Latest / I Hate Soccer with Jason Collinsworth / I Hate Soccer #108 - Cam Baker, from Midwest United

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I Hate Soccer #108 - Cam Baker, from Midwest United · I Hate Soccer with Jason Collinsworth

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Camp Baker is an MLS Next Academy coach at Midwest United in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: He found out that he wanted to coach by accident while a student at the University of Michigan.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: He was in the athletic training program, and his sophomore junior year, he got to work with the women's team, the women's soccer team there.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: And it was coached by Greg Ryan.
0:23
SPEAKER_02: Greg was the women's national team coach previously.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: And that piqued his interest of I want to coach.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: And fell in love with it, left school, didn't graduate from the University of Michigan, and now he's just been cutting his teeth for the last 15 years or so coaching.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: In this episode, we talk about his entire come-up from driving out to DC to work at summer camps with DC United to working with Andy Wagstaff and the Flint Michigan Bucks, or Flint City Bucks, sorry.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: Just being a sponge with some of the top coaches and programs in the state of Michigan.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: And he now is has two MLS next teams in the homegrown division.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: We also discuss player development and how kind of sucker starts at home, a little Tom Butter reference.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: It was great to get to know him and know his pathway.
1:27
SPEAKER_02: And uh he'll say it in the episode that you don't have to have the most incredible playing background to be a top-level coach.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: As always, please like, subscribe, and share this everywhere.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: It really helps out the show when when you guys share it.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: Enjoy getting to know Cam like I did.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: I hate soccer.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: I think people are junkies over here, you know, from where I grew up and and like the the level of interest in soccer in in Saginaw and Bay City.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, people are training all the time.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, growing up up there, I mean, the Saginaw Complex was the place to go.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: It hosted everything.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: That was the tournament, the 7-Eleven tournament.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: 7-Eleven tournament, yeah.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: That's what I grew up on.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Same.
2:20
SPEAKER_02: Because I mean, I'm a little bit older than you.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: I'm 41.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: You're 33.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, and you uh How did you ever think about going home and going to like Midland and coaching over there?
2:35
SPEAKER_02: But I guess you did with nationals.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a funny story.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: I have a probably on some hard drive, I have a saved application to Midland Soccer Club.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Like, because they took in coaching interest forms.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, somewhere I probably have that.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Because when I left school to start coaching, at the time I didn't think that anybody would pay me to do it.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: It was more of like do it for a couple years.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I could work in my dad's office, you know, make minimum wage, whatever.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: But on the side, I could coach a travel team, a couple travel teams, and just gain experience and maybe get a little bit of licensing and then pack up and go somewhere that would maybe m shift me into that more full-time coaching.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a college assistant, I don't know.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't really have that early period of starting to coach full-time or move into that world was very kind of off the cuff.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Right.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: So I have a saved application, I was like, gonna go do that.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: And I had a a buddy that I played soccer with my entire life, and he was at Delta College taking a math class.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and he called me one day and was like, hey, my math professor runs a youth club in Saginaw.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: I assumed it was STSA, the the club that's at.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's at the complex.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now it's evolved to DCFC North or whatever.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Is it really?
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a DCFC affiliate.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know if I don't know the ins and outs of how it is or why it is.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: I don't either.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: I haven't talked to any of the DCFC guys.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I assumed it was STSA, and when I called, it was Tom Wells, who is now at Midwest United, funny enough.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't answer.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: He was probably in school.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: He ended up texting me saying, Hey, come to SVSU Indoor Facility, 6 o'clock tonight, and there'll be a session on.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: This is after college.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: This is after you graduated college.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: I didn't graduate college.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: I left.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: Like that that's a whole different story of We'll get into it.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a whole different story of like, you know, quarter life crisis of like, what are you gonna do the rest of your life?
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm with you.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna are you gonna tape ankles and schlep Gatorade?
5:02
SPEAKER_00: Or are you gonna do something that you wake up and say, cool, I'm I'm enjoying this, I can get up every day and do it.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: It brings me a lot of fulfillment.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, like it's just about who do you want to be around?
5:16
SPEAKER_00: When I wake up every day and and you get to be around these people, yeah, it's motivating, it's fun, it's it's enjoyable.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: The kids are incredible and and they're motivated and they're ambitious, and it's a different world when you're an athletic trainer.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: You're seeing players, and don't get me wrong, they're very grateful for the service and the expertise that you're giving them to get them back on the field, but you're seeing athletes in a low spot.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: You're seeing athletes at the worst.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: They they picked up a knock, they picked up an injury, and it takes a unique human being to thrive in that situation, to lift athletes, constantly pick athletes off the ground and lift them up.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: Whereas a coach, they're coming to you with a lot of optimism, they're coming to you with a lot of gung-ho and excitement, and you're still lifting them up, it's still a process, but it's it's coming from a completely different place, and it's a unique human being that takes injured athletes and knows how to rebuild them at both conf from their mental confidence and physical health versus coaching.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: I just it's just a slightly different angle, and I struggled with that angle of constantly dealing in that woe-was me negative world and lifting athletes up from there.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: It just wasn't my cup of tea.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Um and so it it was a long process with my parents and saying, hey, this is the route I want to go.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And in club coaching, you don't really need a college degree for this, you need c coaching licensing, certainly at that time.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: At the time, I was very headstrong about I if I want to really succeed down this path, then I need to get started.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: And I had an idea that there was this huge wave of professionalism coming coming in coaching, and if I had missed that wave by a couple years, then I wouldn't be able to climb that ladder because I had no playing career.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: Zero.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, my playing career was like super low-level club and pickup soccer.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: I played a lot of pickup soccer with friends and you know competitive places in my area, but not to the level that some of these guys played.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean Alex Mendoza played like a proper pro.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: He got the money.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: I didn't I didn't have anything like that.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: So I had the feeling that uh I needed to really dive into that world full time and and grind through a lot of coaching, licensing, and I re- Honestly show my chops like I could step on the field, coach, train a team, get a team to do what I had planned for them to do.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Like I had to really over you know develop myself as a coach because you have to compete against guys that have amazing playing backgrounds.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Because they're always gonna get the job first.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: They go, Oh, you have playing backgrounds, you have a little bit of coaching licensing, we'll groom you into what we need you to be.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: It's very it's much easier to develop ex-players into coaches versus someone with very little playing background.
8:40
SPEAKER_02: Did you feel okay?
8:43
SPEAKER_02: Did working with Greg Ryan at Michigan like help you?
8:50
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't know what the word is, but like did it help you just like feel like a little bit more like, oh, I've been around it.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: I've been around one of the highest level coaches of all time in the country.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: I I'm not sure I thought of it that way.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: I there was certainly uh an element of like, wow, he's been to a World Cup.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, he was on paper, he's like one of the winningest coaches in American history.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: Um but he was very, very open.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: I in one of the you know, during the first few weeks I was like, you know, I want a coach, and he would just sit with me before practice, before games, and he would just like have his session and he would just explain what he was doing.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: So that was the first idea of like things are planned and they're very intentional, and he's training the certain activity that he's running, that he's trying to get specific behaviors out of the team or out of certain girls, and that is because there's a plan on the weekend or the game, there's a game, you know, an advantage they can try to create in the game, and he's gonna train that throughout the week.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: So, or how they split up sometimes, and Greg would take this attacking group, and Dino would take this defending group, and they would train this is what we want the back line to look like.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: This is when the ball's in you know, on their left winger, this is how the team is gonna move to deal with that.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: When the ball's on their back line, this is how the front line is gonna organize to press the ball.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: When we have the ball at left center mid, these are some runs that we could encourage you to make.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Like it was planned.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: They were very everything was like coordinated.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and you know, um I still I wouldn't say I keep in touch, but every once in a while I I run across some of the girls on the team.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh Brad Donwell was here for a couple years, and and he was with a uh he's with a girl that was um that was a player on that team and uh Emma Grofsky.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: And there's Emma, yeah.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: She played at Vardar.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: She played with the boys.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I uh I used to coach at Vardar for a little bit.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: Nice and uh I helped Demir and and Demir was her coach, and Demir's really close with her dad.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but do you still talk to Greg Ryan at all?
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh or Dean?
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Not Dean.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Um Greg, no, not like full conversation.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: I the last night I heard he's like in Colorado or something like that.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: I want to say he went to the PNW.
11:38
SPEAKER_02: Really?
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I want i uh honestly I don't know.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Every once in a once in a while he pops up on my like my Facebook and he just says hi or something like that.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And uh I think it's cool.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, that certainly Greg, you know, he's he's uh I mean historically a super established coach.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: So it was uh it was a treat.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, certainly a treat that not a lot of 20-year-olds get.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: So you okay, so that was your was that your freshman year or your sophomore year at Michigan?
12:14
SPEAKER_02: That was your junior year at Michigan, and you were in the uh athletic training program, or what program were you in?
12:20
SPEAKER_02: Kinesiology?
12:21
SPEAKER_00: No, ATC, yeah, athletic training.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then and then you just get to work with the women's uh soccer program with a former national team coach.
12:30
SPEAKER_02: Did you get to pick which sport?
12:32
SPEAKER_00: By your junior year, you do get to pick.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: You get to uh like apply.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: So the first two years, or sorry, the your freshman year you're doing gen eds.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Yep, you're doing like athletic training 101, where you like learn how to tape an ankle or learn how to tape toes and fingers and stuff like that.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Your sophomore year, they put you through what they want you to go through.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: So my first rotation was women's gymnastics with uh an absolute legend, Lisa Haas.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Like she is an athletic training legend.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Um learned a lot there, and then you have to go through men's football because men men's football is the gauntlet.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: It is you are turning out 20 ankle tapes in 40 30 minutes, like it's the gauntlet of you've got to get stuff done quickly.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: And that was my and that was spring ball, which is 5 a.m.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: practices, so you're up at 4 a.m.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: to get there at 5, and then they have practice after.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: So you're you're at practice from five 5 a.m.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: to 8 a.m.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: Who's the who's the coach?
13:38
SPEAKER_02: Was that Rich Rit Rad or was that Brady Hope?
13:41
SPEAKER_00: It was yeah, Brady.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Um so you're at five, five to eight a.m.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: practice.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: You go to school from I don't know, eight thirty to maybe two thirty, and then you're back at practice at five p.m.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: So you get like a little break.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: So you're back at practice from five to eight p.m.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: and then you've got to study.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Like at eight, eight p.m.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: like you've got class, you've got to study, you've got tests you've got to study for.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: So you're up until if you're one, you know, I was a I was a high performing academic.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: So I'm studying a lot, as I thought I should have, and you're up until midnight, 1 a.m.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: And then you're back up at 4 a.m.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: to get back to football practice, and it's like 16 weeks, 12 to 16 weeks of that.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, this is not for me.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Like whatever this is, this is not for me.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: Before we started, you were talking about the schedule of an athletic trainer, and that's kind of like what your schedule would be as a professional.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh, they put you through that for a reason.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: They put you through that for a reason.
14:45
SPEAKER_02: Because you are waking up going to five.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Can you get through this and tape 20 ankles and schlep Gatorade for six hours?
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Still want to do this, still want to do this, and at the end of the day, you know you're getting paid like crap.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: Like, it takes a special human being to do that.
15:00
SPEAKER_02: Right.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: So the that over that summer, this is more lore story.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Over that summer, I had uh, you know, a lot of people take internships, and I was like, okay, I need to take an internship.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: And my uncle's a high um you know, in the military and a high uh ranking judge here.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: He's been a judge in Grand Rapids for his whole life.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: And he had a friend, a mutual friend at US Soccer Foundation, not Federation.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: And I had sent him an application saying, hey, is there any internshi uh ATC internships in uh the United States uh that I can go do that's based in soccer because I was like, this is kind of the if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it in soccer.
15:57
SPEAKER_02: Definitely not doing football.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: And uh he had actually connected me with DC United, and I had gotten an internship at DC United for the summer because they run summer camps for kids.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm like on my way there.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: I think my mom and I are in Pittsburgh, and they emailed me back saying, Hey, we need your bachelor's degree.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, No, no, no, I'm a junior, I'm a I'm I'm a student.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: They're like, no, the the big problem with ATC internships is you need to be certified.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: So it's a non-paid position internship.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: And but you need to be certified for a lot of these.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: So it's this weird thing where I was like, okay, what's going on here?
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And they go, no, you need to be certified.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: I say, hey, I don't have that, I'm a junior, I'm I'm two years out, like this is an internship.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm supposed to be working with a head ATC for an internship.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And they go, Yeah, we're paying somebody, sorry, we're not paying somebody to sit at soccer camp all day, but this is a good experience.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, they're like, okay, so do you want to do anything else?
17:06
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Well, I coach.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: They're like, Cool, you can coach.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: So I connected with whoever was running the coaching staff.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm still driving there.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: My mom does not know this.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, she knows it now, but at the time she didn't know this.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I end up coaching all summer there in their youth program.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: But because you're in their youth program, their academy staff is running these camps, and I cannot one of them is actually at Wave, Tom Torres.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Um their academy staff's running this camp, and because we're running the camp, we're allowed to stay after and watch all the academy practices.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Because all the academy practices run after, so it's like 14s, 16s, 18s, 20s.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: I think I could watch all the way up to 20s.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: We got to watch a couple of the 23s.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: What year is this around?
17:56
SPEAKER_02: 2015.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: No, this is summer of 2014.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: 2014.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: So I spent six, twelve, sixteen weeks of twenty fourteen watching the World Cup.
18:08
SPEAKER_03: Oh funny.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: World Cup.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was staying at American University, uh, dorm in in downtown Washington, DC, lived there, and uh coached all summer and got to watch all these academy training sessions, got to play it actually a lot of them uh over the summer, which was a lot of fun.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't anywhere near good enough for it, but they didn't care.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes they just need bodies.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: But I was like older that they'd be like 14 year olds, and I was like 20.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Almost 20.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Um or 20, almost 21 at the time.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: So I I could I could hang and I was fine.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Um but like if I jumped in the 18s, like that was uh that was hard.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, coach all summer and I pretty much left that thinking I'm pretty sure I'm gonna leave Michigan and go down this coaching route.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: But let me over the summer you apply to whatever sport you want.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: And women's soccer was on the docket for me.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: They're like, these are the sports you can apply for, and it's like men's golf, you know, uh men's and women's track, like so you know, there's a whole list.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: And I applied to women's soccer, got it, and went August 1st for preseason, and it was pretty much the first day.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, Greg and Dino and Brandon and Ange are like pumping up the nice soccer balls, knock it around Michigan Stadium.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: They're just like having a good time while the girls are eating pizza up in the rafters.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, yeah, this is I think this is this is the life here.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: Did you already know like Greg Ryan's like background and stuff like that by that time?
19:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I used to go to games.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: Who was the goalkeeper trainer that year?
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Ange.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: Uh I was wondering if it was Keith.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: Keith Dreema.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: Might have been before.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: I think he was there like his uh Greg Ryan's first couple of years at Michigan.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: How much of you or how were you just a sponge in terms of with Greg and at DC United?
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I used to just take a notebook and write down all their sessions.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: So somewhere I have a notebook that has 16 weeks of U14, U16, U18, DC United Academy sessions.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: And this was a while ago, you know, 10 plus years ago.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: And somewhere I have a notebook of I had to be a little bit more like cautious at Michigan because um I was supposed to be doing a job.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, where like at DC United, I was either just sitting there or I'd write it down after the session if I played.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh like on the train back to downtown.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: I would just write the coach, you know, the the session as best I could remember, and the coaching points and like why they use that activity.
20:44
SPEAKER_02: And then for Greg, uh every week I post a podcast, and a lot of times it's with club coaches and club directors and whatnot.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing to me how clubs are leaving so much on the table by not being more transparent with what they do, with what with what they show.
21:07
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like they hide from parents.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: They're not transparent, they're not open, they don't have an open door policy.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: Imagine if more clubs were transparent in the way that the my guests are, and you got to actually know the coach rather than not just the X's and O's, and not just their development philosophy, but just actually got to know the coach.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: And that's why I've started these club partnerships, because I want to know what clubs are the best, and what clubs uh have the infrastructure, and what clubs um have some values and have um the organization.
21:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I one of my favorite things to do right now is is these club partnerships with and right now.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: I have the Jags and I have.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Midwest United, I'm always looking for more.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: I'm always looking for more uh so that you can so you can show everybody what you have going on in your club, and it really takes a coordinated effort, a club that is coordinated, a club that is together.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: If you are a club that is interested in having me come out and do six to twelve episodes with your staff to better promote yourself, it is a marketing tool.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: Please email i hate soccer podcast at gmail.com and I'll send you all the information because I want to work with more clubs.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of times a head athletic trainer would stay in the training room to like finish notes or something like that.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: So that's when I would pull it out.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: But if she saw if you saw me like writing stuff down, she'd be like, You have a job to do, you know.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: She was she was she's a legend as well, and but she she really taught me of like hard work and detail, and she she was uh she was a good teacher.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: When did you decide that like you didn't want to do ATC?
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh probably my sophomore year, like going through that football for the soccer.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Like going through the football experience, you just go, yeah, I just this is a different world than I expected.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was really the the soccer experience, you know, getting to see that every day and and have it dangle in front of your face of like this is real life.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Like this guy, this staff is getting paid full time to do this.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: And I just thought that's a way better job.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: It's a way better job.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go do it.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: So when did you leave Michigan?
23:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh December 2014.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: So right after the season.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: Literally, right after the season.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: You're like, I'm done.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: I just want to go cool.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: I actually went to the banquet, like the s the girls' soccer, the women's soccer banquet.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: And like all the girls knew I was leaving.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: They all knew.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: And I think two months later I was at the convention.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: I'd used pretty much like my I used every dollar I had, which wasn't a lot.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh I want to say like my parents gave me back some money that they had saved for college, and they were like, you can use this.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: So I went to like the convention, I went to Barcelona a couple times for coaching education.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Um what'd you do there?
24:32
SPEAKER_02: Like through uh through Barcelona or is it through Tovo or what was it through?
24:39
SPEAKER_00: It was through a company called Five Star Football.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they're still a thing.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Um the guy's name was Christian Donaire.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: And he was connected through uh um Danny Letterman.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: I know that name's son was Ben Letterman, who was the first American at La Massilla.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Or well the first American that stayed a while.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Um somehow they had gotten connected, and he had a contact in the United States, and I went over with a friend, um, John Pranich, who did the 343 podcast for a while.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: John?
25:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:18
SPEAKER_02: I've been on that podcast uh years ago.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: Is he still doing that?
25:22
SPEAKER_02: No, it's just Gary.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: I think he's out of soccer.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: Maybe just refing.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, he's a pretty high-level ref, isn't he?
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: So we went over to small world.
25:32
SPEAKER_02: How do you get hooked up with him?
25:34
SPEAKER_00: 343.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Like that was another thing as I paid them.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I paid them money for their program.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: Their philosophy, just they have some good stuff, especially for an 18-year-old.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't know anything, or a 20-year-old, you don't know anything.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's a great starting point.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Great starting point.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, it you can go as long as Brian has with it.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: And of course, you know, that's his that's a big ethos for him.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: But I think what's important is that each coach is going to develop their own experience, their own style.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what's amazing about coaching is that you have all these different styles and ideas competing against each other, and that's I think that's what makes football so special.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: And I think you're seeing it in the World Cup.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, you see you see so many different, you know, personalities and styles competing against each other, and it's that's the most fun thing to watch, is that everyone's got their own ideas.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: So certainly a lot of that structure still holds true with me today.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, I still some even those activities I still use today.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: But also I'm fifty you know 12 years older than I was when I started looking at that stuff and digesting that stuff and some of the things that some of those things you keep and some of those things you move on from or evolve or you know build into something else.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: What year did you go to the convention?
26:57
SPEAKER_02: Was that 2015, that January?
26:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 2015, and then maybe I went for 2016 as well.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh I I probably went up back during COVID.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: I took a break and then went back during COVID, and then I got COVID while I was there, so I've just never been back.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: And frankly, I'm too busy.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: It's so hard.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: I'm so busy now that you should go to the expo at with Jags.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:24
SPEAKER_02: In at the end of July.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think we're uh there's a a meeting on or uh uh it's on the docket.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: It's on the docket.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so okay, you go to Barcelona, you go and do you go to a convention to learn and network.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh at that age I wasn't networking very much.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: Right.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: You're just writing down sessions going stuff, yeah.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm writing down uh my favorite sessions were the classroom sessions, the field sessions.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't get a lot of.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: I agree with that.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: The classroom sessions though, when they bring in like they brought in the academy director from Shakdar Donesk one year.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I was just like weird, you know, like cool, let's let's see what he's got to say.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: And he and he's got great things to say, right?
28:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, great things to show.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: So those were my favorite sessions to to uh to attend.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, the field sessions, like every once in a while you'd see something cool, but right.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I I don't think anything was like groundbreaking.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: I I like the lectures and and like when Anson Dorrance would be there, or uh I think Greg Ryan was there one year that I was there.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: That was actually right before the Michigan that he got the Michigan job.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: And do you know Mark Zathy at all?
28:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: So Mark Zathy was on the plane with Greg Ryan as Greg Ryan is going to interview with Michigan.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: He's like, why are you why are you flying back to Michigan?
28:47
SPEAKER_00: And makes sense.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so but and then okay, so when did you go to SVSU?
28:55
SPEAKER_00: Way later.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: Um 2021.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: So, okay, so fill the gap from 14, 15 to 2021.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: What were you doing?
29:05
SPEAKER_02: Just club, youth?
29:07
SPEAKER_02: Did you know what age group you wanted to work with yet?
29:10
SPEAKER_02: Probably not.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: Or did you always want to be like, I want to be a college coach, or I want to be a pro coach I wanted to be a pro.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wanted to be a pro.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: I I had this idea that I was gonna be able to make it way farther as a coach than I did as a player, which is very true.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the kids I coach right now are so good.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: And same for me.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: And I have nowhere near the playing talent, playing career that they will have.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I certainly the last four or five years have coached at a much higher level than I ever could have touched playing.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, and part of that is environment.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Like I grew up on a farm field, so there was no exactly, there's no soccer culture, there's no dads that played soccer.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: No, we didn't my dad was a swimmer, right?
30:00
SPEAKER_02: Like my my dad was a guitar player.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: Like, like we don't we didn't what these kids have, we did not have.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't even close.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: And so I think that we've closed.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: We're not I don't know if we're closing the gap.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this World Cup is gonna tell us, kind of, but we didn't have professional coaches, we didn't have full-time coaches, that's for sure.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: There was one from what I remember, and I I could be wrong, because I do believe Steve Walker was up there in that time, and I don't, you know, I think he was full-time coaching.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: But I lived two doors down from Drago, Dumbovich, and I think he was the only full-time coach that I knew.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: And he would, when I started this, he would tell, because he lived next door to my mom, he would tell my mom, like, no, no, he needs to go back to school.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: This isn't real life, you know, unless you're like college coach and you have full-time.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: But club coaching up there was a skeleton thing at the time.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: And I had kind of mentioned my buddy was taking a math class with Tom Wells, and he had started this club Waza, Waza Tri-Cities, it was called something else, Surge Elite, maybe.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: He had had this U10, U12 training group thing, and they would just go play tournaments and beat up on people.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: And then he had moved it to Waza Tri-Cities, and he was like, Yeah, I need some coaches, but they were really small at the time.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: And he it was in the spring, I was helping him coach the team.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: I think he was paying me out of his pocket just to help out, and I was grateful for that, but I was getting experienced, and I was helping my sister's high school team at the time, and um, so I was coaching a little bit in a couple different areas, and then tryout season comes, June, and he's like, We don't have this 07 girls team.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: If you get 10 girls, I'll pay you some money for it.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how much it was, it was like four grand, five grand.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: Right.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: So put 10 girls on that team, and he gave me the team.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, wow, I'm getting paid to do this.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: And I there was a I had a second team, oh, four girls, second team.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: There were six girls on a 9v9 team.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, exactly.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: So you're training six girls all the time, but then you gotta go to the games, and you can all in Missile, because we went down to Detroit to play Missile, yeah, because that was higher level.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we would you have to pass card three girls into the team so you could play 9v9.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: So I coached those two teams for the year, made a I don't know, a little bit of money, and I was buzzing.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: And I just built that into from two teams to four teams, and I'm making like minimum wage, and but to me, that's like you know, as a 21-year-old, I'm thinking I don't need any more money in this.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, and obviously you're thinking long term, okay, I'm gonna get higher licensing coach higher level teams, but that was my foot in the door.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: And I did that for eight years.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: We've I went through the merger with mid-Michigan Gators International's Tri-Cities, Tri-County.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, Luke and Tom led that club, and we went from I think we had six teams at Tri-Cities, Waza Tri-Cities, to I'm not sure what we were at the peak of our powers, but maybe 400, 500 kids.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Um and then Luke left, COVID hit, Tom left, and we went probably down to 160.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: COVID up there was hard.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, like a lot of kids shied away from sports and travel soccer, and I think every club probably took a hit up there.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: And then over the next two years we rebuilt that to maybe almost three hundred maybe almost three hundred kids before I left.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh it was really right after COVID that COVID was hard, I think, for all coaches because you're not getting paid and you're still trying to coach and maintain a player pool, and you know, it's it's eight months of no dollars coming in and all your savings going out.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Um so you kind of have second thoughts of is this really what I should be doing?
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Is this is this sustainable for the next 60 years of my life?
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Um but uh Louis Barrow, I think we were watching a super wide team, or I was coaching a super wide team, and maybe I'd just finished a session and Louis Barrow was the men's coach at Saginaw.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: I said, Hey, I we went for a walk and he said, Hey, I need a volunteer assistant.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: I can't pay you, but I think it'd be a cool experience for you.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And I know you're a good coach, so I think you'd help us.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: And I said yes on the dot because I was like, at that time, eight years of coaching, you know, eight-year-old.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: I really was tasked with building the boys' side.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: We didn't have any boys' teams there, and I built pretty much eight straight years of boys' teams, you know, from 200 uh nine boys down to 2015 boys, 16 boys.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: I built every single age group of boys, sometimes two teams in an age group.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: And we really had a presence on the boys' side because I was coaching every single team.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh but when Louie kind of bridged that gap to higher level soccer, I was like, yeah, I've got to take this.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Like, doesn't matter how many hours I work, like I've gotta dip my toe into that because I'm gonna quit otherwise.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: I can't coach wreck kids forever.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: That just wasn't what I had planned, wanted to do, planned to do.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: And I had really gotten licensing up to the point where I was like, could I probably had my C license at the time where I was like, okay, I should be able to dip into slightly higher level soccer.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: I didn't expect college soccer at the time, but maybe you know, an NLC team, something like that.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Right.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't quite happening.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh you know, we had conversations down with the main club in Detroit about moving to ECNL, and they just never really took off in the way that I was hoping that I I was willing to move down to Detroit to be a part of the main club, but it it just didn't quite work out that way.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, whether that's my fault or whatever, like is what it is.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: And they didn't get it right into ECNL, it took them forever to get into the ECNL.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but at that time, at that time, um right around COVID, they had started to move in that direction on the boys' side.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: So I think they did get ECNL by that time, or just about that time.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: On the boy side, on the girl side, they're in the GA.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: But I was I was helping a little bit with the GA teams, so that was our higher level soccer.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: We had some MRL T or NLC, sorry, I'm I'm aging myself there.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: Um what is MLC?
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Because I've MRL NLC was like the middle.
37:01
SPEAKER_02: I love MRL.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Now it's called NL or something like that.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's all the same, it's the same level.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I I spent the last 11 years in Buffalo because I left Michigan and went to go coach um Western Euroflash and then I started my own training company and whatnot.
37:18
SPEAKER_02: But uh Yeah, and yeah, NL and everything.
37:24
SPEAKER_02: It's so GLA.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: They just renamed it.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: They just renamed it.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Um But yeah, when Louie asked uh to go to Saginaw, I we had a we had a good season, probably not exactly what we thought.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: We had some injuries with some key players, but it was an amazing experience for me and and uh developed a a lifelong friendship with Louis uh and probably got to you know, I don't want to say flex my chops, but like I got to flex the muscle of like I can participate in this higher level soccer, I can give a head coach good feedback, and I can help train these guys to a high level.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: And that was Louis in you know first seeing me hands-on and and helping.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's it's remarkable what happens when you get around a group of people that care about each other and are willing to promote each other.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I was with yeah, and I was with Luke for for years, but I was such a youth coach at that time, and I didn't have the experience or the licensing, I didn't have the playing background, so there was a lot of learning I had to do in that time period.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: But after eight years of coaching, to kind of do it at a high level with Louis, Louis then takes you and says, Oh, this kid's ready for whatever.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: And he had to go back to England for maybe some weddings, and he had been the assistant for the Flint City Bucks for Andy Wagstaff.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: And so he basically told Andy, Hey, I I can't do this.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: Here's who I recommend.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: And I was sitting at home one day and I get a phone call and it says maybe Andy Wagstaff.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: And I was with my my partner at the time, and everybody knows who Andy Wagstaff.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I was like, I think I have to take this.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: And I swipe and I said hello, and he goes, Hey, Cam, this is Andy.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: And he explains Louie's situation and what he needed.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I can't pay ya, but I need a I was like, dude, I'll do anything you want.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what I I'll I'll be the athletic trainer again.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Like that that's exactly what I want to go do.
39:42
SPEAKER_02: And uh Who was on that team?
39:45
SPEAKER_02: Who was on that mid-Michigan Bucks team at that time?
39:48
SPEAKER_00: Um they were Flint City.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so I got to be the volunteer or I got I got paid a little bit of money, like a grand, maybe a couple grand.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'd say the same with Greg.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Andy was Andy was incredible and opened the door to me way more, way more than I ever thought I'd have.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: Like influence and conversations.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Like I thought I was putting gonna be putting down cones.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: And there were loads of times where I trained the team, loads of times where he's like, What do you think?
40:26
SPEAKER_00: And about the starting 11 or mid-game, like, what is the other team doing?
40:32
SPEAKER_00: What do I need to know?
40:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh what changes do we need to make, you know, to tactics or personnel.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: And I learned so much in that one year.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's it's amazing what when people take you in and take care of you and want you to be a part of it, good people like Louie and Andy and Luke.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing how much you develop as a coach.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing uh like how much experience you gain in such a short amount of time, and I ate it alive.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: Um and I had I made my mistakes in both environments, uh, and I learned a lot about that in both environments, but I grew so much as a coach and they just kept putting me on.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: Like Luke, Louie put me on to Andy, and those guys put me on to back to Luke because Luke had seen me, obviously, but I was a different coach then, right?
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, but to to your point, I mean I went from almost leaving soccer during COVID to coaching a Mecca Anelli.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: And I had four or five caps for the national team now, right?
41:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's like like I was working with Abdel um Abdel Kuku is plays for the Sudan national team.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Um you know, Mimi Schneider plays for New England Revolution 2.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh Harvey Slade plays over in England, uh Adrian plays over Adrian plays over in uh Australia.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: Like I would say 12 of those guys are in the pros now.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: Sebastian Chibald, what a player.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: Um IdyL Chef Ketty.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh um, you know, I'm I'm I'm I'm obviously like six years from that, five five years from that team, so I'm I'm missing certainly missing some names.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: Um Jaldrick Delman, um, big striker from Germany.
42:28
SPEAKER_02: I think just thinking about Andy, because Andy comes up in almost since I've been back, Andy comes up in almost every single podcast.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: I just did one with uh I used to coach a country day, and I had the female coach on, and Andy coached her.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: And you know what, and the thing about Andy is that he's such a coach developer, but he's not actually trying to develop you.
42:54
SPEAKER_02: He actually gives you autonomy.
42:59
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
43:00
SPEAKER_02: And through that, he is developing.
43:02
SPEAKER_02: I don't even know if he'll he would say that himself is a coach developer, but if you look at his coaching tree with like Kevin Gardner and you and Laura Hemway, and like it's just every he has fingerprints all over Michigan.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed that experience with yeah, and then and Lewis is really good, is close with him too.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Louis Barrow, who's winning this Saginaw head coach of all time, you know, all time, and you know, taking that program.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how do you take the the uh Saginaw program over from Andy and kick on, you know?
43:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, amazing.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: But I for sure, I I I'd agree with all that.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how much autonomy he gave me with a team that I had no business or well on paper, you know, but when you have you know people that trust you like that and they're willing to put you on, um Yeah, I'm it it helped me so much, but his his his record and his coaching tree and his imprint in Michigan soccer, I mean, speaks for itself.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: He's he's a he's a monster.
44:11
SPEAKER_02: Do you find yourself like doing the same things now and like with with younger coaches now that you're not the youngest anymore?
44:20
SPEAKER_02: Is that weird?
44:21
SPEAKER_02: Like I remember I remember when I was younger, I was one uh like I was I was getting there when I was like 24, 25, 26, coaching at higher and higher levels.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: And then all of a sudden you're like you're like 32, you're like 33, you're 40, and you're like, uh, I'm not the youngest guy anymore.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: I still feel like the youngest guy sometimes.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: I still I don't feel that different from when I was 20 coaching.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Um certainly I do things a lot differently.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: I've learned a lot over the time and over my time.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: Um at Saginaw, when we were at Nationals, we had to develop coaches.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: We had to because you're not pulling in the you know, you're not pulling in the caliber of ready-made coach.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, a good ex a good example is here, like Colton, Dean, uh, Chris, like those guys have been coaching a long time.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: They've been doing good work for a long time.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: So when they come to Midwest United, you're not like certainly they're hoping to improve themselves, develop themselves over time.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Sure, that's how coaches are, but like you're not building someone from scratch.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: Where in Saginaw, we had to build, we had to build good personalities into coaches.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, ex players, sometimes non-ex players, that just had amazing leadership skills, communication skills.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: We had to build them into coaches.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I have so much content that I built that was like this is what a 4v4 year looks like.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: These are the sessions you should be running.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is how to make it game-like, this is how to bring tactics, you know, essentially decision making into that environment.
46:14
SPEAKER_00: This is how to build technique individually and maybe within twos or threes or fours.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: Um you had to build everything about them.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: You had to build how they communicate with parents, how they email, how they register kids, how they everything.
46:31
SPEAKER_00: And we built a lot of good coaches at National Tri County.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: A lot.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, and some of that was before my time, some of that was Luca and and Tom Wells building James DeCosmo and Dom Hart and me, and um, I'm certainly forgetting loads of people.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: But when I took the club with Tyler, we had to build Kyle and Bridget Semborski and Robbie Bruce and um Lawrence Patterson.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: Like we had to build all those guys ended up being, you know, Robbie's down in at um Georgia at a uh big D3 college down there, you know, Bridget's with Saginaw, Kyle's here running the Aspire teams.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, Lawrence is running a club over in Chicago now.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, that we had to build those people from scratch.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: And anytime they made a mistake, we had to own it and try and fix that.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: And anytime we made a mistake, we had to own it and fix that because we were really young trying to run a business uh for nationals.
47:33
SPEAKER_02: And then what brought you out here?
47:35
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Midwest.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: When you get to Saginaw and the Bucks, it was really, really challenging for me to think, okay, I can't do that.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go back to it wasn't it wasn't about going back.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: It was I was 28 and I just had that itch in me, like this is the time.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: I had just gotten into my B license, and I was just like, this, you know, I I had thought I was gonna stay one more year.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: Um I had a good 09 girls group.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: We lost the State Cup final to Jeff Shuck and a really good Northville team, a Northville Rush team, and I had thought I would give that group a go.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: We had had a GA group, a second, because Nationals had two GA teams in the 05 age group, and one of them was up in Tri-County because we had the next best team in the club.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: So I was taking on a couple GA teams, I was taking on a couple NLC teams, girls, and so I was like, cool, I've got some high-level teams I'm working with here, that'll help me with my B license.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: And I was still working, gonna still work with Saginaw in a pretty limited role.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: I was talking about working with both the women's team and the men's team, and thought, okay, I'll give this a year, I'll work hard, and you know, I won't have a lot of hours in the day.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: But um then James Gilpin retired.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: And uh Luke calls me while I'm at Saginaw camp.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Hey, James is stepping away from coaching, I need someone to take to take two MLS teams today.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yup.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: This is year, this is 2023.
49:15
SPEAKER_00: Summer of 2022.
49:16
SPEAKER_02: 2022.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: So I was like mid-season with the Bucks, yeah, and we had been playing Luke.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: So we'd come to Midwest and we actually played them three times that year because the the the conference shrunk a little bit, so we were playing a couple teams three times.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: So I was with Andy and the Bucs.
49:32
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, him and Andy are close.
49:34
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: And so he's seen me on the sideline thinking, man, this kid that I used to used to coach the four before boys teams, he's with the Bucs now.
49:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, Andy at some point vouched for me.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: I was like a finger width away from going to Liverpool and with Kevin and trying to be involved there.
49:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, I had sat down with them and great conversation, all love there, like great conversations there, and it just didn't like they've got an amazing staff there, and Kevin would have had to uproot somebody, and that doesn't make sense because those guys are all have been together for a long time.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: And so I'd really wanted to go there because I had loved my experience with Andy, and I was like, Cool, I'll work for that guy, I'll work for Kevin 100%.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, didn't work out, so I thought I was gonna stay another UN Nationals, and then James retired, and he called me, goes, I need somebody to come coach two teams here and really want to take the next step.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: And you'd come do USL2 here instead of the Bucks.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yep, 100%.
50:40
SPEAKER_00: That's that's exactly the arena that I thought I was gonna help coach and develop myself as a as a coach and person.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: Um it just felt like the the right step at the right time.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: Plus, I don't know if you know like how Bay City and Saginaw, like I lived there my whole life.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: It was it was nice to get out to Ann Arbor for a few years, but after eight years of coaching, I was ready to move from the city.
51:11
SPEAKER_00: And grand my brother came to school here at Grand Valley, and so I'd been here a little bit, and my aunt and uncle live here, and I was just like, this is perfect for the next number of years.
51:22
SPEAKER_02: Right.
51:23
SPEAKER_02: And how many teams do you have right now?
51:25
SPEAKER_00: Two.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Same two?
51:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh not the same two age groups, no.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: But uh I came in at U14, U15, and I've coached pretty much everything since.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: Um I've had the U19 team the last two years.
51:40
SPEAKER_00: Last year's U19 team, this year's U19 team, next year's U19 team.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
51:44
SPEAKER_00: Um and then I've usually coached like the freshmen or the sophomores as my other as another group.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: Really?
51:51
SPEAKER_00: So I've had the seniors for a few years, and I've had freshmen and sophomore for a couple years.
51:57
SPEAKER_02: Homegrown?
51:58
SPEAKER_00: Yep, homegrown.
51:59
SPEAKER_02: And how we only had it, we've only had academy for a year, so oh that well basically everybody just had academy, you know.
52:08
SPEAKER_02: So, okay.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: So with homegrown and the fourteens and the nineteens.
52:19
SPEAKER_02: The fourteens Does it help coaching the nineteens and being like kind of just like teaching them that like, hey, this is where this is the pathway of the next five years of your life?
52:36
SPEAKER_02: It's it's I think it's really important.
52:39
SPEAKER_02: And you seem like you have a plan, right?
52:42
SPEAKER_02: Because you talk about Greg Ryan and everything is kind of coordinated and everything is planned out to the T.
52:47
SPEAKER_02: And then you were talking about developing coaches and 4v4, or yeah, the 4v4 year plan of a full year.
52:55
SPEAKER_02: Do you go through like your 14s in your 19s the same way where you plan out the entire year, kind of like periodization and everything?
53:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh there's a lot in that.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: So, do I think it's important to have to have context of the oldest players, the USL2 boys, the U19 boys, when you're coaching U14, U-15, 100%.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, we're trying to bridge the gap to men's football.
53:24
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of really motivated, really hardworking guys that want to play men's football.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: They want to play in college, they want to play in the pros.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: And we can't facilitate all of that, but we can help close the gap between where they're at today and hopefully where we can get them into a place in that environment.
53:46
SPEAKER_00: And certainly we have our own place for that in our USL2 team.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: And we have Academy boys debuting for that every year.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: Um both alumni and current players debuting for that team.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: And we have a U-23 team that plays MWPL, which boys are both alumni and current players are debuting for that team every year.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: So we're giving them an opportunity to be in the men's game, but over the course of 10 months, we have to work with them on developing them so that they're ready to perform in that environment.
54:22
SPEAKER_00: So that college programs, pro programs, our own USL2 and MW3 programs are ready to empower them to play, you know, like rely on them to say, hey, you can help us get results and you can help us get to playoffs and and uh achieve wins.
54:39
SPEAKER_00: Um so I think the it's important that the coaching staff has the context to both, so that you say, okay, Jonathan Stout, great example, you know, been with us for a long time, captain of the team, high performer in the Big Ten, high performer at Western Michigan, you know, been in and around the pro environment with Lexington this summer and uh knowing that okay, I have uh all-action midfielder Chase Miller, who's going to Princeton this year, or committed to Princeton for the fall.
55:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, mapping what 18-year-old Chase Miller looks like and 22-year-old Jonathan South looks like.
55:19
SPEAKER_00: And obviously they're training together and competing together, but telling Chase, hey, look at these couple things in his game.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: Can you pick them up?
55:27
SPEAKER_00: Can you add them to his game?
55:28
SPEAKER_00: This is how you're gonna evolve from 18-year-old to 22-year-old.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: And obviously you're not gonna be the same exact player as Jonathan Sout, but you have key qualities in their game that you're trying to pick out so that he develops himself to the next level, right?
55:44
SPEAKER_00: Which is high-end Big Ten, high-end Western Michigan, high-end NCAA tournament first round winner.
55:51
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
55:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, 30-day Lexington contract.
55:56
SPEAKER_00: This is a but then you can take Chase Miller and you can scale all the way down to U14 or U13 or U15.
56:02
SPEAKER_00: I have the U-15s next year, and I can say, okay, I've got midfielders like uh Gage Cray, you know, a high-performing player in our academy, midfielder, box-to-box player, different than Chase Miller, but you can always map the skill set saying, hey, this is what a Princeton commit looks like.
56:24
SPEAKER_00: Here are key qualities in this game, here are some areas that we can build into your an IDP.
56:31
SPEAKER_00: And certainly we're building that into the year, you know, uh full year periodization.
56:37
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, certainly.
56:38
SPEAKER_00: You're planning out um individual concepts and team concepts that you want the team to execute.
56:44
SPEAKER_00: Um I would say at U14 it's it's uh more um planned versus the U19 team, you're mixing two groups together so you're getting a feel for the personalities and the skill set of two groups coming together versus the U14 team is or the U15 team is two years built on itself.
57:09
SPEAKER_00: There's not that much turnover in the U15 team, where the U19 team there's a lot of turnover because two groups are coming together.
57:16
SPEAKER_02: This U-15 team that you have, were you with them at 14?
57:20
SPEAKER_00: No, Leo was.
57:22
SPEAKER_00: Leo was at Leo was with them from U-13, 14, and I'm taking them U15.
57:26
SPEAKER_02: So talk about the club a little bit.
57:29
SPEAKER_02: So how well do you know all the boys in the entire MLS homegrown atmosphere?
57:37
SPEAKER_02: I know every kid.
57:38
SPEAKER_02: You know every kid.
57:40
SPEAKER_02: How did okay, is that you just going above and beyond, or is that standard across the and and you guys are all interchangeable where maybe you help assist on another team or stuff like that?
57:56
SPEAKER_02: Because what I always thought, if I ever ran a club, I'd want like each player to almost have a file.
58:01
SPEAKER_02: This is back in the day before like Taca and everything like that, where I want every kid to have a f a file and the IDP and their uh evaluations, and then when I give them to another coach, I'm like, here, and this is my team.
58:19
SPEAKER_02: But I mean, go into the like knowing the 15s before you ever got them.
58:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the head coaches are always gonna head coach the team 99% of the time.
58:31
SPEAKER_01: Right.
58:32
SPEAKER_00: Um I was tasked when I came in to be the program manager, you know, there's certainly some liberties of deciding what that's gonna be myself.
58:46
SPEAKER_00: But is that all over all teams?
58:48
SPEAKER_00: Just the homegrown, the MLS program manager.
58:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so essentially I answer a lot of the emails.
58:55
SPEAKER_00: Um but that's probably my like day-to-day title.
58:59
SPEAKER_00: But another part of that is trying to bring the staff and the player pools together and making sure that we're making decisions together, that we're developing players together, that we're giving each other great feedback that we need to help push kids on or push teams on and help them grow or win more, or you know, take each group to the next level, each player to the next level.
59:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, but certainly from a top-down perspective, knowing every kid and being able to sit at the table with Luke and Lewis and Alex and Leo and know every kid and give a sense of where that kid is at, where they need to go, um, in terms of their individual growth and the role in the team is is important year to year, especially year to year.
59:52
SPEAKER_00: Um Do we have a big Google Drive of every kid and all their IDPs?
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: And is it easy to find?
1:00:01
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's there's a folder with you know every kid's IDPs and what they're working on and and the connection to training to games and film and pulling all of those things into one place.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_00: We have that.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_00: And and that's easy to find for the next coach who's taking the next team.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm taking the 08, 09, U19 group, and obviously I had some of those boys when we were 13, 14.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, some of them went to pro academies and are now coming back because they want to be home for their senior year.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that group has kind of come together in a in a number of different ways, but we still have the kids that have been with us for any amount of years, one to six years.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_00: Because it's our first group that's gone all the way through the academy, uh, the MLS next program from U13 to U19.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_02: Since 2021, basically.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_00: We have all their IDPs.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh everything's changing year to year.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_00: Like TACA's opened up a whole new world where you know we used to have Huddle playlists where we would put in IDP clips for them and we would build out what that look, you know, their and now Taca just does all that.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_00: Now Taca kind of which is great.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_00: It's a huge I I actually talked with Mark Shields at FEST.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: Great.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he uh basically labeled what I had been doing for two years I had been clipping IDP film for kids and putting it in dedicated playlists for those players, saying, hey, these are the areas that we want you to work on based on key qualities that we as a club all agree upon and our principles of play.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_00: And also our knowledge of mapping to the men's game.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_00: Like we know the men's game, we're we're in it with USL2, we're in it with MWPL, we know how to map kids to the high-end college game, whatever that looks like, D1, D2, D3, doesn't matter.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: We we've we're accomplished at moving the needle for kids to get to that space.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_00: Um and a big part of that is digging into their film and showing them some areas that they're doing really well, some areas that they can keep improving on.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_00: But Mark was like, we're trying to take, we're basically right now, you guys are laptop coaches.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: You spend 40 hours a week on a laptop cutting film, and we're trying to take that away from you.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_00: Yep, so that you can get back to coaching.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_00: And I laughed and I I said, Thank you, because I was that guy spending umpteen hours on a laptop pulling film for kids, which is very valuable, very helpful, but a massive waste of time.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_02: When I had when I had him on, uh that's exactly what he said.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_02: That's his goal is like get this off of the plate of coaches because they have so much else to worry about.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, it's phenomenal.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_00: There there's there's still an evolution at Midwest that we need to have.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's still professionalization and organization, and we probably, like you said, with the coaching tree, we probably need to bring more people into it and more more hands on deck to help the kids on the pitch.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, so it's not you you can go back to 4v4 and you can say, well, what's a great ratio of coach to player?
1:03:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, like how many kids do you want on the pitch per coach?
1:03:37
SPEAKER_02: What do you think that is?
1:03:39
SPEAKER_00: I I'm not the right person to ask that question.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_00: Because well Tom Wellsy's out there with four-year-olds and MLS Go, and he's got a hundred, I don't know, I went disc golfing with him yesterday, and he's like, we have a hundred kids or 90 kids, you eight and below.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_00: I I can't remember what he said.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_00: Don't don't quote me on that.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_02: But I love the I love the MLS Go stuff.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's I mean, he's smashing it, and he just knows how to how to do that um environment.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of coaches out there.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of I'd say, you know, for every eight kids, you probably need a coach.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_00: I think if you're getting to 10, you better be a good coach to wrangle 10 kids together.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that changes that much when you're with older kids.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you have 24 kids, 22 kids, I the U19 team, I often have 22 kids.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_00: Um certainly 20 plus.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_00: Like on any team in the world, a college team, if you have 28 kids, Division I college team, you have 28 kids, you don't have one coach.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna have three or four.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have three.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_02: And then in Europe, there's like six for the like the U18s.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a lot of coaching going into those groups.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_00: And um certainly I think that there's there's gonna be an evolution and progress and professionalization in in youth soccer in America, um, with m getting away from the laptop and more hands-on deck and more coaching and getting more people into the teams that are are training and playing, um, getting more expertise into them so that we can help them develop at a faster, a faster rate.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_02: Those okay.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_02: The 19s that you're about to have, did you have them at 14?
1:05:27
SPEAKER_02: The 15s?
1:05:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was some of these.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_00: Some of these guys were my first year, yeah.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_02: Have you got to work with them yet?
1:05:35
SPEAKER_02: The second time around?
1:05:36
SPEAKER_02: Because I want to know, like, uh do you see that like some of them are in our USL2 team.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_00: So okay, so you've been around them anyway.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so uh like um it's uh not private anymore.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_00: So Han Schoner, uh, is a Kalmazou kid, Madawan kid I just learned actually.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_00: Um he was on my first team at U 14, and then we sent him to Columbus Crew.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_00: He's been there for four years.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: And now he's back as a U19 player because he committed to Western Michigan.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_00: So having him at U 14, pretty much not seeing him.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I saw him at events and nice to see you kind of thing.
1:06:13
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_00: But to then for him to come back at U19 and be on our USL2 team, and he played two nights ago at Kalamazoo.
1:06:20
SPEAKER_00: He's he started a game against Oakland, maybe.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_00: And he's, you know, 17 years old.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_00: So to to see that kind of come full circle and and to be able but yeah, I mean Luke uh Luke Beinendorp and Nolan Mick and like all Carter Seam, like all Braylon Leggy, like had all those kids at 14 and now they're on my U19 team.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_00: Um I didn't coach them every day since then, but I've you know someone like someone like um you know Mason Cheavis or you know Andy Anderson Collins, like those are guys that I had at 13 and they've been with us the whole way through and to to get them at U19 is is a treat.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_02: Does Luke like set out like a plan for like each age group where it's like this is what I want you to accomplish or or work on the uh with the 15s, 16s, 17s, all the way up to 19s?
1:07:11
SPEAKER_02: So that like when you get to the 14s and then when you get them in the 19s, oftentimes some clubs and some kids are the same player.
1:07:20
SPEAKER_02: They're the same player that they were at 14.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_02: They have the same maybe bad habits, maybe they still have the same the same one like move that always works, or is or some something in their game that sets them apart, and that like and then sometimes sometimes, sadly, kids lose that.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_02: It's like where did this go?
1:07:40
SPEAKER_02: Like what you're not the same, you're not the same kid.
1:07:43
SPEAKER_02: Like, is it is is that transformation, like is it super does it like jump off the page, or do you think, oh, this is the same kid you were when you were 14?
1:07:54
SPEAKER_00: Some of the kids are the same kids.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_00: I I used to joke with about Hans, um, I used to joke about Hans that he would start every game with getting the ball out wide and trying to rainbow the kid.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_00: And and I in my head, I had always thought if he rainbowed the kid and got it on the other end, he knew he was scoring.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, he knew he was gonna have a good day.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_00: And then if he rainbowed the kid and the kid defended him, defended him well, pulled him down to the ground, he goes, All right, alright, this kid's gonna give me give me something today.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, like it's gonna be a tougher day.
1:08:30
SPEAKER_00: I like that.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_00: And uh I had always laughed about Hans that he was the he was the best 1v1 player I ever coached because he could he could skin a cat a lot of different ways.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_00: He could rainbow a kid, he could beat you with speed, he could beat with double movement, like come in between the lines and then go behind the lines.
1:08:47
SPEAKER_00: He could play as a false nine and you know build help build the play, but he could play as an in-behind nine and you know outrun guys and he could score with the left, he could score with his right, he could step over, he could, he could beat you so many different ways.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_00: And he comes to USL2, haven't seen him, haven't trained him in four or five years, and he's exactly the same kid.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_00: The exact same bravery, the exact same attitude, the exact same and in a good way, the exact same ego.
1:09:16
SPEAKER_00: He just believes in himself.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_00: He believes and he's always believed in himself.
1:09:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then there's certainly kids in our academy that have yeah, quirks about their game that we're still ironing out.
1:09:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, ironing out.
1:09:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think a lot of that comes from, you know, I think you can throw the blanket term IDP on it, but a lot of it comes from individual conversations with the player, sitting down with the player and saying, hey, how's it going?
1:09:44
SPEAKER_00: How's it going?
1:09:46
SPEAKER_00: Where are some areas of your game that you think you're thriving in?
1:09:50
SPEAKER_00: And and give me one or two areas of your game that you're noticing that aren't clicking the way you want them to click, or that you see a performance gap where you know where you want to be, and you're not where you're a lower level than that, and we're gonna help you bridge the gap.
1:10:07
SPEAKER_00: And I think when you I know when you have individual conversations with kids like that and give them some freedom to just unleash about their game and saying, I'm really happy about this, I'm really unsatisfied about this, that's the best way to start a conversation about how we're gonna develop the individual player.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_00: And then you can add your in your expertise in.
1:10:33
SPEAKER_00: You can pull up tack of film and you say, Hey, this is actually what's happening on the pitch.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_00: These are some areas that are exceptional.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_00: Here are some areas that are areas for improvement that we can target to, again, the overall vision is wherever the player is, close the gap to men's football.
1:10:52
SPEAKER_00: Whether that's division one, division two, division three, NAIA, some kids go pro, you know.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_00: David Zavala and Daniel, Daniel Mendez went to Guadalajara and Pachuca.
1:11:03
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't care where they go, men's level, like wherever fits them the best, whatever culture's the best for them.
1:11:11
SPEAKER_00: But the best way to develop players is have a sit-down with them multiple times a year and give them some autonomy on saying this is the player I want to be within the construct of the team, obviously.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:11:26
SPEAKER_00: But this this is the vision that I have for myself, and their vision is usually connected to a men's player that they see on on the week or the weekday at USL2 level, or maybe a professional player that they have, you know, they they idolize, or they have a role model, and and that influences our individual coaching during the week.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_02: How do you bridge that gap between okay, we're trying to develop individual players, but we're also trying to have team success because a topic that's uh that's been brought up is like generation Adidas, right?
1:12:02
SPEAKER_02: Our generate like our MLS academies will go and compete with Barcelona.
1:12:07
SPEAKER_02: And I'm talking to some guys that were there.
1:12:09
SPEAKER_02: I didn't go this year, and I'm talking to some guys that were there, and I okay, what's the difference?
1:12:15
SPEAKER_02: Why why can we compete at 16, 17 years old, but then we're not developing the world-class player.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_02: And and it's and somebody that was there said that said it brilliantly.
1:12:32
SPEAKER_02: He goes, the difference between uh Barcelona at U 16 and our teams at U 16 is that we have team tactics that can counter what they're trying to do, whereas they're trying to still develop the hundred million dollar player, and it's like okay, how do they bridge that gap?
1:12:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a I'll I uh that you this is a can of worms, you know.
1:12:55
SPEAKER_00: You're you're going down yeah, you're going down a rabbit level.
1:12:59
SPEAKER_00: But um I'll always uh like default to uh that American guy who's over in Japan, Tom Bayer.
1:13:09
SPEAKER_00: Tom Bayer, love him that guy knows what's going on.
1:13:12
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
1:13:13
SPEAKER_00: He he he is the master, and you're never gonna bridge the gap at the professional level until you bridge the gap at the father level.
1:13:21
SPEAKER_00: So there's not enough fathers that play soccer, and that makes sense because my dad is a swimmer and a triathlete, and your dad was a guitarist, yeah, and they didn't know anything, and I'm I'm gonna be hesitant to say that if I have a son, because that's down the road, if if if ever.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_00: But my sister is a good example.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_00: My sister was a very good soccer player, played at a good club level, much a much higher club level than I did.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_00: And she's just had a daughter, my my niece, Daphne.
1:13:55
SPEAKER_00: At some point, if they have a son, my brother-in-law, Frankie, was a high-end football player, my sister was a high-end soccer player, sports people, one of the parents played.
1:14:07
SPEAKER_00: Yep, that's gonna develop that player at home.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_00: And and soccer stars at home.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_00: It does, it does.
1:14:13
SPEAKER_00: And the more fathers that have sons that play soccer, we're probably what, two generations away from from really seeing like, oh, we have some stellar players, not a bunch of good players.
1:14:27
SPEAKER_00: We have a bunch of fine players, you know, and that's what you're seeing in this World Cup is that you know, against other countries that also have fine players, a really good coach, Pacetino, can kind of take you over the the bump there.
1:14:43
SPEAKER_00: But then last night, we don't really have the depth that yeah, and so is it moving dropped off a little bit.
1:14:52
SPEAKER_02: Like, what happened to Weia?
1:14:55
SPEAKER_00: But but a lot of that's club situation too, you know, club situation, club confidence, coaching staff at the club level, you know, it's so your your club, your club environment's gonna impact your national team environment, usually, um, unless you're like Olivia Giroud, it doesn't matter what you know, you're just walking in and doing the business.
1:15:13
SPEAKER_00: Um But in the United States, I think you're probably going back to a cultural thing.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's it's all rooted in have the fathers played soccer, are they teaching the kids from a very, very young age, one, two, three years old, how to run, touch, pass, kick, play, and then they come to the team environment, and then they're still going back to their home environment and they're developing at home.
1:15:40
SPEAKER_00: Because right now, as you saw out there, there's so much individual training happening, and in other countries that doesn't exist.
1:15:48
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't exist because they're they're in the field, they're their father.
1:15:54
SPEAKER_00: And then they go play pickup exactly as a game environment.
1:15:56
SPEAKER_00: So they're getting individual training with their father, and again, it's not individual training, it's just play.
1:16:01
SPEAKER_00: We're just playing.
1:16:02
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, and we're because our culture is so far behind, because we're a lot of first generation soccer players, we're always going to be a little bit behind because okay, we're finally getting there.
1:16:14
SPEAKER_02: Our second and third generation, uh, all of our national team is second and third generation.
1:16:19
SPEAKER_02: Well, now we're gonna have to go play like the Netherlands, and and they're like and on their fifth, and they're on their fifth generation or sixth, and it's just always gonna happen.
1:16:29
SPEAKER_00: But okay, but the second thing I would say to that is that young players in European countries are exposed to men's football way earlier than they are.
1:16:38
SPEAKER_00: We're so far removed, and that's a lot to do with the pyramid.
1:16:41
SPEAKER_00: The pyramid's messy and not linear and uh not results-based.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_00: And a club like ours that debuts kids all the time at the men's level, there's not enough of that happening.
1:16:57
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that we're the North Star, we're the shining light.
1:17:00
SPEAKER_00: We're just intentionally saying we're a youth club with a couple men's teams on top, and it's in our best interest to make sure that our player pool is largely West Michigan people, because it's cheaper that they come home and play for us when they're done with their college season in the summer.
1:17:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:17:19
SPEAKER_00: But there's not over the course of you know the 50 states, there's just not enough of that happening.
1:17:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:17:26
SPEAKER_00: 14, 15, six, we have a 14-year-old playing uh on our W MWPL team, you know, like that's men's football.
1:17:34
SPEAKER_00: It's not the highest end men's football, but at 14, that's what makes sense for him.
1:17:38
SPEAKER_00: Or at 15 or 16, that that's what makes sense for those players to experience that.
1:17:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, and training with you know, some of Calvin's team or some of Hope's team and to get them that experience.
1:17:50
SPEAKER_00: In Europe, it's happening at a way bigger click.
1:17:53
SPEAKER_00: Even if they play for, you know, that they're they can be playing for multiple men's teams to gain that experience at 15, 16, 17.
1:18:00
SPEAKER_00: You just any k guy from England here, they were playing men's football at 14 years old.
1:18:05
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
1:18:05
SPEAKER_02: And how many of uh of the USL2 teams that you've seen over the years, they just bring in kids from all over the place, they pay for their room and board.
1:18:15
SPEAKER_00: That's my experience of the Bucks, and and it is what it is.
1:18:18
SPEAKER_00: They they are running that team in their own way.
1:18:22
SPEAKER_00: It's incredibly successful.
1:18:24
SPEAKER_00: They want college talent that's ready to go to the pros.
1:18:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:18:30
SPEAKER_00: So, but I think that's the beauty about American or about football anyway, is that you have all these teams going back to Gary and Brian, like they have their own methodology, and I took it and messed it up and made it my own.
1:18:47
SPEAKER_00: That's the beauty about football, is that you have all these different styles of coaches, styles of teams, styles of players playing against each other.
1:18:55
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the same thing at the club level.
1:18:57
SPEAKER_00: All these teams are going to be doing slightly different things, and hopefully you get rewarded or demoted based on how well you do those things.
1:19:07
SPEAKER_00: But amid West United, we think it's important that our player pool know that there's an opportunity if they're very high performing player that they can play at the men's level early before they go to college, versus we have to go play the Bucs next week, and they're gonna roll out 22, 23, 20, yeah, 30-year-olds in some cases, that that it's a completely different experience for them.
1:19:34
SPEAKER_00: Two nights ago when we were at Kalmazou.
1:19:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, by the finish of the game, 10 20 minutes left in the game, our average age on the field was 19.
1:19:44
SPEAKER_02: And that's what needs to happen.
1:19:46
SPEAKER_02: I think I love that because one of the biggest knocks on the MLS is like, oh, it's an over 30 league.
1:19:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, this year it's a little bit different.
1:19:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:19:55
SPEAKER_02: There but there's a lot of clubs like the Red Bulls or um even.
1:19:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Julian Hall is yeah, 18, and he's got 10 some goals this year, right?
1:20:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and Philly, and and it's look, it's I think it's changing, and I think this World Cup is really gonna help.
1:20:13
SPEAKER_00: You're seeing more young players play in USL Champ, USL 1.
1:20:18
SPEAKER_00: You're seeing more younger guys, even if they can't make it through that pathway, then they're running to USL to get experience.
1:20:25
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
1:20:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's not there yet, but it's certainly from when I 10, 20 years, I mean when I was 15, none of that was happening.
1:20:39
SPEAKER_00: So it's certainly maturing over the last 15 years.
1:20:42
SPEAKER_00: Could it could it be put in overdrive?
1:20:45
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
1:20:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's ways for that to get put in overdrive, but it's certainly come along the last 15 years.
1:20:51
SPEAKER_02: For sure.
1:20:51
SPEAKER_02: Before we started, you were talking about pickup, and you were talking about like the highest level that you played was was pickup.
1:20:57
SPEAKER_02: How much I just saw, I forget who was somebody who's like, if your training sessions oftentimes look like pickup, you're doing something right.
1:21:09
SPEAKER_02: Do you ever try to like get that?
1:21:14
SPEAKER_02: Is there a way to do that with a club in terms of alright, you know what?
1:21:20
SPEAKER_02: We're just gonna bring all of our homegrown teams and we're just gonna play.
1:21:25
SPEAKER_02: And it's just gonna be do you guys ever do anything like that or but do anything within your own team of like we're gonna play pickup style, we're gonna play 5v5, and we're just gonna be above bath.
1:21:37
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes in the sometimes in the training session, yeah.
1:21:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:21:40
SPEAKER_00: Like you might merge with a team and pick teams and and have just let them have a go, especially if you might not have a game on the weekend, right?
1:21:48
SPEAKER_00: And give them a little bit of a D-load session where they're just going to play.
1:21:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:21:53
SPEAKER_00: It's very hard unless it's in the summer.
1:21:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:21:57
SPEAKER_00: Because the fields are packed.
1:21:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a big club, and there's a lot of there's there's only so much field space out here.
1:22:03
SPEAKER_02: Do you like training the guys in here?
1:22:05
SPEAKER_00: I I honestly I'm never here.
1:22:08
SPEAKER_02: You're never in here?
1:22:09
SPEAKER_02: No, we're always out there.
1:22:10
SPEAKER_00: No, we're at Aquinas.
1:22:11
SPEAKER_00: The last program's at Aquinas.
1:22:13
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
1:22:14
SPEAKER_00: So like there's only so much field space.
1:22:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's only so much equipment.
1:22:19
SPEAKER_00: You're working on it.
1:22:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're working on it.
1:22:21
SPEAKER_00: We're working on it.
1:22:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think anytime you're you're it's easy to easy to be like, oh, the grass is greener.
1:22:29
SPEAKER_00: It it's it just takes time, you know.
1:22:32
SPEAKER_00: It takes it takes people trying to navigate new waters and saying, hey, this is gonna help our program.
1:22:41
SPEAKER_00: This extra resource, this extra field space, this extra coach, like that's gonna add value to what we're doing.
1:22:49
SPEAKER_00: And if we add value to what we're doing, then you're gonna get an influx of players that's gonna help you know, pay for it.
1:22:57
SPEAKER_00: So uh it whatever we look like today, in two years, five years, ten years, it's gonna look different, it's gonna look improved, it's gonna look um better.
1:23:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:23:12
SPEAKER_00: But that's that that's just you have to put good people around each other and you have to you have to pinpoint some key areas that are gonna help the the environment grow, which is gonna help the player pool grow.
1:23:24
SPEAKER_02: And that's one of the reasons why you know I wanted to partner with you guys as well, is just because I feel like you guys are all uh you seem like you're all in this together.
1:23:36
SPEAKER_02: That's what it really that's what I get out of here.
1:23:39
SPEAKER_02: And and on the same page, obviously there's gonna be like things where you could disagreements and stuff like that, and that's healthy for most clubs, but there are clubs that are just a collection of coaches, a collection of teams.
1:23:53
SPEAKER_02: They don't talk, they don't share, they don't they don't know every single player within the the academy, and that shows, and it's like I'm not really gonna partner with a club like that.
1:24:04
SPEAKER_00: If there's there's even been I mean, if you sit down with Rudy, I mean Rudy's got so much knowledge and war stories and from his Chicago days, fascinating to listen to.
1:24:19
SPEAKER_00: I know Chicago's a war zone, a war zone, and and I I I I did my I finished my A license a couple uh last last year.
1:24:29
SPEAKER_00: Congrats, thank you.
1:24:31
SPEAKER_00: Um but uh I had an amazing instructor, amazing, like perfect for me.
1:24:38
SPEAKER_00: Who was it?
1:24:39
SPEAKER_00: Tom Harris, the North Carolina courage assistant, data analyst kind of guy.
1:24:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay and uh he pushed all the right buttons for me.
1:24:49
SPEAKER_00: He pushed me in a in a he just knew how he knew what I wanted, and he was he knew what my end goal was, and he just knew the right doors to open to like let me peek in that world and go, oh, okay, I'm gonna grab that and try it.
1:25:08
SPEAKER_00: But we had Lars Richters as one of our instructors and Lars is a legend.
1:25:13
SPEAKER_02: Lars Lars is is uh on education staff.
1:25:17
SPEAKER_00: He that my A license was his first one.
1:25:20
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I I It's about time.
1:25:22
SPEAKER_00: From my my what I believe is he retired from high school teaching.
1:25:27
SPEAKER_00: I think he was a high school teacher, and he is now doing that as his like second gig.
1:25:34
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
1:25:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's a legend, legend, amazing guy, so nice, and again, very very uh open to just this is how we do things.
1:25:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is my experience, and Tom was exactly the same way.
1:25:48
SPEAKER_00: We had Joe DeMay as well.
1:25:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know Joe, legend as well, like um and uh I I pretty consistently bring up like you want to be in the same conversation as a Wolves or a Soccer's or Scott Gallagher.
1:26:06
SPEAKER_00: These are institutional clubs, absolutely.
1:26:09
SPEAKER_00: These are clubs that are going nowhere.
1:26:11
SPEAKER_00: They are not gonna fold, they're not gonna burn, they are fabric of those cities.
1:26:18
SPEAKER_00: And certainly there's other clubs in those cities that are amazing clubs, so not but those are old clubs.
1:26:24
SPEAKER_00: And there's something about the old clubs that that uh you know i it's it's good to peek at them and say and not say you need to copy them, but what are they doing?
1:26:37
SPEAKER_02: Like just wanna know, you know what I mean?
1:26:39
SPEAKER_00: Just you you wanna you wanna certainly take advice or take a peek at what they're doing and say, cool, we wanna we wanna hold our ourselves, even if it's not doing things exactly the same, you want to hold yourself to the same standard that those guys are.
1:26:54
SPEAKER_00: Um Dave at Soccer's I've gotten to know him a lot more over the last four or five years, and again, amazing guy and pretty soft spoken, like when you're just on the sideline with him, Lars very similar.
1:27:06
SPEAKER_00: Um but there's work to do to catch those clubs.
1:27:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, those guys are sending teams to playoffs, they're sending pro so many pros every year.
1:27:14
SPEAKER_00: Their college lists.
1:27:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, to me, our college list the last two years has been pretty on par with just about anyone, but that's taken a lot of work and some incredible player pools.
1:27:26
SPEAKER_00: Like we've had some really strong player pools in 2025 and 2026, and we'll have another strong player pool in 2027.
1:27:33
SPEAKER_00: We have a very strong player pool in 2028.
1:27:36
SPEAKER_00: Um but that's been an evolution from 2022 when I came in.
1:27:41
SPEAKER_00: We were losing 10 nil to soccer and wolves.
1:27:45
SPEAKER_00: Like we were getting killed, and now we're not saying we're better, but we're very competitive with pretty much everyone based on the team that we have.
1:27:55
SPEAKER_02: Is that through recruitment of getting kids in, or is it also just Like some of your kids getting older and used to that level.
1:28:03
SPEAKER_00: It's ex it's experience for sure.
1:28:05
SPEAKER_00: It's it's hugely experienced.
1:28:07
SPEAKER_00: Um for even from the coaching staff, like being like I mean, I came from coaching NLC girls to MLS next boys.
1:28:16
SPEAKER_00: Like th that's those are two the only thing that helped me bridge that gap was Saginaw and the Bucks.
1:28:22
SPEAKER_00: Where I bring that experience where I wasn't the head coach, but I was around the players and I was helping coach um as an assistant, and on the game days, if I didn't have that, it would have been a huge jump to MLS.
1:28:35
SPEAKER_00: The speed of the player, the the needs of the player, um it it would have been a massive jump.
1:28:42
SPEAKER_00: But having those two levels to come to MLS, I go, okay, I need to coach more like Louie and Andy did versus what I did with the girls, the NLC girls.
1:28:53
SPEAKER_00: And some of those were good players.
1:28:54
SPEAKER_00: They're they're gonna be division one, division two players.
1:28:57
SPEAKER_00: But that that gap was big from a coaching standpoint.
1:29:01
SPEAKER_00: And then you know, you're rolling up against Dave and Lars, who are legends, who have been here for 20, 30, 40 years, and who I mean Dave's got 30 years of academy experience in his belt.
1:29:14
SPEAKER_00: So he rolls up in a game against me and he just goes, ah, this young buck, you know.
1:29:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that, I'm I'm joking, but the for me, it's uh there's a big gap between those guys and me of how I'm servicing my players.
1:29:30
SPEAKER_00: So as much as there's a gap between culture in the United States with players and their parents playing, there's there's a gap between how early players start men's football, there's a massive coaching gap as well.
1:29:46
SPEAKER_00: A massive coaching gap because there's more coaches coaching at a higher level because there's more levels for them to coach at in Europe.
1:29:54
SPEAKER_00: Where, you know, to dig my own grave here, I mean I was coaching 77 boys to jump to MLS, and obviously I did a lot of work to close that with licensing, and I was getting paid zero dollars for Saginaw, zero dollars for the bucks, like I was willing to do a lot of free work to gain experience, yeah, but there probably needs to be more like picking up the young coach, exposing him to the level so that the neck the torch is ready to get passed and they're ready to help at that level.
1:30:29
SPEAKER_02: Last question we've got to wrap this up.
1:30:32
SPEAKER_02: Um mentors, or your licensing, what has had the bigger role, the bigger impact?
1:30:40
SPEAKER_00: Mentors, mentors.
1:30:42
SPEAKER_00: I'd say from that, and that's not to discredit my licensing.
1:30:46
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
1:30:47
SPEAKER_00: Um I had Paul Thomas MIC license, amazing.
1:30:51
SPEAKER_00: I had uh uh Wagon Schultz, what was his first name?
1:30:57
SPEAKER_00: No, the there being a I'm gonna get flamed by some of my friends for that.
1:31:01
SPEAKER_00: Wagon Schultz, who was uh he's out in Colorado, he's a sports science guy with MIB license.
1:31:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and he was by the book.
1:31:10
SPEAKER_00: Like you need to do A, B, C, D, E, F, G, all the way to Z.
1:31:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:31:15
SPEAKER_00: It's not done well in that order.
1:31:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm coming after you.
1:31:19
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:31:19
SPEAKER_02: And I'm Some of those Federation guys are like that.
1:31:22
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
1:31:22
SPEAKER_00: I I really liked that because I'm I'm an act, I was an actor.
1:31:25
SPEAKER_00: You're like that kid.
1:31:26
SPEAKER_00: So you tell me how it needs to be organized, and it was done.
1:31:30
SPEAKER_00: So me and him had we had loads of respect.
1:31:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we had a good he got me up to like organizationally, this is what it needs to look at look like at the standard level.
1:31:44
SPEAKER_00: And then Tom was my A license was okay, this is all very organized, very clean, very, you know, to standard USS soccer, and you're adding your own, you know, flavor experience in it, but here's the pro level.
1:32:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:32:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show you what I'm doing at NWSL, I'm gonna show you what my friends are doing, I'm gonna show you what I did at Clairefontaine, like I'm gonna show you the highest, highest level.
1:32:10
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't have to in my A license, I didn't have to worry about anything organizationally.
1:32:15
SPEAKER_00: I was already like clean with that with Wagon Schultz.
1:32:18
SPEAKER_00: But Tom pushed me to the professional level.
1:32:22
SPEAKER_00: Those were invaluable experiences.
1:32:23
SPEAKER_00: I needed those.
1:32:25
SPEAKER_00: Um but so especially the the human side, the man management, the the conversations, the direct, the just the sometimes the hard conversations.
1:32:37
SPEAKER_00: I I mean I had some amazing, I'd say amazing, but like Andy, Andy and I, when we were in playoffs, I mean I'm fresh in this, and we're in the national semifinal for USL 2.
1:32:52
SPEAKER_00: And I'm in Des Moines, like, how did I get here?
1:32:55
SPEAKER_00: You know?
1:32:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh we we beat Des Moines in 120 minutes at Des Moines, 7,000 fans in the stadium.
1:33:02
SPEAKER_00: Um best one game experience of my life uh winning that game.
1:33:07
SPEAKER_00: And then we got to turn around two days later and play Ventura, who uh um had some unbelievable players on their team.
1:33:15
SPEAKER_00: Logan Farrington, um, who's a pro now.
1:33:18
SPEAKER_00: Um they had a kid, I'm losing his name, who ended up going to uh Club Bruges, I think, in uh Belgium to even do the draft.
1:33:27
SPEAKER_00: Um was a Syracuse kid.
1:33:30
SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm losing his name though, it's been a while.
1:33:34
SPEAKER_00: Um and you know this is this is well documented because Andy said it on a podcast a few years ago.
1:33:42
SPEAKER_00: Like I had when you know when you ask your opinion, I have one idea of like, well, Ventura's gonna play a super low block, so we need as many lock pickers on the team as possible.
1:33:51
SPEAKER_00: As many technical guys that can play in between lines.
1:33:54
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if they get pressed, they can keep it, that they can keep progressing through this really tight low block.
1:34:00
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the team that we had played on the playoff run.
1:34:04
SPEAKER_00: We had played a very transition team, a very athletic team, uh a very box-to-box team.
1:34:12
SPEAKER_00: So Andy and Paul wanted to go with same as uh keep the team together because that's who's been winning.
1:34:19
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking this might be the game to change it over.
1:34:23
SPEAKER_00: Change it and put all the lock pickers on.
1:34:26
SPEAKER_00: And uh it doesn't matter.
1:34:27
SPEAKER_00: It's a head, this is what I learned.
1:34:29
SPEAKER_00: It it's a head coach's decision.
1:34:32
SPEAKER_00: And m I wouldn't say Andy and I got in a fight, but I think that there was Andy could sense that I was a little stubborn in my opinion about it.
1:34:42
SPEAKER_00: And I again I I never said anything disrespectful or anything like that, but we had a moment of like, he's like, hey, it doesn't matter.
1:34:48
SPEAKER_00: I picked a team, I need you to help me now.
1:34:51
SPEAKER_00: Because we're at halftime, we're down one-nil, and we need to fix this, we need to win this game.
1:34:57
SPEAKER_00: And that was a as a young guy, that was a massive learning moment of like sometimes you have to have car hard conversations, even if in my head I was like devastated.
1:35:05
SPEAKER_00: I never wanted to let Andy down, I never wanted to like give off the sense that I was being defiant.
1:35:11
SPEAKER_00: But by not participating and helping the way I had been, it was a huge learning moment for me to like take the hit of like even if I didn't think I was being defiant, he thought I was being defiant.
1:35:24
SPEAKER_00: And I learned so much.
1:35:26
SPEAKER_00: Like that those moments of like being with Lou and being with Andy and and also them just putting me on to Luke and coming here.
1:35:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll I'll be forever thankful for those things because that putting me in those environments and being next to those incredible people, incredible coaches, developed me massively, massively.
1:35:46
SPEAKER_00: So um you need both.
1:35:49
SPEAKER_00: You need absolutely you need the organization and the tools that the licensing can give you.
1:35:54
SPEAKER_00: And certainly, like the the my A license was hard.
1:35:57
SPEAKER_00: Like it was rigorous, it was detailed.
1:36:00
SPEAKER_00: Tom held us to a really high standard, Tom, Lars, Joe, they held us to a really high standard, especially present presentation and like getting up in front of your peers and getting grilled by your peers.
1:36:11
SPEAKER_00: Um and some of the licensing right now, I mean, the the EF, what is that?
1:36:16
SPEAKER_00: EFFF license, the elite French Federation license, that ones that's just for MLS.
1:36:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Tom, anybody I've heard that's taken that is like that thing's tough.
1:36:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really rigorous and they really push you so to be a better coach.
1:36:33
SPEAKER_00: So I think a lot of that the A senior is run by uh Gareth.
1:36:38
SPEAKER_00: Um so I I think they're putting really high-end people on top of those licensing that have amazing experience.
1:36:46
SPEAKER_00: Gareth is Luke one of Louis's mentors, so you know I I trust that.
1:36:50
SPEAKER_00: And um Gareth is involved at Spokane, who one of the better USL2 or USL 1 teams of the last couple of years, like they're doing good work around the country, and so I think the licensing is important, but you've got to put yourself around good people that are willing to like push you out of your comfort zone.
1:37:06
SPEAKER_00: And Louis, Andy, Luke have all done that for me, so um both very valuable.
1:37:13
SPEAKER_00: I love it, man.
1:37:14
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for doing this.
1:37:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks for having me.
1:37:16
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me.
1:37:17
SPEAKER_02: It's a blast.
1:37:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:37:18
SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it, and we're done.
1:37:20
SPEAKER_02: Okay, awesome.
1:37:21
SPEAKER_02: Sweet dude.
1:37:23
SPEAKER_02: I hate soccer.
1:37:26
SPEAKER_02: This episode is brought to you by the North American Soccer Expo.
1:37:30
SPEAKER_02: If you remember last year when I had Alexi Lawless on, so many of you were blown away and kept on messaging me like, how did you get Alexei Lawless to talk to you?
1:37:41
SPEAKER_02: And to be honest with you, it was the North American Soccer Expo.
1:37:44
SPEAKER_02: The Expo has workshops and seminars and field presentations from top coaches and industry experts.
1:37:53
SPEAKER_02: I will be there this year.
1:37:54
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
1:37:56
SPEAKER_02: I'll be setting up on public campus remote.
1:37:58
SPEAKER_02: In addition to the public campus that I'm going to be filming there, I'm also going to have an open hour where any coach at the expo or anybody at the expo can come sit down at the chair and have a one on one fifteen minute chat with me, and you guys can just come and check out and talk about whatever you want.
1:38:16
SPEAKER_02: North American Central Expo, to live thirtieth, to August first, Nova, Michigan.
1:38:21
SPEAKER_02: I'll see you there.