help us navigate that.
47:57
SPEAKER_04: How do you give a wild card?
47:58
SPEAKER_04: How do you allow that one-off a path and a place to go?
48:02
SPEAKER_05: Right.
48:02
SPEAKER_04: But I don't think it's scrapping it to go straight back to teams because I'll remind people, I'll bang the drum big time because it sucked when it was a race to the bottom, because everything was predicated on what did you do the year before.
48:13
SPEAKER_04: All of a sudden you talk to guys, I'm talking to guys in South Texas about their leagues, and then this is 2005.
48:20
SPEAKER_04: And it was like, well, whoever the U best U8 team is, U8 gets to be the gets into this league, and then they play it.
48:28
SPEAKER_04: It was always a race to the bottom.
48:30
SPEAKER_04: And that required you had to win.
48:32
SPEAKER_04: And winning a game at it, but 77, you need two players.
48:36
SPEAKER_06: Do you think it could be club based?
48:39
SPEAKER_06: Because I know that I mean you can have three really good age groups and then two that struggle, but the ECNL already ranks clubs anyway, you know, where it's like slammers and hawks and solar, and you guys are like what seven?
48:54
SPEAKER_00: On the girl side, yeah.
48:55
SPEAKER_06: No, and uh so could it be club based?
48:58
SPEAKER_06: Because it has to be club based because some coaches coach two or three teams at some clubs.
49:03
SPEAKER_04: There's a lot of like logistics, yes.
49:05
SPEAKER_04: The costs have gone down for us as a in the travel component based off of a club-based league, too.
49:10
SPEAKER_04: So there's almost I want to make sure we'd be really focused on that.
49:13
SPEAKER_04: They've gone down because we could send two coaches to coach four games on one site.
49:18
SPEAKER_04: One hotel.
49:18
SPEAKER_04: If it's two males, one hotel room instead of memorable four, four teams, four different sites.
49:23
SPEAKER_04: That's four hotel rooms, four prudiums, like that all it just now.
49:29
SPEAKER_04: I'm going, well, now it's two guys, two gals.
49:33
SPEAKER_04: Share a room, yeah.
49:34
SPEAKER_04: Share a runal car.
49:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
49:37
SPEAKER_04: So it's play together, you can order together.
49:40
SPEAKER_04: Perfect because that's the experience we've had is the last 10 years.
49:42
SPEAKER_04: That it's good.
49:42
SPEAKER_04: I gotta I gotta go back, open my eyes up, and go, well, tell me what it's like when you're a good U13 team and you're not a part of a club, basically.
49:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and what are your challenges?
49:50
SPEAKER_04: How do we what how do we connect to you?
49:51
SPEAKER_04: What's meaningful?
49:52
SPEAKER_04: What do you want out of it?
49:53
SPEAKER_04: There's a guy here in Columbus who's awesome.
49:55
SPEAKER_04: He gets to a point where he goes, Hey, I've got a couple good female players who are just beyond what I could.
50:00
SPEAKER_04: He pre-calls us and tells us about these kids.
50:03
SPEAKER_04: He goes, I'm gonna send them to your trust.
50:04
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's good.
50:05
SPEAKER_04: Sweet.
50:05
SPEAKER_04: 100%.
50:06
SPEAKER_04: But that's that doesn't happen.
50:08
SPEAKER_04: No, I'm like, I got we gotta clone you.
50:10
SPEAKER_04: Because his point is uh I want to do I want to do my role in the community at the younger ages and then pass them on to you when it's time the time is right.
50:17
SPEAKER_06: I'm like, also, don't you think that's why most clubs try to get multiple um affiliates and satellites?
50:26
SPEAKER_06: Because they're sick of feeders fighting them.
50:29
SPEAKER_06: Because I've been there, I've been a part of a community club that was constantly losing kids to the DA or losing kids to the ECNL, and it's like I'm sick of you for why what are the why what's the point of us toilet one?
50:41
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, so then I was like, I'm going to Vardar because the next time that I lose a wave of players, I'm just gonna go with them.
50:47
SPEAKER_06: And that's what I did, and it's funny because that like you talk about two coaches, and then you go to like Fest and you go to and you see all the MLS academies, and they're like bringing 14 people, 14 staff members.
51:01
SPEAKER_06: It's nuts.
51:02
SPEAKER_06: What was your role at Columbus?
51:03
SPEAKER_06: Remind me.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh I came in and and basically finished off the spring season as the U19 coach, and then uh basically for three years was the U17 coach.
51:12
SPEAKER_06: Okay, what years?
51:14
SPEAKER_01: 2021 to 23.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: So coming right out of COVID, moved from DC to the crew, I think February of 2021.
51:23
SPEAKER_06: So I think we talked about this uh uh previously.
51:26
SPEAKER_06: Ben Cross, was he there when you were there?
51:28
SPEAKER_01: He was with the first team.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: So he and I are actually uh assistant coaches together with the 20s.
51:34
SPEAKER_06: Got it.
51:34
SPEAKER_06: Oh yeah, that's right.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: Great too.
51:37
SPEAKER_06: And then Rory.
51:38
SPEAKER_06: Was Rory there, Charcella?
51:40
SPEAKER_06: No, MOS next or R N Y F C now they're in the ECNL on the boys side, but they were uh MOS next.
51:48
SPEAKER_06: But I mean, yeah, it's just wild.
51:51
SPEAKER_06: And when I talked to those MOS Academy guys, I'm like, how many guys did you bring?
51:54
SPEAKER_06: Well, and then I talked to like Paul Richie from SC, and it's like it's just me.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: Well, what when I started in the MLS in 2013 and left in 23, 20, yeah.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what my role was and the support staff that we had when I started compared to when I left and what I see it currently in today's day and age.
52:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, night and day difference.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: Even in 2021, when I first started at the crew, I was a head coach, but then I had to stay to act as an assistant coach for the U-15 team.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: Now with the crew, they got head coaches, they got assistant coaches, they got three goalkeeper coaches.
52:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a full staff.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: What changed?
52:37
SPEAKER_06: Was it Cleansman?
52:39
SPEAKER_01: What change in terms of our in terms of our country?
52:42
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, like yeah, just like the more serious the like to professionalize it in the way that it is now?
52:48
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of different components.
52:51
SPEAKER_01: There's, yeah, maybe a cleansman at at a national team level, you know, increasing demands and expectations.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: Sure, that helps.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: I think a guy like Fred Lipka, um, you know, going to I think what he's probably been in the league close to 15 years now.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: And you know, he came to DC United back in 2012 or 13, and we had one turf field and seven teams, and uh part of the turf field had waves in it.
53:17
SPEAKER_01: You couldn't like we couldn't plan the training session on that part of the field because somebody would roll an ankle or break a leg.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: And um, guys, like this isn't at the standard.
53:26
SPEAKER_01: And he he would call it out and hold people to it and works with the ownership groups and manages up the chain.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: So I think probably from an MLS perspective, especially in in the academies, he's probably a pretty significant contributor to that.
53:39
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
53:40
SPEAKER_04: And just the ripple effect of individuals that come into market, like Greg Barahalter was a huge breath of fresh air when he came in at the crew because he wanted to make it a special um having kids in the academy where it's gonna be a special element and a path that it was like before, and I remember this, there used to be crew juniors affiliates.
54:00
SPEAKER_04: Yep, Grand Rapids 100%.
54:02
SPEAKER_04: So there were elements where it could shifted massively, and his vision was to make it unique, special, and let's get the best kids in this environment.
54:09
SPEAKER_04: Well, it took some buying because there it was it was a new plan.
54:12
SPEAKER_04: He invites all the all of us down one day to a training session, a first team session, and was great.
54:18
SPEAKER_04: So he spent an hour with us after the session, goes into this room, there's 20, 30 of us in there, and he says, Hey, what'd you guys think of the training session?
54:24
SPEAKER_04: And you know, be critical.
54:25
SPEAKER_04: And all the guys are like, Does he really want feedback?
54:28
SPEAKER_02: No, no way he wants feedback, Craig.
54:31
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, all I asked was more uh I said, Hey, on that third element, it was a counter-attacking piece.
54:37
SPEAKER_04: I I could tell you were frustrated.
54:38
SPEAKER_04: Well, what what did you not see that you wanted to see better of?
54:42
SPEAKER_04: And he was talking about how the way Red Bull play, they bunker in and look to counter, and he goes, We weren't we weren't fast enough um breaking breaking lines, getting the ball out.
54:50
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, okay.
54:51
SPEAKER_04: So it's just but he was great because he was an open book, right?
54:54
SPEAKER_04: And guys were like, I can't believe you asked that.
54:55
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, but I'm being critical, it's just I want to know.
54:58
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because that's gonna help me understand a session.
55:01
SPEAKER_04: Because I guess when I as a kid, I got that role model.
55:03
SPEAKER_04: But our director and coaches, if something wasn't working, it was never on us.
55:08
SPEAKER_04: If he started with a 20 by 30 grid and two channels, three channels, whatever, and he wasn't getting out of it, he'd stop it and go, No, this is what I want.
55:16
SPEAKER_04: But it wasn't your first touch, your vision.
55:18
SPEAKER_04: It was let's make it a little bigger.
55:20
SPEAKER_04: So he changed the parameters of the session to make us more successful.
55:24
SPEAKER_04: And then before we even knew it, he was back to the 20 by 30 because then it was tighter faster.
55:28
SPEAKER_01: No magic players back in the days.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
55:31
SPEAKER_01: Never made a mistake.
55:32
SPEAKER_04: Well, that's the hard part because I grew up as a kid thinking everyone grew up a mile from the beach and would go on beach runs and then come train and then go down to the beach to the mid-afternoon, come back.
55:41
SPEAKER_04: Like it was bad because at 14, 15 years old, I'm like, oh, this is how everyone plays soccer.
55:46
SPEAKER_04: And I got a really unbelievably good experience because I thought everyone had that.
55:50
SPEAKER_04: Now, the clubs I remember as a kid, uh, your Gallagher's, um, Delcos, the I knew the clubs around the country that were at that level.
55:59
SPEAKER_04: I just assumed everybody had that experience, though.
56:01
SPEAKER_04: So when you say it's better, I say it's better.
56:04
SPEAKER_04: There's way more people like what Derek's legacy is not the national championships, and it's not the national team players, it's all the other coaches that are now across the country.
56:14
SPEAKER_04: I run in guys all over the country that are they'll be like, Oh, I'll remember the name.
56:17
SPEAKER_04: Like, where'd you grew up is like saying I go, Did you play no mats?
56:20
SPEAKER_04: He's like, Yeah, guys in Arkansas are doing what Derek taught us in the 80s.
56:25
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
56:25
SPEAKER_04: And his his legacy is maybe the discipleship, not uh the players and the championships.
56:31
SPEAKER_04: It's about your coaching tree.
56:32
SPEAKER_04: It's the coach 100%.
56:33
SPEAKER_04: I think 49ers.
56:35
SPEAKER_04: I think that's that model.
56:36
SPEAKER_04: Um, who's the guy?
56:38
SPEAKER_04: Um Bill Walsh.
56:39
SPEAKER_04: Bill Walsh.
56:40
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
56:40
SPEAKER_04: Well, I actually first time I ever read that.
56:42
SPEAKER_04: I went, Oh, that'd be a cool vision, the way your guys won Super Bowls.
56:45
SPEAKER_06: Like, I actually had this conversation yesterday.
56:47
SPEAKER_06: It's like, okay, I'm I'm born in Kansas City, so I'm a diehard Chiefs fan since I was like six years old.
56:53
SPEAKER_06: Who has the better coaching tree?
56:55
SPEAKER_06: Andy Reed or Bill Belichick?
56:57
SPEAKER_06: Bill Belichick might have more rings, but Andy has the better coaching tree, John Harbaugh and Ron Rivera and Sean McDermott and those guys.
57:04
SPEAKER_06: It's like you soccer coaches need to be in the game of coach development even more because they're you if you develop good coaches underneath you, they get to impact so many more kids than you can just by yourself.
57:21
SPEAKER_06: And that's what you were talking about when you're like, How can I replicate you?
57:25
SPEAKER_01: Are you are you coming to our technical meeting later?
57:27
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
57:28
SPEAKER_01: That's like we have technical meetings to where guys, this is this is the standard.
57:35
SPEAKER_01: This is what the expectation is.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: Do we expect you to get there overnight?
57:39
SPEAKER_01: No, it's gonna, it's gonna take a long time.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: Like it's gonna take commitment to your craft, it's gonna take you failing on the field, it's gonna take uh reflection, and uh like you're gonna have to put a lot into this.
57:52
SPEAKER_01: However, we're creating what the standard is, and we're showing our coaches what it looks like.
57:58
SPEAKER_01: We're we're having workshops, we're having discussions.
58:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it at the end of the day, if we don't participate in these types of activities, we're limited in the way that we can impact our coaches.
58:09
SPEAKER_06: Are you on the field right now with the club?
58:12
SPEAKER_06: Do you have a team or you just now listen?
58:15
SPEAKER_01: I first got here, you eight.
58:18
SPEAKER_01: But I and and like we laugh about it, but for me, our U8 to you, 10 space is probably the most important at our club.
58:25
SPEAKER_01: Of course it is.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: We want the kids to have fun, learn something new, make new friends, build their affinity for the club and the sport.
58:31
SPEAKER_01: And if if we fail doing those, then we're not setting the kid up for success.
58:35
SPEAKER_01: It's not about winning, it's not about losing.
58:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course, there are their soccer-specific components that we want to build into the kids, sure.
58:43
SPEAKER_01: But in in this country, and I think part of it's due to the the NFL football culture, basketball culture, baseball culture, where it's about winning and working hard.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure, that's part of it.
58:54
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, we want our kids to have fun, we want them to learn new things, we want them to really enjoy our club and the sport, and if we get that right, then we can add more to that foundation once we get to U11 Plus, and then and then we'll layer in the information in time.
59:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I I started coaching the U8 team because I was not happy with what I saw in our academy age categories, U8 to U10, when I first came.
59:19
SPEAKER_01: And all right, I'll I'll coach U8.
59:21
SPEAKER_01: I'll do it.
59:22
SPEAKER_01: Lead by example.
59:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh exactly.
59:24
SPEAKER_01: Now I don't coach a team currently, but I'm I'm on the field two to three times a week.
59:28
SPEAKER_01: Our director of player development, Eric Dutt, he's on the field two to three times a week.
59:32
SPEAKER_01: Our pre-formation director, Svety Matic, he's on the field two to three days a week.
59:37
SPEAKER_01: Like last week, and we were in Wilmington, so I was there.
59:40
SPEAKER_01: Svety, our pre-formation director, was there watching our 13s and 14s boys and girls teams.
59:45
SPEAKER_04: So like I said before, the value of his uh his hire will be determined in 20 years.
59:54
SPEAKER_04: Great, we what number eight and twenty-five on the boys for me.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_04: Sure, that's not that's not a metric.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_04: That's an arbitrary value.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_04: Even 20 years from now, when we look back on all the coaches he's impacted here and where they've gone on, because I tell coaches all the time, you want to go surrounds, we'll prepare you for that.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_04: That you're gonna get this is the environment you're gonna get access to information and and coaching development that very few other clubs can provide.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_01: And and it goes back to a maybe a facet of our initial conversation of like you get young coaches who go, Yeah, yeah, I want to coach one team or two teams and give me 80 grand.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_01: That's professional.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_01: That's not how it works.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: I I first started coaching for a club in a fairly uh prominent club now in Baltimore that was just getting started.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_01: I coached a U9 team and the U16 second team and made$500 a month.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: And I worked in a hotel part-time from 7 a.m.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_01: to 3 p.m.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_01: Because that like, but that that's what I had to do.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_01: And then I was fortunate because one of my best friends coached at DC United.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_01: I saw what he was doing.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh, hey man, I want to be a part of that.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm showing up to my training sessions, I'm not getting feedback, I don't know how to get better here.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: So I went and sought it out and I sacrificed uh financial security for experience and knowledge and all of those things early on, which uh allowed me to be where I am today.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_06: How long were you at DC United?
1:01:23
SPEAKER_01: What years?
1:01:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh I was there from I think two maybe end of 2012, early 2013 to 2021.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_01: I was there during COVID, and then as we were coming out of COVID, left to go to Columbus.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_06: Right.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_06: And now you're here.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_06: What how often do you do these technical meetings?
1:01:43
SPEAKER_01: Every Wednesday.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_06: Every Wednesday.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: Every Wednesday.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's tough.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_01: And it goes back to a little bit of the sentiment that I just discussed.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: Like we have coaches that have full-time jobs that are teachers or insurance brokers.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: I I don't know, uh a myriad of different uh professions.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_01: So it's not everybody wants to walk off of a field at 9 p.m.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_01: and hey guys, let's do let's have another real soccer conversation.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_01: Not to mention we have families and got to wake up the next morning to go to work.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_01: So we have them at 3 15, which then minimizes uh the impact that we can have on the broad scope of all of our coaches.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_01: Um and as an example, I had a coach call me today and he's like, hey, I can't come to the technical meeting because we got parent-teacher conferences this week.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: He's a teacher, right?
1:02:26
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's challenging in that regard, but we have different um different ways that we're we're able to impact coaches.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_01: So all of our coaches turn in a weekly planner every Sunday by 10 p.m.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't go through every single weekly planner and provide feedback, but myself, as well as our pre-formation director currently with our U11 to U14 boys and girls, we try to then each go through and grab a coach once a week.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: And I download their weekly planner, I look at it and I provide feedback.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_01: So now, if you use US soccer's terminology, you got the five W.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_01: So the who, what, when, where, why.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: We basically have that on our weekly planner, except in different verbiage terminology that then links uh to the different phases of the session that they'll bring to life on the field.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_01: So now I can say, all right, this is the phase that you want to train.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_01: This is the principle that you've identified, yet the objective of the training session doesn't match the phase of the principal, or you want to work on playing in the gaps in between the lines, which is one of our principles, but your game here is a one versus one or a two versus two.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's not the appropriate ingredients there in order to break lines or play in the gaps if you don't.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_01: So now the principles that we've implemented are the coaches' tools and resources to be able to teach and educate the players.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_01: It's the player's resource and tool to be able to solve problems in the game.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_01: So it allows us as directors and leadership to go, okay, the principles allow all of our teams to essentially bring the same uh style of play to life.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_01: It allows them to solve problems in the same way.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_01: And now as leaders, we can go in and go, all right, well, this is the principle, but you're you're not necessarily creating the appropriate activities, or the numbers aren't correct, or the methodology, the pedagogy that you want to use doesn't align with the principles.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_01: So now we can provide that feedback.
1:04:16
SPEAKER_01: You supplement that with a technical meeting where we go deeper into principles, we've discussed style of play, um, all of these different things to try to impact the coaches.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys record these?
1:04:27
SPEAKER_01: The technical meetings, no.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_01: You should.
1:04:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's uh two sides of every coin.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_01: I just think that not for public that's that's what we can't control.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_06: What do you mean?
1:04:41
SPEAKER_06: Okay, you can put up behind a private like group and stuff like that.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_01: Maybe so the the hard the hard part is or a website password or something.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_01: I I came to the club 2023.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_01: I walk out onto the field for to watch the first training session.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_01: This kid's wearing a white shirt, that kid's wearing a black shirt.
1:05:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
1:05:04
SPEAKER_01: So we've changed the standards.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_01: We've implemented massive changes in terms of the standards, the expectations for the staff, the training gear.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_01: It gives us a foundation of which to work from.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_01: It gives us a foundation to hold players accountable and be able to push them.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_01: If we can't hold them accountable to basic uniform standards, then how are we going to push them in the training environment?
1:05:25
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_01: So through that process, I'm trying to take a lot of the best practices that I was effectively evaluated on at an MLS level in developing players for a first team and scaling them for the coaches at our club for the benefit of the players.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want to be clear in saying we're not trying to create OP the MLS club.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_01: We're just trying to use a lot of the best practices that that Eric or myself used in an MLS world to develop players and make sure that the players under our care get that experience.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_01: Now, we have coaches that go, Yeah, you know what, that's not For me.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to do these things that Gus is asking.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, no, that's that's no problem.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this isn't for for you.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_01: We have other coaches that go, wow, this is awesome.
1:06:11
SPEAKER_01: This is stimulating.
1:06:12
SPEAKER_01: Now we've we've had some turnover in the past three years.
1:06:16
SPEAKER_01: No, no problem.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, and we will continue to have that.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_01: That being said, we have to be careful, especially in a competitive market.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes, Columbus is small, it's competitive.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, and not that we necessarily have proprietary information, there's no secrets in youth development or football.
1:06:35
SPEAKER_01: But I think we have to be intentional in how we share information.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_01: And I know if I make everything available to people after the meeting, guess what they're not gonna know?
1:06:44
SPEAKER_06: Go to the meeting because I'll pay attention during the meeting.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_01: Because I I've got my job, I've got other responsibilities, and you know what?
1:06:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna hit the easy button today.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna go to the technical meeting because I know that Gus is gonna make it available to me later.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_06: You're right.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_06: It's funny because uh of you know, like the the training shirts and stuff like that.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_06: I that mentor Matt Pakovitz, and that was one thing.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_06: He's like, when people drive by, they want we we want people to know that that's a LOSC training session.
1:07:14
SPEAKER_06: And it's amazing how many clubs don't even just do that portion.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_01: It's it's a it's a peppee of mine.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_06: Um I can't I can't stand it when like one of my peppies is uh pennies or vests, bibs, whatever you want to call them, is when one team is wearing all red bibs, and then the other team is 15 different colors because they just wear their own shirt.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_01: And and that I mean like even even for our staff, and it's it's hard, it's not like you're in an MLS world where Adidas is giving you X amount of uh coaching attire, and all right, guys, everybody is wearing this on the exact same day, and then after your training session, you throw it into the laundry and it's in your locker the next day.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_01: Um in an ideal world, yeah, I would like all of our staff to be uniform and the same color and it doesn't conflict with that of the players.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_01: However, we're we're not quite there yet, just because it's the reality of our club and youth amateur soccer in the United States of America and shirts like that in Central, South America, Europe as well.
1:08:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we can all we're a Nike sponsored club, so we can all wear Nike.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_01: We're fortunate as a club that we can provide Nike shoes to our coaches.
1:08:23
SPEAKER_01: We can provide enough to where they're wearing Nike shorts, Nike shirts.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_01: Um and that's the professionalism that that we expect.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_01: Um and is a staff, if we don't show up wearing the right gear, we'll we're kind of the putt calling the kettle black if we're then gonna ask the players to adhere to the same standards.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_06: When I was at Vardar, Nike would yell at like some of the coaches and they're like, Why are you wearing last year's stuff?
1:08:49
SPEAKER_06: And like Liverpool now, they have to wear like this year's stuff.
1:08:54
SPEAKER_06: Like the mother club will come and yell at them and be like, Hey, why are you wearing last like two years ago gear?
1:09:02
SPEAKER_06: So, what do you do with all this gear?
1:09:03
SPEAKER_06: Just give it away, right?
1:09:05
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, that's neither here nor there.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_06: But do you so one of the knocks on MLS academies is that there's too few of them, right?
1:09:15
SPEAKER_06: Too few MLS academies.
1:09:17
SPEAKER_06: Meaning there's only 30.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_06: And with how big of our country is, we need more.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_06: We need to get to 50.
1:09:23
SPEAKER_04: We do the overlay, put it over Europe and said, Oh, there are only 30 professional clubs in Europe, right?
1:09:30
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_04: No, it's 3,000.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
1:09:33
SPEAKER_04: So we're way behind.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_01: But it goes back to what we were discussing earlier.
1:09:36
SPEAKER_01: Like we're a young soccer nation, right?
1:09:38
SPEAKER_01: A young football nation.
1:09:39
SPEAKER_01: So the fact that we have 30 MLS Academies or whatever the number is currently compared to where we were 10, 12 years ago.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you didn't have an Ashville, you didn't have an Atlanta, you didn't have a Charlotte, um, you didn't have an LAFC, you didn't have a St.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_01: Louis, you didn't have a Minnesota.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:09:57
SPEAKER_01: Like that, that's seven that I just quickly rattled off.
1:10:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're we're growing, it's just going to take time.
1:10:03
SPEAKER_06: When I had Jordan Allen on from Real Salt Lake, well, he's at Monarchs now, but he was the 16s at Real Salt Lake, and they were talking about training to game ratio.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_06: And it's nine to one because they train twice a day, four days a week, and then they do like a walkthrough on Friday, and then they play one game, and it's nine to one.
1:10:24
SPEAKER_06: How can we, as non-MLS clubs, up the training to game ratio?
1:10:31
SPEAKER_06: It's so hard.
1:10:32
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a bit of a loaded question.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm a I'm a coach by nature.
1:10:39
SPEAKER_01: That's how I support my family.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_01: That's that's how I put food on the table.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_01: So I'd be lying to you if I told you that there wasn't a level of importance that we need to place on coaches and ed soccer educators in this country.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_01: Brazil, France, Brazil historically developed the best soccer players in the world.
1:10:58
SPEAKER_01: They played on the streets, they played in favelas, they played pickup soccer.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_01: You mean to tell me that there was coaches out there coaching them?
1:11:04
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:11:05
SPEAKER_01: So I think personally, and and I got to this place a little bit in the MLS world where, okay, when I first got in 12 years ago, whenever it was, 2013, I ran three training sessions a week.
1:11:18
SPEAKER_01: And then by the end of my tenure, it was at four.
1:11:21
SPEAKER_01: And then I got to the crew and it was five.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_01: And by the time I ended my tenure at the crew, it was seven to eight.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_01: But for and and we try to create this culture with our coaches, okay, we have principles that they choose from.
1:11:33
SPEAKER_01: That's how they determine what they are what they are going to coach in training, is by identifying and selecting a principal.
1:11:40
SPEAKER_01: I don't give them a training session and say, hey, go run this session.
1:11:44
SPEAKER_01: Like we want them to be the artists.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_01: Here's your Blake Canvas.
1:11:47
SPEAKER_01: You're not going to get better as a coach if you don't create an activity, go try to implement it and run it, and then reflect on, okay, what was what was my actual, what was a predicted behavior versus what was the actual, and now how am I going to adjust the activity to evolve and get better for the benefit of the players the next time?
1:12:05
SPEAKER_01: So with the crew, it was like I got to a point where I didn't feel like I was able to spend the time creating activities and going through that, let's call it an artistic process because I enjoy that.
1:12:17
SPEAKER_01: That's the coach education and the coach development side of me.
1:12:20
SPEAKER_01: Like I enjoy the process of creating new activities, putting it on a board.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's ask some questions, figure out what's going to work, what's not going to work, and then let's go see what it looks like on the field.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_01: So I got to a point where I was required to turn in seven training sessions a week.
1:12:38
SPEAKER_01: And if you have to do all of that work, plus okay, you're facilitating IDPs, there's technical meetings, you're preparing for matches, you're watching games back, you're scouting the opponent.
1:12:48
SPEAKER_01: You don't have time to create new activities.
1:12:51
SPEAKER_01: So then what's what's the natural response?
1:12:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, you're just going to take what you've done before and you're going to go out and you're going to run it again.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_01: And there's a benefit to it, of course.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_01: However, I felt like it got to a point where the players show up and it's like, all right, coach, what are we doing today?
1:13:05
SPEAKER_01: It's Wednesday, or like they know what it's coming.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_01: There's no responsibility on the player to show up.
1:13:12
SPEAKER_01: And hey, like, what am I going to do pre-trained?
1:13:15
SPEAKER_01: Everything is coach-led now.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_01: So you go back to Brazil or you go to uh maybe youth basketball culture in this country, go to New York City, there's a basketball course, there's no referees, there's no parents, there's no coaches, there's kids that are experimenting, trying new things, playing pickup basketball, and that's a part of development.
1:13:33
SPEAKER_01: So I love the fact that there's a nine to one game ratio, training to game ratio somewhere in this country.
1:13:38
SPEAKER_01: I hope that's at a professional level because it's if it's at a youth level for me, it's too sterilized.
1:13:43
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
1:13:43
SPEAKER_01: Like we in our competition days that I was speaking to earlier, there's a time and a place to coach, but we want the players to play.
1:13:52
SPEAKER_01: We want them to experiment and try new things.
1:13:54
SPEAKER_01: I want kids to do four stepovers and maradonas.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_01: And if it doesn't come off, no problem.
1:13:59
SPEAKER_01: As long as the response to the loss of possession is good, it's no problem.
1:14:03
SPEAKER_01: So, to answer your question, I think three training sessions where our club is concerned is perfect.
1:14:09
SPEAKER_01: As long as the players then find time on a Monday or a Friday, depending on how many games that we have on the weekend, to juggle.
1:14:17
SPEAKER_01: Like go juggle for 15 minutes, go dribble in your backyard, get your brother or your sister, and just go play.
1:14:23
SPEAKER_06: Uh-huh.
1:14:23
SPEAKER_06: And again, that's that pie chart, that player piece.
1:14:26
SPEAKER_06: It's like you got these players, it's the bare minimum.
1:14:30
SPEAKER_06: Those three sessions in the games on the weekend is the bare minimum if you want to be an elite player in this country.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_06: And and what's next?
1:14:39
SPEAKER_06: What's you know, more?
1:14:42
SPEAKER_06: How and you gotta go in what do you got 10 minutes?
1:14:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I got 10 to 12 minutes.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_06: Um, what does your player pool look like?
1:14:51
SPEAKER_06: Like, how big is the radius that you get kids to come here?
1:14:55
SPEAKER_01: We have kids that drive out from Cincinnati.
1:14:58
SPEAKER_01: We have kids from Dayton.
1:14:58
SPEAKER_01: We've got kids.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_03: Two hours?
1:15:01
SPEAKER_03: 90 minutes.
1:15:01
SPEAKER_03: Depending on depending on traffic.
1:15:02
SPEAKER_01: Depending on traffic.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh Toledo, Dayton, Cincinnati.
1:15:08
SPEAKER_01: I think at one point in time we had some kids driving up from West Virginia.
1:15:13
SPEAKER_06: What do you got?
1:15:13
SPEAKER_06: Four ECNL teams now?
1:15:15
SPEAKER_06: You got GTFC, Cleveland Floors, Internationals, and you guys, right?
1:15:20
SPEAKER_06: That's a four in Ohio.
1:15:21
SPEAKER_06: Oh, no, elite five.
1:15:23
SPEAKER_06: I forgot.
1:15:25
SPEAKER_06: Is there another one in Cincinnati?
1:15:26
SPEAKER_06: Uh King's Hammer's gone.
1:15:28
SPEAKER_06: I know that.
1:15:29
SPEAKER_06: I think that's it.
1:15:31
SPEAKER_06: Is that too many?
1:15:33
SPEAKER_06: In Ohio.
1:15:34
SPEAKER_06: I don't think so.
1:15:35
SPEAKER_04: Going to where you're talking about where the leagues align the top to bottom.
1:15:41
SPEAKER_04: Draw a circle of like a good conference would be.
1:15:44
SPEAKER_04: I think it'd be a is that eight clubs, ten clubs.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_04: I think we should raise the bar to a level where we're getting moving in that direction.
1:15:51
SPEAKER_04: So I don't think five's too many.
1:15:53
SPEAKER_06: You want more.
1:15:55
SPEAKER_06: I that's that's my opinion, too, is like let everybody in.
1:16:00
SPEAKER_04: But and but but there's a but there's a challenge.
1:16:03
SPEAKER_04: And that's been happening.
1:16:04
SPEAKER_04: This goes back in the history piece, especially.
1:16:06
SPEAKER_04: Oh, they're closed, it's a close late.
1:16:07
SPEAKER_04: That's not true.
1:16:08
SPEAKER_04: It started with 40 clubs.
1:16:10
SPEAKER_01: But okay, let's let's take this as an example.
1:16:13
SPEAKER_01: We took some of our teams, boys' teams, to DC for preseason.
1:16:17
SPEAKER_01: We could have stayed here, we could have played local teams.
1:16:19
SPEAKER_01: However, we took them to DC and we played MLS next teams in the Copa Rayados.
1:16:24
SPEAKER_01: Some of our teams got smashed.
1:16:27
SPEAKER_01: And it was great because, guys, there's life outside of Ohio.
1:16:32
SPEAKER_01: Just because we're a competitive ECNL team in Columbus, Ohio, uh Columbus, what, maybe a million people?
1:16:40
SPEAKER_01: You go to DC and there's six million people.
1:16:43
SPEAKER_01: So the amount of competitive soccer clubs that you can have in DC is going to be vastly greater compared to Columbus, Ohio.
1:16:53
SPEAKER_01: So then, yes, do we want more competitive soccer clubs in Ohio?
1:16:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:16:57
SPEAKER_01: But the population of Dayton compared to Columbus is different.
1:17:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know, give me an obscure Ohio city.
1:17:06
SPEAKER_01: Obscure.
1:17:07
SPEAKER_01: Akron.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_01: Akron.
1:17:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, it's close enough to Cleveland, but if you drop another ECNL club in Akron, are you able to draw enough competitive soccer players to form year after year after year competitive soccer club uh teams, excuse me, in in the city of Akron to compete at a high level?
1:17:26
SPEAKER_01: I I think that's the real question.
1:17:28
SPEAKER_01: So in DC, you've got the population for it.
1:17:30
SPEAKER_01: Maybe in Ohio, you don't necessarily have the the concentrated density and population of people to be able to have these clubs.
1:17:40
SPEAKER_06: When you said there's life outside of Ohio, that was my very first realization that Buffalo was so far behind when I got there in 2015.
1:17:51
SPEAKER_06: Because like they were like, Oh, this is our best player, this is our most special player.
1:17:55
SPEAKER_06: And I'm like, he's regionally special, he's not nationally special.
1:18:00
SPEAKER_06: Like, there's there's layers to this sport, and that was kind of like my thought process back then.
1:18:09
SPEAKER_06: It's like there's so much out there that people don't know, and that's exactly why I'm doing this these tours and going all over the country because I want to expose like or showcase or highlight how big this country is and how many people are doing things just a little bit differently, correct?
1:18:28
SPEAKER_01: And so our objective as a club is to maximize player development, right?
1:18:33
SPEAKER_01: If we had a decision with our U13 and our U14 boys, we can stay in Ohio and have a fun preseason, or we can go to DC.
1:18:41
SPEAKER_01: We played three DC based clubs for our U13 boys.
1:18:47
SPEAKER_01: We didn't win any of the games, but the players left and the the coach left, going, Whew.
1:18:52
SPEAKER_01: There's there's life outside of Ohio.
1:18:54
SPEAKER_01: Look at all of these things that this this these three teams did really, really well that our kids aren't consistent at doing on the field over 70 minutes or 80 minutes or 90 minutes, however long the game is.
1:19:07
SPEAKER_01: So we're we're strategic in in that sense of yeah, like we can get some good games in Ohio, but if we really want to maximize player development, if we really want to challenge our players and our teams, we'll then we have to take some risks.
1:19:21
SPEAKER_01: We gotta go other places, we gotta find different competition.
1:19:25
SPEAKER_06: How many boys in the last three years?
1:19:28
SPEAKER_06: Let's just say three years, have you guys uh placed in MLS Academies?
1:19:35
SPEAKER_01: It's a good uh Eric Eric Dutt might be better athletic stankies that mix.
1:19:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe five, five to seven during my time at the crew.
1:19:45
SPEAKER_01: There was five, I'd probably another five to seven that that came in.
1:19:50
SPEAKER_01: Um Andre Roberts plays at uh Ohio State right now.
1:19:54
SPEAKER_01: He was at OP, was at the crew.
1:19:56
SPEAKER_04: Um he would go in and out based on cycles of years.
1:20:00
SPEAKER_01: Donnie Williams was at uh the crew went to OSU.
1:20:05
SPEAKER_01: Um was at OP originally.
1:20:07
SPEAKER_01: Um a decent amount.
1:20:09
SPEAKER_06: And the reason why I ask that is that like people need to realize because I get these DMs all the time.
1:20:14
SPEAKER_06: It's like, do I have to play in an MLS next academy to make an MLS Academy?
1:20:18
SPEAKER_06: I'm like, no, they they recruit ECNL players and they recruit outside, which people don't realize.
1:20:25
SPEAKER_06: Some of them they they recruit outside of it.
1:20:29
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's it's it's amazing though.
1:20:30
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm I'm fortunate in the sense that I've seen it from an MLS Academy perspective here in in Columbus, and then I've seen it on the other side here at OP.
1:20:41
SPEAKER_01: When I was when I was at Columbus, we had kids that would come in from OP or other clubs in the area, and they were 15, 16, 17 years old.
1:20:49
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, like, yeah, hey, this kid, like let's let's take a risk on this kid and let's let's bring him in full-time.
1:20:54
SPEAKER_01: Others, uh, now's not the time.
1:20:57
SPEAKER_01: Like, here's here's the feedback, Chris Bear, that we're gonna provide to you on on little Joey.
1:21:01
SPEAKER_01: Now the crew has expanded their programming to have pre-formation, which is U11 to U14.
1:21:06
SPEAKER_01: And the amount of importance placed on 11, 10, 11, 12, 13-year-olds to get into this programming because ultimately, if they don't get in now, they're not gonna make it into an MLS Academy, is is absurd.
1:21:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
1:21:21
SPEAKER_06: So it's a lot of lying, it's a lot of scare tactics, it's a lot of I think it's just misinformation.
1:21:26
SPEAKER_03: No, misinformation lie is hard.
1:21:28
SPEAKER_03: And it is just it's education and then trust.
1:21:32
SPEAKER_03: And who do you trust?
1:21:33
SPEAKER_03: I want information.
1:21:34
SPEAKER_03: Let's just say be patient.
1:21:35
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
1:21:36
SPEAKER_01: And my point is not this is one year.
1:21:37
SPEAKER_01: And my point is not, it's not the crew exerting the pressure and saying, hey guys, you got to be here.
1:21:42
SPEAKER_01: It's keeping up with the Joneses and well, Jason's got his kid at the crew.
1:21:47
SPEAKER_01: I I got to get my kid there.
1:21:49
SPEAKER_01: And and guys, everyone's pathway is different.
1:21:53
SPEAKER_01: Like just because the crew for Chris's 11-year-old is the right thing now doesn't mean that it's the same for Jason's 11-year-old.
1:22:01
SPEAKER_01: And Jason's 11-year-old, when he's 15, that might be the appropriate time, depending on where he is in his development.
1:22:08
SPEAKER_01: It might make sense for him to go to the crew, or it might make sense when he's 17.
1:22:12
SPEAKER_01: Or late developer in college.
1:22:14
SPEAKER_04: You know, like there's so much that we get wrong with absolutes of player development.
1:22:20
SPEAKER_06: And you talk about keeping up with the Joneses.
1:22:23
SPEAKER_06: That's what's happening in Michigan, I feel, right now, because the Hawks offer 10 months.
1:22:30
SPEAKER_06: They offer the full year.
1:22:32
SPEAKER_06: So what does Nationals do?
1:22:34
SPEAKER_06: They have to offer.
1:22:36
SPEAKER_06: And now Liverpool is like bleeding players because they were trying to get into those full year environments, and it's like it's hurting them a little bit because they haven't kept up with the Joneses.
1:22:49
SPEAKER_06: It's like and then they try to market it as well, we allow high school.
1:22:54
SPEAKER_06: So you know what I mean.
1:22:56
SPEAKER_04: You're gonna put a spin on that that benefits you exactly that piece.
1:22:59
SPEAKER_04: And that goes back to your idea of what's the optimal goal?
1:23:02
SPEAKER_04: 10 clubs in Ohio, great, but there's so much more that goes into that geography, player pools, development, and clubs will go, oh, we're the next best.
1:23:11
SPEAKER_04: But for we're like, Well, what are the standards by which we're measuring that?
1:23:14
SPEAKER_04: When people come here and go, wait, this was like they had that same buzz you did.
1:23:18
SPEAKER_04: We don't have this, we didn't do it to make it you don't have it.
1:23:22
SPEAKER_04: And you know what I'm saying?
1:23:23
SPEAKER_04: Right there, and that because the motives why did it do that?
1:23:27
SPEAKER_04: Oh, to steal our players or like okay.
1:23:30
SPEAKER_04: So we we we get into really slippery slopes of language to say, here's the standards by which the next club gets admitted.
1:23:35
SPEAKER_04: And less hard.
1:23:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm limited on time.
1:23:38
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
1:23:39
SPEAKER_01: However, we experience it with a club in the market got MLS next homegrown.
1:23:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we got to go homegrown, homegrown's the best.
1:23:47
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we're an ECNL club.
1:23:49
SPEAKER_01: We we enjoy the benefits that the ECNL platform offers our teams and our players.
1:23:54
SPEAKER_01: That being said, the platform enhances the environment that the club creates.
1:24:00
SPEAKER_01: If my coach provides the effective and appropriate balance of challenge and support, I'm I'm pushed.
1:24:10
SPEAKER_01: My teammates are just as committed as I am.
1:24:12
SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a real way, a methodology, a style of play from the top down, and how the team is supposed to perform.
1:24:20
SPEAKER_01: The coaches are getting feedback, and there is a real environment that's created for my kid at this club day to day.
1:24:28
SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, it's like the platform is secondary to all that.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_01: So I I tell I've and I've had this conversation with parents.
1:24:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay, if your your kid struggles at math, do they get better taking a math test?
1:24:40
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:24:41
SPEAKER_01: They get better by the teacher.
1:24:44
SPEAKER_01: They're pulling and designing lesson plans from a curriculum to help support the student.
1:24:50
SPEAKER_01: We're the same.
1:24:51
SPEAKER_01: We create the environment so we don't go throw our kids in ECNL matches and go, man, you're going to get better from playing in this match.
1:24:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you are.
1:25:00
SPEAKER_01: But we are arming the kids with information and solutions to solve problems that they're going to experience in a match.
1:25:06
SPEAKER_01: And then our job as the coach is to guide them through how they solve those problems in the match.
1:25:11
SPEAKER_01: As a kid, when I struggled with math, I always went up and asked the math teacher, hey, uh, I don't know what's going on with this problem.
1:25:15
SPEAKER_01: Can you help me?
1:25:16
SPEAKER_01: We try to do that on the on the tests on the weekend with the kids, but it all comes back to the three training days.
1:25:23
SPEAKER_01: We arm them with information, we support them, we challenge them, we push them, and then we test them on the weekends.
1:25:28
SPEAKER_01: If we don't do our job in those three training days, then the platform doesn't matter.
1:25:32
SPEAKER_06: Exactly.
1:25:33
SPEAKER_06: And I love getting DMs of from parents complaining about something in the MOS next or something in the ECNL.
1:25:40
SPEAKER_06: And I'm like, that's a club issue.
1:25:42
SPEAKER_06: The ECNL has no bearing over what you're complaining about, right?
1:25:46
SPEAKER_06: That's that's your club, that's your individual coach.
1:25:49
SPEAKER_06: That's not an ECNL issue.
1:25:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:25:51
SPEAKER_01: Now listen, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here in front of you and say, man, everything that we do is the best and it's perfect.
1:25:56
SPEAKER_01: Like I've been here for three years and we're we're slowly growing and changing and evolving.
1:26:01
SPEAKER_01: You can't rip the band-aid off at once.
1:26:02
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, there's there's things that I'm like, I want to do better here.
1:26:05
SPEAKER_01: And we'll we'll we'll get there, but we're we're a fairly large club.
1:26:09
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of different people that we have to impact coaches, players, parents, different members of staff that that aren't necessarily on the field to optimize how we work.
1:26:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, but at the end of the day, if we can commit ourselves to the quality of the training environment that we provide three days a week, that the the platform on the weekend is secondary to all of it.
1:26:29
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
1:26:30
SPEAKER_06: I'll let you run.
1:26:31
SPEAKER_06: Okay, yeah.
1:26:32
SPEAKER_06: Great thank you, thanks for the time.
1:26:34
SPEAKER_06: Thank you, brother.
1:26:34
SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
1:26:35
SPEAKER_06: We'll continue.
1:26:35
SPEAKER_04: To my point on how excited I wasn't.
1:26:38
SPEAKER_04: I get it.
1:26:39
SPEAKER_04: I get it.
1:26:39
SPEAKER_06: I get why you're so excited about it.
1:26:41
SPEAKER_06: Thanks, brother.
1:26:42
SPEAKER_06: I'll see you in a route.
1:26:44
SPEAKER_04: But yeah, yeah, I get it.
1:26:47
SPEAKER_04: I'm 56 years old, feeling like I'm fresh to the game.
1:26:50
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:26:50
SPEAKER_04: On my college.
1:26:51
SPEAKER_04: It's just uh like the passion and uh I desperately want to get away and get back into coaching because of him and the influence he's had and what I can see.
1:26:58
SPEAKER_04: And I come to those technical meetings, I've been blocking out my Wednesday afternoon schedule just so I can say I don't know.
1:27:04
SPEAKER_04: I'm not coaching anybody, but I'm what I'm I'm jumping in off it.
1:27:07
SPEAKER_04: And I'll sit there and I see the.
1:27:08
SPEAKER_06: All 80 coaches are gonna be here today.
1:27:10
SPEAKER_04: No, that's what you saw about that diminishing.
1:27:12
SPEAKER_04: Like we want to cast that.
1:27:14
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
1:27:15
SPEAKER_04: We can't get them all.
1:27:16
SPEAKER_04: There's no time we could we could we we do a seasonal where we try and get everybody between the two rooms, we can get about 40.
1:27:22
SPEAKER_06: And right now, your girls aren't in and your boys aren't in because of high school, right?
1:27:26
SPEAKER_06: The older correct.
1:27:28
SPEAKER_04: So there's you got the seasonal challenges.
1:27:30
SPEAKER_04: There are so many things in an appropriate world we talk about.
1:27:32
SPEAKER_04: This is what it should be, and then you have to get to the reality of it.
1:27:34
SPEAKER_04: I grew up in San Diego, coming to Ohio to run training sessions.
1:27:38
SPEAKER_04: I almost quit because I'm like, this is impossible.
1:27:40
SPEAKER_04: There's no way I can succeed.
1:27:42
SPEAKER_04: I envisioned 10 seasons, 10 month seasons of good weather.
1:27:46
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
1:27:46
SPEAKER_04: I never played indoor, I never went to say, do three months of a wall.
1:27:51
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, and I'm all I can see was a ball getting kicked into a wall, coming back to a kid.
1:27:56
SPEAKER_04: Parents are going, Oh, this is great, you won.
1:27:58
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, we're losing.
1:28:00
SPEAKER_04: This isn't like I I it blew my mind, but then I had to adjust because I couldn't say no.
1:28:05
SPEAKER_04: I had to go, well, I put restrictions in indoor games.
1:28:07
SPEAKER_04: I said, We're not gonna use a wall.
1:28:08
SPEAKER_04: Drove parents crazy because we'd lose.
1:28:11
SPEAKER_04: But I'm like, let's build for the outdoor spring season with our indoor train.
1:28:14
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:28:14
SPEAKER_04: Now facilities changed, and now we got netted facilities, no walls.
1:28:18
SPEAKER_04: I'm like better.
1:28:19
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:28:19
SPEAKER_04: But we're training on a 30 by 40.
1:28:21
SPEAKER_04: So then we take kids to let's say an early event in March.
1:28:25
SPEAKER_04: This is going back 15 years ago.
1:28:26
SPEAKER_04: We'd go to the Vegas showcase, kids were balling out, and like oh, this will be good.
1:28:30
SPEAKER_04: And then we get there and I'm like, we got our butts kicked.
1:28:32
SPEAKER_02: We hadn't seen a flighted ball in four months.
1:28:35
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
1:28:36
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, oh, so then I adjusted my trainings.
1:28:39
SPEAKER_04: Kids were looking at me like I was crazy.
1:28:41
SPEAKER_04: We'd spend a half hour driving balls into the top corners of the nets, just anywhere.
1:28:44
SPEAKER_04: I'd put I'd I'd crawl up, hang pendulum targets.
1:28:47
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:28:48
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, go drive them, clip them, bend them.
1:28:50
SPEAKER_04: And then it got better.
1:28:51
SPEAKER_04: Still maybe they didn't win, but it like this were competing.
1:28:53
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:28:54
SPEAKER_04: Because parents are like, oh, we're so far behind.
1:28:55
SPEAKER_04: It's like there was such nuance to putting it all together.
1:28:58
SPEAKER_04: They could work.
1:28:58
SPEAKER_04: I thought I found the biggest challenge for me was weather and adjusting.
1:29:03
SPEAKER_04: And then seasons, and it's like it's hard.
1:29:07
SPEAKER_06: You left San Diego to come here.
1:29:09
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, change the seasons.
1:29:10
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
1:29:11
SPEAKER_04: Sunning 70 gets boring.
1:29:12
SPEAKER_04: Um.
1:29:14
SPEAKER_04: No, God's got a great sense of humor because one of the things I declared the first day that I got, well, I guess when the weather first came out, I came here for rad school at Ohio State.
1:29:23
SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
1:29:24
SPEAKER_04: Got my sports management degree.
1:29:26
SPEAKER_04: Gets about November, and I'm in winter coat, like freaking out because it's 45 degrees.
1:29:32
SPEAKER_04: And everyone's like, oh, look at SoCal.
1:29:34
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, I'm freaking out.
1:29:35
SPEAKER_04: They're in jeans and flannels.
1:29:37
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, oh my gosh, the world is ending.
1:29:39
SPEAKER_04: I'd never been through a winter.
1:29:42
SPEAKER_04: And so I swore I'm like, awesome place to be.
1:29:45
SPEAKER_04: I'm excited to get my degree, but two years I'm going.
1:29:47
SPEAKER_04: I'm going back to San Diego.
1:29:49
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:29:49
SPEAKER_04: And midway through my second session or second year, they announce MLS coming and Columbus is gonna have a franchise.
1:29:55
SPEAKER_04: So here I'm at soccer guy with a master's degree.
1:29:59
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, I stay.
1:30:02
SPEAKER_04: 96 work for ML for the crew.
1:30:04
SPEAKER_04: 97, my job changes, and my daily gets connected to more of the team environment.
1:30:10
SPEAKER_04: Um Amy Armstrong's the athletic trainer, physical therapist for the team.
1:30:15
SPEAKER_04: We become good friends.
1:30:17
SPEAKER_04: By a year later, we're engaged.
1:30:20
SPEAKER_04: Like the like there were so many little things where Captain Declaring, San Diego, San Diego, San Diego.
1:30:25
SPEAKER_04: What ultimately kept us here was that she was divorced with Colin was eight at the time we started dating.
1:30:30
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
1:30:30
SPEAKER_04: By the time we got engaged, she's nine.
1:30:32
SPEAKER_04: We're thinking I'd gotten a college job in San Diego.
1:30:34
SPEAKER_04: I'm going back to coaching nomads.
1:30:36
SPEAKER_04: We're thinking get married and live there.
1:30:38
SPEAKER_04: And then custody issues in the state of Ohio came up with Colin.
1:30:42
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, oh, I'm not doing that to the kid.
1:30:45
SPEAKER_04: So it was back to Ohio.
1:30:46
SPEAKER_04: So that's what ultimately kept us here.
1:30:48
SPEAKER_04: Got it.
1:30:49
SPEAKER_04: But um, yeah, it's been fascinating.
1:30:51
SPEAKER_04: And there are elements of Columbus, Ohio that I wouldn't none of that.
1:30:54
SPEAKER_04: I was a knucklehead in those days.
1:30:56
SPEAKER_04: Like I really thought, this is it, this is where I have to be.
1:30:59
SPEAKER_04: God's best blessed me so much through that marriage, through the through that that challenge of a stepson.
1:31:05
SPEAKER_04: It could have I could have thought in my head, oh, he's keeping me from my career.
1:31:08
SPEAKER_04: And right now, there was something profound that I'm like, his environment matters more than mine.
1:31:13
SPEAKER_04: And I was willing to make that adjustment.
1:31:15
SPEAKER_04: But changing all those dynamics here and learning from John Lipsitz on how to manage a spring schedule for these kids.
1:31:21
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, I was canceling training sessions almost every day.
1:31:24
SPEAKER_04: Because in San Diego, if the weather report in the warning was thunderstorms, you cancel here was wait an hour, it's gonna change.
1:31:32
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
1:31:32
SPEAKER_04: Right?
1:31:33
SPEAKER_04: I had to learn that.
1:31:34
SPEAKER_04: And parents are so frustrated and they're like, why is he always canceling?
1:31:37
SPEAKER_04: It was perfect at 4 30, 5 o'clock.
1:31:39
SPEAKER_04: Well, I'm canceling at 11 because I'm like, Oh, I heard there's storms coming.
1:31:42
SPEAKER_04: I was total not clear.
1:31:44
SPEAKER_04: So there's just elements I'm always fascinated by how people say it a lot of the time, like, wait, why did you choose this?
1:31:49
SPEAKER_04: I did, and I'm glad I didn't because I I would have chosen poorly.
1:31:53
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:31:54
SPEAKER_04: I think I really do believe my faith it drives a lot of my thought process on this, and it wasn't something I that was 27, 28 years old.
1:32:00
SPEAKER_04: I got to the end of my rope.
1:32:01
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, that me managing my life isn't going well.
1:32:04
SPEAKER_04: I need I need help.
1:32:06
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:32:06
SPEAKER_04: And so that's reoriented me to a place where I'm super grateful.
1:32:09
SPEAKER_04: That's why I'm I'm really confident in the ability of the people wanting to provide goals and make things better.
1:32:15
SPEAKER_04: I I'm not asking for perfection.
1:32:17
SPEAKER_04: I don't want it to be perfect.
1:32:18
SPEAKER_04: I just want I I know that there's people who can who are way smarter than me and think go, yeah, we can make this better, but it's a massive undertaking and having been behind the scenes at US club for a long time of how it takes time to change that environment.
1:32:31
SPEAKER_04: Culture, it's like I'll be patient.
1:32:33
SPEAKER_04: I don't have demands on it has to be this way by next year, otherwise, you know, we're wasting time.
1:32:37
SPEAKER_04: It's like, no, let's make it directional.
1:32:39
SPEAKER_04: We're a massive country with a massive challenge.
1:32:42
SPEAKER_04: Let's just take it head on, let's let's go after it and do the best we can.
1:32:45
SPEAKER_04: Let's leave it better when we found it.
1:32:46
SPEAKER_06: When you when you have an OP team going down and playing like a San Diego team, do you talk about how much of an advantage that is in terms of just being able to train outside the entire time versus what we have to deal with in the Midwest?
1:33:07
SPEAKER_04: Can you uh I'll give you an example.
1:33:09
SPEAKER_04: Um we took a team to Surf Cup.
1:33:11
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, mid 2000s.
1:33:13
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
1:33:14
SPEAKER_04: And um I was coaching the group, so we leave uh Darty Park last training session there.
1:33:19
SPEAKER_04: I said, Hey, I just I'm gonna show you something, I'll explain it more when we get there.
1:33:24
SPEAKER_04: And I rested the ball on the grass and I said, Look at the ball.
1:33:28
SPEAKER_04: How much of the ball do you physically see?
1:33:30
SPEAKER_04: And they're like, Oh, you can see it to where this logo is.
1:33:33
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, Okay, take that same ball.
1:33:36
SPEAKER_04: We go to San Diego.
1:33:38
SPEAKER_04: I've got a training pitch organized where I we go, it's Bermuda grass.
1:33:42
SPEAKER_04: I lay the ball on the ground, I said, How much of the ball do you see?
1:33:44
SPEAKER_04: And they're like, All of it.
1:33:46
SPEAKER_04: I did a drop test at Darry Park, and I dropped the ball.
1:33:49
SPEAKER_04: I said, How high does it bounce?
1:33:50
SPEAKER_04: And they're like, uh, not not below our knees.
1:33:52
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:33:53
SPEAKER_04: I drop a ball there, it comes above your knee.
1:33:55
SPEAKER_04: And then I gently pass the ball at Darry Park.
1:34:00
SPEAKER_04: How far to go?
1:34:01
SPEAKER_04: Five yards.
1:34:02
SPEAKER_04: I roll one of Bermuda, it goes 15 yards.
1:34:04
SPEAKER_04: Like, there was just moments I'm like, that's the speed of play I'm talking about.
1:34:08
SPEAKER_04: Now that's a physical one.
1:34:10
SPEAKER_04: You can either the speed of play could be physical, you got better athletes.
1:34:14
SPEAKER_04: Um, you could move the ball faster, right?
1:34:16
SPEAKER_04: The environment allows it, the ball can roll.
1:34:18
SPEAKER_04: I said, but then there's also this.
1:34:20
SPEAKER_04: And I said, I'm gonna teach you because we're behind we we don't have the environment.
1:34:23
SPEAKER_04: I said we gotta think faster than them.
1:34:25
SPEAKER_04: And I know that to a certain extent, they've got the environment, they're gonna they're gonna lean on that.
1:34:31
SPEAKER_04: We needed to be smarter, and so the idea of working smarter, not harder, is kind of what Gus was getting at too.
1:34:37
SPEAKER_04: That there's a Midwest piece that I love.
1:34:39
SPEAKER_04: Kids are battle tested.
1:34:41
SPEAKER_04: We leave San Diego, go to Dasca or a national event that was outside of California.
1:34:46
SPEAKER_04: We struggled.
1:34:47
SPEAKER_04: Heat, humidity, wind.
1:34:49
SPEAKER_04: We never had to deal with it.
1:34:50
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:34:51
SPEAKER_04: And there were these Midwest kids that no matter how much we'd ball out, 60 minutes in, and they're grinding.
1:34:57
SPEAKER_04: And then I'm like, you just you're always looking for that time or like that quit point, where like, oh, we're done, we're gonna get a goal.
1:35:02
SPEAKER_04: There was something about the Midwest kids I always was like, these kids are battle tests, but there's something they don't quit.
1:35:07
SPEAKER_04: It's uh that grit mentality of like I care that you kept pleasure.
1:35:12
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
1:35:12
SPEAKER_04: So there was a and I had to learn that I I recognized it, but I didn't understand it.
1:35:16
SPEAKER_05: Right.
1:35:17
SPEAKER_04: And then you get 10 years of coaching it, you go, now I feel like I can take that and then bring the elements that I brought with my upbringing and overlay that in a way to enhance it.
1:35:25
SPEAKER_04: And the way the only way to really do that is expose it, kids to it.
1:35:29
SPEAKER_04: And that's where that idea of what's the balance that gets it's right, because does every kid need to go to California at an early age?
1:35:37
SPEAKER_04: No, but there's times where you go, this group would benefit them.
1:35:40
SPEAKER_04: Why?
1:35:41
SPEAKER_04: And then it's that it's like, but we can't get it locally, and that's not uh that's not an always or never.
1:35:47
SPEAKER_04: It's you gotta have that ability to go to good floor.
1:35:50
SPEAKER_06: Is that why is that your thought process of why you have a Bermuda grass field out there?
1:35:55
SPEAKER_06: So that when you're getting good ready for San Diego playoffs, you're you're training there the entire time.
1:36:01
SPEAKER_04: That and we keep the Kentucky bluegrass at an inch and a quarter.
1:36:05
SPEAKER_04: Public parks, it's three to four inches.
1:36:07
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
1:36:08
SPEAKER_04: Now, just just to that point, there's never a perfect figure.
1:36:13
SPEAKER_04: So I was sharing this with you.
1:36:14
SPEAKER_04: Now it's to a point though where our I I sense this with our kids.
1:36:17
SPEAKER_04: They go outside of these fields and they go, Yeah.
1:36:20
SPEAKER_04: And at first thought it's this field, we're not gonna be able to do, and that bothers me.
1:36:23
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, no, no, no, no.
1:36:24
SPEAKER_04: Okay, correct.
1:36:25
SPEAKER_04: The environment's not the same, but that's when we go, the Gus, and I'll try to go to that and you talk to about the kids in the street who have no shoes, exactly.
1:36:35
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
1:36:36
SPEAKER_04: I say, Do you think they're worried about like there's there's pros and cons to all these things, and sometimes I wonder do we put too much emphasis on the perfection of the space versus the opportunity to be in it, and then making sure you're getting a well-rounded perspective on that, and now allowing them to use that now as a crutch versus like an excuse to say, Well, we can't compete today.
1:36:54
SPEAKER_06: There's no I would purposely train with size threes, size fours, and size fives, even with my college players, just so that they can adapt and it improves their touch in every uh in almost every way.
1:37:06
SPEAKER_06: And then they would combine it's like we're not using this size three.
1:37:10
SPEAKER_06: And then I go to my office and I pull up this ball from Ghana, Africa.
1:37:15
SPEAKER_06: And Ghana historically has had a pretty good national team on the men's side.
1:37:20
SPEAKER_06: I have a ball that's made out of corn husk where it's just and it's just wrapped up.
1:37:26
SPEAKER_06: And I'm like, this is what they play with.
1:37:28
SPEAKER_06: It's like there are kids in Brazil playing barefoot on cement that are better than you, and they don't they're not complaining about what size ball they're using.
1:37:38
SPEAKER_04: And but uh that's where it's hard because if you weren't in our meetings, you're not here on the daily, you're not getting the the why.
1:37:44
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and you can look from the outside, then it's so easy to do.
1:37:48
SPEAKER_04: It's always easy to pick apart what someone else is doing.
1:37:50
SPEAKER_04: And I'd try to make our flood layers are focused on guys.
1:37:53
SPEAKER_04: Uh we we have competitors in our market, but if we're not good at what we're doing, it won't matter like what they're doing.
1:37:59
SPEAKER_04: Like it doesn't matter what they say, it doesn't matter, it just focus on what we control and we'll get better.
1:38:04
SPEAKER_04: And but that's hard because with social media, five years ago, I was getting hammered by our coaching staff.
1:38:10
SPEAKER_04: Oh, we don't do enough on social media.
1:38:12
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, for what?
1:38:13
SPEAKER_04: Oh, promoting I'm like, promoting what?
1:38:16
SPEAKER_04: And then there was a one more of the parents about that.
1:38:18
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, all right, so we kind of went about we'll make more of an investment on it.
1:38:22
SPEAKER_05: Right.
1:38:22
SPEAKER_04: But I keep I I couldn't get away from the idea that as a kid it was the blood, sweat, and tears in training, not the oh, I scored on the weekend.
1:38:32
SPEAKER_04: I thought there was elements of that were totally true, but it was more like I knew there was always a sacrifice that I had to, there was gut check moments that I had to learn, but no one else saw it.
1:38:42
SPEAKER_04: And uh Anson Dorranson talks about that with um Mia Ham.
1:38:47
SPEAKER_04: You know, the seeing her at the park doing work on her own.
1:38:50
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, I'm a big believer in that too.
1:38:53
SPEAKER_04: It's like parents go, oh, we want more.
1:38:55
SPEAKER_04: I'd always go take a ball, go find a wall, and if the kid will do it two or three times on their own, you're gonna be fine.
1:39:01
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
1:39:02
SPEAKER_04: But my neighbor's got this foreign guy doing an hour and a half session with them, paying 150 bucks.
1:39:08
SPEAKER_04: I gotta do that.
1:39:10
SPEAKER_04: Now you know.
1:39:10
SPEAKER_04: Are there benefits to that?
1:39:12
SPEAKER_04: Yes, sure.
1:39:13
SPEAKER_04: Some, but it's like let the kid own their development.
1:39:17
SPEAKER_04: And that's you hit on that earlier, and I'm like, that's a big, big point.
1:39:21
SPEAKER_06: Back to the San Diego thing and like just the down south.
1:39:26
SPEAKER_06: The men's coaches in Michigan are worried a little bit about going to the full year because of that, because it's gonna be it's gonna become a southern sport.
1:39:37
SPEAKER_04: And it's that's I hadn't thought of that.
1:39:39
SPEAKER_04: That's actually a really interesting point.
1:39:40
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why they don't want to do it on the women's side, because it's gonna become a a southern sport.
1:39:48
SPEAKER_06: And it's gonna be interesting to see how that uh all all adapts because they're gonna be able to train outside all the time, and not every single Division I men's program has an indoor facility that they can use.
1:40:01
SPEAKER_06: It'll be contingent on the resources.
1:40:03
SPEAKER_04: Can the programs you have to move to get their own train space?
1:40:05
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, 10 months a year.
1:40:07
SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much for doing this.
1:40:09
SPEAKER_04: That was a blast.
1:40:10
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I love talking to the game.
1:40:12
SPEAKER_04: Uh, like I said, I've for all the complaining that can go on, I know it's tongue in cheek on the I hate soccer.
1:40:17
SPEAKER_04: I love this game, it has blessed me with unbelievable friendships, relationships.
1:40:21
SPEAKER_04: Game provided me a bride, kid, like kids are impacted by the game.
1:40:26
SPEAKER_04: We have friends from all over the world.
1:40:28
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
1:40:28
SPEAKER_04: My kids have gotten to meet people from all over the world because of this game, yeah.
1:40:31
SPEAKER_04: And it's it's fascinating, it's frustrating at times, but it's also it's also the best game on the face of the earth.
1:40:39
SPEAKER_06: And there's a lot of good going on 100%, and it's not all doom and gloom, it's not we need to blow up everything.
1:40:46
SPEAKER_06: It's not that at all.
1:40:47
SPEAKER_06: No, and we need to change the narrative, and that's part of why I'm doing this.
1:40:51
SPEAKER_04: And I would, to be honest, when people first brought this to my attention, I'm like, why would we go promote a guy that hates that I hate?
1:40:57
SPEAKER_04: Because I just live, I did what parents do.
1:40:59
SPEAKER_04: You would read the the label and making the judgment, and then someone showed me a clip, and I'm like, Oh, he doesn't hate soccer is actually, and that's where we're like, Well, this is actually be beneficial.
1:41:08
SPEAKER_04: I'm not 56 year old, I'm not like a podcast guy, but I'm like, I'm willing to try it, and that's mainly I want to go, Hey, are you comfortable?
1:41:14
SPEAKER_04: It's like, Oh, let's do it.
1:41:15
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because it didn't hit you know, he's 20 years younger than me.
1:41:18
SPEAKER_04: He's like, Let's get on it.
1:41:20
SPEAKER_04: Let's tell our story.
1:41:21
SPEAKER_06: It's hilarious.
1:41:22
SPEAKER_06: Like when I went to Fest and I had my banner up, and they're like, Why are you here if you hate soccer?
1:41:28
SPEAKER_04: It's like we grow up, but no, I appreciate you to take the time to come visit Buckeye Country.
1:41:37
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, as a Michigander, I'm sure that I hadn't taken that's where I'm staying.
1:41:41
SPEAKER_04: We're probably gonna get checked up by some of your boys.
1:41:42
SPEAKER_04: I'm staying on the oh, yeah.
1:41:44
SPEAKER_06: I already sent some video of the stadium and stuff like that.
1:41:47
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and I'm trying to get Brian on, and then uh Gavin, Gavin on from the women's side, yeah.
1:41:53
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I'm trying to get it.
1:41:54
SPEAKER_06: I'm trying to get him on too.
1:41:56
SPEAKER_06: So thank you.
1:41:57
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, appreciate you being here.
1:41:59
SPEAKER_04: Awesome.
1:41:59
SPEAKER_04: Thanks, man.
1:42:00
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I hate soccer.