Dyersburg State Community College Women’s Soccer – Coach Robert Luttrell
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Robert Luttrell from the Dyersburg State Community College Women’s Program in Tennessee. We talk about the types of players he tries to recruit. He describes the school’s tightknit community that includes students, faculty and staff. Lastly, we discuss how he stays adaptive in his style of play and formations. Learn more about Dyersburg State Community College Women’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi, everybody. Welcome to discover college soccer today. I’m lucky enough to be joined by Robert Luttrell from Dyersburg state community college in Tennessee.
Coach: Welcome. How you doing? I really appreciate you doing this.
Matt: No, I’m glad you’re here. You got a, a women’s soccer program there on the Western side of Tennessee.
Um, so let, let’s talk a little bit about how you get players there, right? So on the recruiting front, when are you usually starting to talk to players? You know, what, what year in high school? What, where do those conversations usually tend to happen?
Coach: Honestly, junior, junior, senior years when I, that the group that I’m really trying to go.
Spend a lot of time on that. Try to be, that’s a focus of mine, but recruiting, I’ll be quite honest. Soccer’s so easy. I love soccer so much. The hardest part of this is the recruiting part, because you have to maintain like year round relationships all the time. Like just checking in on, ’em making sure that they’re okay.
Just so they know that you care and that you know, that, that you exist. So, [00:01:00] but that is the hardest part of this job as a recruiting. Absolutely.
Matt: Absolutely. So do you tend to focus on, on high school or club and, and are there tournaments that you, you know, are must, must watch TV where, you know, you gotta be there, get in front of people.
What’s the best way you find to see players and start those conversations?
Coach: I do use a, I use a lot of coaches, like I’ll reach out to coaches of programs that I know that. Historically good in our area for high school. But then I also reach out to clubs, go to tournaments, things of that nature. Uh, use a lot of websites as far as like I pretty much the gambit, like anything and everything.
Also players that reach out to me, that’s a huge one. Uh, players reach out to me, but this, the fact that we don’t know the exist, you know, they might be a great player. That’s two counties. Who’s just killing it. And everyone just assumes that we know them. Like, I’m sure you know about player X is like, no, [00:02:00] no, there’s a, there’s a lot going on.
It’s a huge world. Uh it’s and there’s players out there that get overlooked because they just assume that we know them all and we don’t, and I’ve gotten some real gems just to kind of fell into my lap because they reached out to me. So all conference players just, I didn’t know, they existed until the last second.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. AB yeah, no, that makes sense. Well, what, what about camps? Do you guys do any at the school? Have we, do you, have you been able to, to be part of camps or your staff part camps? How does that camps feel?
Coach: We, I don’t do a lot of other people’s camps. Uh, I have opportunities to do ’em, but I have four kids and a full time job.
And, and I have the opportunity with my wife would murder me if I spent any more time. Outside of soccer on other soccer, like, and I it’s a recruiting process. I just, I love my wife. I love my kids. Any downtime I get, we talked about that before the video started. Just anytime I can get with my family and spend some quality time with them.
I wanna do that. I do host a camp. I have, [00:03:00] I have college friends that make fun of me cuz I only charge like 30 bucks. Like I really, I just wanna get ’em a shirt and see who they. And I have college friends that, uh, pick on me and say, you know, you should be trying to make money on that. Cause your ID cams are a way to make money.
It’s like, man, I just wanna see the kids. I just wanna see the players. I just wanna know. I’m not trying to price, gouge anyone on that. And we do do a camp and we’ll probably do it pretty soon in November and I’ll get the word out and try to do it through social media and things like that. But I really, the most important thing at camps is just to have them there and to put eyes on them and to know that and watch some of the other team.
No. That’s good.
Matt: Well, whether it’s at club games, high school games, camps, anything, you know, you’re looking at players. What is your kind of hierarchy in terms of what you’re looking for in a player, whether it’s on the field stuff, off the field stuff. What makes someone an attractive player for you that you want to recruit?
Coach: You kind of see when you, obviously, I want them to be technical. I want them to. [00:04:00] Fundamental. I want them to have everything like that. I wanna watch, you can watch a player in like, just in the first, like two minutes. You can see how they see the field, but I also wanna see how they interact with each other.
Like I wanna see, I’d be quite honest. I don’t wanna deal with a, I would rather have a player. That’s a great teammate, a great worker. And it’s gonna put the time in versus someone who’s just all world, but man, they’re a handful to deal with it. I want and I’ll, and I’ll reach out to coaches. Like as soon as I find a player that I really like I’ll contact the coach and then I might kinda like contact other players to find out what, what she’s like as a teammate that matters.
Now. Here’s the other thing that matters that didn’t come into play in the beginning. Cause I thought I could fix it is academics. Like I’ve come across that quite a bit to where a player. I saw that they struggled academically. I thought I can get ’em into tutoring. I [00:05:00] can fix all this. I can do it. But if they don’t have a good foundation, even academically, I’ll only have ’em for like a semester.
So I’m gonna, so I’ve gotta, I want it all. I want a great teammate, great player, great academics. But if I had to choose one, I’d say teammate and work work ethic is the ones nice. Those would be the high end ones.
Matt: No, that’s great. Um, well, I think a lot of people may have misconceptions around, you know, community colleges and, and that kind of thing with regards to price and the availability.
And what’s a, what they can really get out of a community college as an option. So can you, and I’m not holding you to hard numbers here, but can you just gimme a rough overview of what the financial aid situation looks like? What the cost of attending is there, are there athletic scholarships at your school kind?
What does the whole kind of price money picture look like?
Coach: Absolutely. I will tell you this. If you’re, if you’re in Tennessee, you go for free, completely free academically, [00:06:00] and we throw Tennessee promise, hope, scholarship, those things kind of kick into play. And pretty much everything I give is just on top of that.
Like, so you go for free. If you’re in the state of Tennessee, you would go completely for free. Now, if you’re out of state, we have waivers that we give, uh, but our school is not expensive. Like it a total year round for our. Is probably like 4,500 at the most for the entire year. And it would get your, all your stuff in the beginning and knock all those things out your first, second year.
It’d also give you an opportunity to play now outta state. Usually I try to, I try to do everything I can to take away what they would cost for the school, but then the housing kicks in and housing. I do my best. Four kids, wife. I understand all of that. I do not come from a rich background. I know you look at me and you say school teacher, he’s rich , but that’s not the case.
I understand from that aspect [00:07:00] and I’ll try to keep the price down. So what we usually do is have girls in houses and, uh, usually charge about three to three 50 a month to live in a house. And it’s usually nice house, nice neighborhood, always think to. Would I put my kid in this situation, if I wouldn’t, then we don’t, we have a really good setup, but the school doesn’t actually provide housing, stay at Tennessee.
That’s kind of on the player, but we have good kind of outlets for that and things of that nature. But I would say if you wanted to go someplace, if you didn’t get the chance, if you haven’t had the opportunity or you wanna even go to a four year after this, this is a great starting point, man. It, we watch out for you.
There’s we only have 20 players in the roster. We’re watching out for you on and off the field. It is a great opportunity for someone and it’s not gonna cost an arm Andal leg, uh, and you get to play. That’s the number one thing like I’ve asked my daughter who played for me and she went on to, with a national title with the program after us in NAIA.
Uh, [00:08:00] I asked her, I said, what’s the real selling point? What would make you wanna come to Dyersburg state? She said the opportunity to play matters more than anything. She wants to be able to be out there and play. That’s what we. That’s the thing that’s outside of money is that we opportu, we give an opportunity to, to come in and contribute from day one.
So I try to keep the roster low. I don’t want 25 girls. I want 20 players, and that’s what we would deal with. Okay.
Matt: Well, you know, let’s shift gears a little bit and, and talk about the school. Uh, you know what, you know, I think you’ve been there a few years. You can kind of give us some inside scoop what what’s some awesome stuff about, about the school that maybe I’m not gonna find just by clicking through the website.
Coach: I would say the, the teacher ratio, I would say the fact that we are actually there’s Dyersburg state community college in Dyersburg, and then we are. We’re like a, a campus to itself. And the only sport we have is soccer. They just [00:09:00] built us a facility. They just built us a field. They just, that we’re the only one with the field currently at the campus in Tennessee.
Um, but what really makes a difference is it’s a small school that has the numbers almost equal to the main campus. We’re gonna grow so much in this one area, but everybody in county knows you. Like it might not be something you. Because they’re gonna know who you are in the hall. You’ve kind of run the school.
like, they’ll say, Hey, what’s up McKayla. Hey Bailey, how you doing? Like the secretaries, know you, the teachers know you, there’s an open door policy to talk to the, the Dean of the school. Uh, like anytime you have an issue, like, Hey, I have a parking issue. You can talk to the Dean to where, like other schools, you have to jump through five hoops to get to someone that matters.
It is not the way here it is, is the way. And we try to do a really good job of like that community mattering. We try to make sure that we are involved as far as with each other. [00:10:00] And as far as academics and things like we’ve killed it. The, the last we’ve been here for four years and we’ve been all at team all academic, twice of those four years, the COVID year was a little tough.
Students really struggled with the online stuff. But two outta four years, we’ve had a 3.3 or higher GPA, um, nurses, our nursing program’s fantastic. Our, we have so many little offsets. Like I know this in four years, we’ve had five nurses and of course they come to practice crime because the classes are so hard, but, but they’re making it and they’re already out there making money in the world after two years.
They didn’t go on any one of ’em went to go get a BSN, another school, but she could have easily just finished here too. We do a really good job of making sure they come in and we put academics at a high priority. So that’s 3.3 GPA. It’s something I’m proud of and I’m always wanting to get that higher.
Matt: So no, in speaking of academics, you know, no matter what any [00:11:00] student going from high school to college, it’s gonna be a struggle, balancing your studies and those, those sport commitments. So, so what else, you know, what does the school do? What do you do as a team? Kind of what support mechanisms are there in place for your student athletes as they come into the program?
Coach: Well, it’s a, it’s a weird dynamic, cause it’s like, normally, like when you’re in high school, your family’s. But when you get to college, there’s like a wall between you and what your parents can know. I know what their grades are. I’ll be able to stay on top of it. Like I’ll get reports from professors about like, Hey, they’re doing great.
They’re doing excellent. Hey, this girl’s missed a few classes. I get to go ask and say, Hey, uh, did you not go to amp this week? So I get to stay on top of that and it, but there is a disconnect. Cause when you’re in high school, sometimes you can just be a great kid who works really hard. The teacher will help you get the grade in college.
It’s a different ballgame. Like they respect you to be an adult and they expect you to go. And I expect you to go to tutoring. I have them go for, uh, two to three hours a week [00:12:00] for tutoring. Even if you don’t need it, you’re going just in the lab. And I know this in the labs, the people that are in the labs working to try to help get their grades up.
They almost harass those kids. Like they go to, Hey, you need any help? Hey, you need anything. That’s what I want though. I want them to get that. Now, if you start struggling in class, we’ll make you go to more study all hours and your grades matter, man. Yeah. They matter because they help you in scholarships.
They help you in your future career. And you, you know this because you and I were students at one time, we could have done better. We just, if you let me get away with it, you let me slack off. I’ll probably slack off. But if you say it on the top of me, I. I don’t know. You might have been a 4.0 everywhere you went.
No, no, no. I was not and I could have done so much better, so probably wouldn’t even be here.
Matt: Right. I just like to say, I, I, I maximized my opportunities. In all facets of, of school. Yeah. Let’s just give it that. Absolutely enjoy yourself. Uh, well, [00:13:00] so can you do me a favor, gimme a little bit of a walkthrough.
What’s a, what’s a gimme a day in the life here during the season that you know, or, or a standard week with, with classes and games, you know, when, when are, when are kids going to, to class? When are they practicing? What kind of, what travel do you have? Just gimme the overview.
Coach: We start our season and this is all Juco T.
I think it’s almost all Juco anywhere. I’m not sure about that. August 1st. Yeah. Is pretty much the, the time. And we, we go in it for the first, like two to three weeks. We don’t have class, so we’re just, we’re going at it two days. We’re doing everything we can to get back in shape. Cuz I know that they didn’t do the summer workout like they should have in the summer.
Obviously we’re trying our best to, to get ’em back into rhythm of things. And then when school starts back, I ease off a little bit on that. Like. Even like in the LA when the season starts, we’ll go in the afternoons. We won’t go in the mornings. I was going in the mornings, but I tell you this, the Dew was killing them.
[00:14:00] Like in Tennessee, that Dew was eating their feet up alive as far as like they had blistered, blood blisters, all that stuff. So I changed it out to where we go in the afternoon. They go to like about three 30, depending on the temperature. If the temperature’s too high, we’ll even back it up to even later, I I’m different.
I’m like, I’m a grown man. I understand that I’m not probably gonna get fired off things like, um, like if I have a losing season, they’re not gonna like, just say you’re, you’re out. You’re done. I also wanna make sure that we care about them as human beings. The number one focus has been mental health. We have spent a large amount of time ever since COVID on mental health.
It is, it has done a number on quite a few players. Who would’ve thought lock could have in a, in a building and not let ’em have an interaction would help, would hurt them, but we’ve done a lot of mental health recently just to protect players, make sure they’re, that’s been a focus of ours. In fact, when they come to practice [00:15:00] and I know you wanna make it to my week.
No, you’re fine. But it, but it changes like the beginning of the season to the middle of the season, cuz sometimes we have three da, three games a week, four games a week and girls are having to do stuff like on the bus and they’re at deadlines and things of that nature. Uh, it changes and it fluctuates.
And I try, as I said, I’m, I try to be reasonable with how we deal with them. Every situation’s different. It is not just a rigid every day. This is it. Like if I feel like we need to push practice back, cause the temperature we will. If I feel like if I, if a, if a player says, Hey, I am, I’m drowning in this one class.
Can I miss? And I said, yes. And your playing time is not gonna get hurt by that. We’ll have a conversation like, Hey, try to get this stuff in order to help this. But as I said, every day is like a different, different roadblock. And there’s freshmen deal with a family like being away from their family. The school’s tougher college is tougher.
[00:16:00] It is, it is a lot to O take in as a freshman and sophomores can help you guide through that. We do like a system to where, like we have an older, almost like a sister system to where they kinda watch out for the other. And I try to be very selective on that, uh, to try to help ’em out, but it can be a, it can be a lot to deal with.
College is not, as I said, we, and we even do a thing after I stole this from my nurses. Cause nurses do this after they have like a, on the floor. I still stole this from them. We do this like decompression kind of thing. Like at the end of practice, we’ll have a one on one with a coach and we’ll just ask like, Hey, tell me about what’s going on.
Uh, how’s life how’s school. And sometimes it’s. Sometimes it’s not, sometimes it’s an overload boyfriend just broke up with you. Me. Uh, school’s killing me. I miss my family. Uh, college is tough. It’s a lot. And just the colleges, the games themselves in high school, most of these girls play like women [00:17:00] really tough game, like every three weeks.
And then the rest of the teams are just playing like are almost like just trash. College every single time you step up, it’s almost like I would say on this level is very comparable to when I coach division two club is it’s very like every single game is gonna be competitive. Some teams you’ll run across pretty easy to beat, but most of the teams you’re gonna have to really grind it out 90 minutes to, to make a difference.
And that’s also a difference sales, extra 10 minutes from high school to college matter.
Matt: So, absolutely. Well, let’s talk more about the, on the field stuff. And, and you mentioned it earlier, I said, you, you, so are you you’re keyed on trying to get a roster size of around 20? Is that it? Yes. Yes, sir. Okay. And then do you have any other staff or is it, uh, you as a solo, uh, coach over there?
Coach: I have staff, but it’s, I imagine every Juco programs like this, we have, I have one paid assistant, but he’s doing his own high school thing. Like he also coaches. [00:18:00] High school soccer. So he’s off. I got another one who’s nurse and she’s hit or miss on when she can be there. And then I have another one that’s uh, got his doctorate in physical therapy.
So he’s hit or miss. So it’s a lot of times it’s me. So, but lemme tell you, my staff is fantastic when they’re there. Man, it makes my life so much. You were, you coached down the, uh, division two level, didn’t you? I did. Yep. Were you assistant or head?
Matt: Oh, I was head, but basically I didn’t have a budget for an assistant.
Neither did the women’s coach. So I was the, the facto women’s assistant and he was at the facto men’s assistant.
Coach: So, but you know, when you’re doing it by yourself, it’s not nearly as good as when you have an assistant. So absolutely every day, every day I have an assistant. I just feel like it’s a blessing.
I just feel blessed, uh, even just bounce ideas off of, cause I just like to hear different perspective. And if they’re not there, I lean on my captains quite a bit. So, yeah. I’m sure you did the same thing.
Matt: Oh yeah, yeah, you have to, for sure. Um, so in terms of, um, kind of just, just [00:19:00] on the field, right. So how, how would you describe your style of coaching, uh, your team style of play and just that overall culture of the team?
Coach: Very adaptive, uh, like I know we cha we’ll change. Midstream we’ll change shape within a game. If I feel like it’s whatever’s I am not gonna keep getting beat the same way. I am not so stubborn that I think like, this is my way’s the only way I am. Uh, and as I said, you were a coach. I steal so many good ideas.
Anytime I see something that’s working was like, that’s brilliant. That is I’m doing that, that right there. I’m gonna see if that works for me. But as I said, I’m flexible. Uh, I would love to say that my system, what I’m running, that it’s, it’s only gonna work this way, but no, man, every your players come in, they’re different.
You have an injury, it changes things. Uh you’re this is not flowing. This, this game this [00:20:00] way. I feel like that what their shape is, is not conducive to win for what we’re running. So we’ll change. Uh, we try to be flexible. We try to be adaptive and as I. Adaptive is just on anything like you might get there and the other team’s wearing your uniform, even though you’ve discussed, Hey, we are wearing white today and they’re wearing, you’ve gotta, you can’t sit around and be upset about it very long.
You’ve gotta figure out a plan. Like, Hey, let’s put some pennies on, let’s go. Let’s put some training beds on let’s play. You’ve gotta be able to be adaptive, especially on this level on any level. I imagine. I said division two. I’m sure. The same way you had to be flexible. Sometimes the bus breaks down.
You gotta figure something else out. I mean, it’s, it’s always something. And that’s why I tell the girls all time. You’ve got to be able to roll with the punches. And if you aren’t, you’re gonna, you’re not just gonna struggle in soccer. You’re gonna struggle in life. Oh, I got, you gotta figure it out.
Matt: I got stories of broken down buses and Hey, bad, badly painted lines and [00:21:00] all kinds of
Coach: hundred percent like, looks like a snake came out there.
He’s like, what’s going on here? No, I, and you know, here’s the other. You probably take the blame for all of it’s. Like every single, every single time is like, who did these lines? I had a guy. Yeah. I had a guy do it. luckily
Matt: it was a road game, but we had a 12 yard box instead of an 18. And it was like, you know, cuz the school, the school we were playing at, hired some guys from the county, parks and rec who, you know, absolutely just, just did seven aside fields.
So they did the anyway. I understand life goes on. Uh, well, you know, coach, you, you we’ve talked about a lot of different things. You’ve given us some great information and I always like to end these the same way. And that’s what didn’t we talk about? What else would you like people to know whether it’s about your school, about your team, about the college process in general or, or really anything else I give you the, the last few minutes here to, to drop some knowledge on us.
Coach: I wanna step back to players, need to reach out to us. I don’t care if you’re going to. [00:22:00] I don’t care if you’re going to the, a Juco in Indiana, you find a program and you reach out to ’em and you talk to that coach. And here’s another thing do not feel pressured by any coach. Like do not feel like, um, if they say there’s a deadline by tomorrow night, then maybe that’s not for you.
You know, like if they’re pressuring you into situations, you go, what, where you feel like you can grow and you can be happy. And if. If you’ve got a division, if you’ve got a championship program out there and you’re fine with riding a bench, do that. If you that’s what you want, if that’s the atmosphere you want and that’s the environment, if you wanna go, uh, another route because you wanna play, go that route.
Uh, but don’t feel pressured. Don’t feel like you have to do anything that you don’t wanna do. Uh, you just try to find some places that you can be truly, truly happy. Now, the other part, reach out to. Find us, let us know that you’re available. Do not [00:23:00] assume that don’t assume that we know, just, just reach out to us, send us a theme.
So they say, Hey coach, I just, I’m playing this game here. And you might not be the player that, that I might go to it and say like, this is not for us. But if I don’t know, I don’t know. I will say this. I’ve seen a, I’ve had some players that thought that, uh, they weren’t good fit here. That absolutely were.
Reach out to us, let us know. And the last thing I’d like you to know is that if you do choose to come to Dyersburg state, we are gonna treat you with respect and we are gonna watch out for you. And if when you come here, a lot of people like to throw family around. They like to throw that word around, kinda drives me crazy.
Like they’ll cut you on your, they’ll cut your scholarship. It’s the minute you get injured, but family’s not that way. Family watches that for you. We got your back. If you’re here and you’re here for the right reason. We’re gonna get you the only play way you get kicked off this team is if you’re an absolute pill, like [00:24:00] you just refuse to practice, you’re a bad teammate.
That’s the only way you’re not gonna be here. Uh, you come here, we treat you like a human being and we will watch out for you and we just need to grow. I need talent. And if you’re talented and you’re out there, talk, come talk to me. We’ll see what we. Love it. Love it. I really appreciate you doing this also.
Oh,
Matt: well thank you coach. And, uh, really appreciate the time. Wish you the best of luck the rest of the season. And, uh, we’ll check in with you some other time down the road. And if you get down to Florida, gimme a shout.
Coach: All right. I would love that. Thank you so much, coach. I wish I was better looking for you, so you get what you get.
Matt: So that’s that’s that’s all right. They’ve been looking at mildly mug for a long time now, so I, I, I appreciate it.
Coach: All right. Thank anytime you need anything, reach out to me. Appreciate it. Yep.
