Ohio Wesleyan University Men’s Soccer – Coach Jay Martin
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Jay Martin from the Ohio Wesleyan Men’s Program. We talk about how he starts his recruiting with talent, but that’s not all. He describes how the school’s students are its best assets. Lastly, we discuss his style of empowerment and building relationships. Learn more about Ohio Wesleyan University Men’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today I am lucky enough to be joined by the all time winningest coach in NCAA men’s soccer history coach Dr. J Martin. Welcome to the program. Thanks for being here. Thanks, Matt. Thanks for having me. No, it’s, it’s fantastic to have you. I mean, uh, 44 Seasons. Am I right at Ohio Wesleyan?
Coach: Uh, 46. 46. This, this is the 46th. This is 46.
Matt: Okay. Well, we had that. Pesky covid year. You know these, Right, exactly. Anyway, um, well, it is truly amazing and, you know, having grown up in Columbus, uh, well aware of, of the success you guys had. In fact, I think you won a national championship right after I, uh, graduated high school.
So some of my high school classmates may have been on that squad, but, um, so let’s, let’s talk a little bit about, uh, just the recruiting side of things in terms of how you recruit players to, you know, it’s, it’s division three, however, You guys have such a, such a [00:01:00] history. I wonder if it’s any different. So when do you usually start talking to players and building out a recruiting class?
What year in high school would they normally be?
Coach: Good question. Um, when I first got to Ohio Wesleyan a long time ago, I used to be literally the only coach in Ohio that did any recruiting. And I think that’s one reason we kind of jumped out and had success early. I mean, Matt Times were different then. I mean, even the division ones weren’t recruiting like they are today.
Recruiting today is 24 7, 365. Days a year and, um, we start in earnest in the junior year. Um, and you know, there are a lot of different ways that we recruit. A lot of, you know, we get probably 20 or 25 emails and, what do you call ’em, Instagrams and these other things, uh, a day. Uh, so we have to kind of, sort through those.
What’s happened is that I have two assistant [00:02:00] coaches who are very good and they are on the road and they identify, they both coach a a, a local club, Ohio Premier here in central Ohio. You’re probably familiar with them. So they go to a lot of tournaments anyway, and they do a lot of the leg work for us.
And then I kind of closed the deal. My days of going out on tournaments and things are over. Um, that’s why I rely on two Very good. Assistant coaches. So the recruiting process is, um, is, has changed a great deal. And you’re right. You know, we, we do get our fair share of division one type players, but the problem also with being so good, I guess, and.
Matt: You can say coach, it’s all right.
Coach: No, no. Um, is that we get a lot of young men who wanna come here and think they’re good enough, Matt, but they’re not good enough. And so that it’s a double edged sword being, you know, being one of the better [00:03:00] division three teams. But, um, recruiting has changed and, uh, We, we work at it.
I mean, we have a home game tomorrow against Worcester. We have four or five young men who are gonna come and watch, you know, they’re gonna have a tour campus and so on, so forth. So it’s, um, but we, but we focus on junior year. If a, if a kid sends us an email at this point in his senior year, then I don’t think he’s really that.
You know, enthusiastic about play and I mean, this is late for seniors and you, you have to wonder, well, you know, what’s he been doing for the last 12 months? So, you know, we don’t pay much attention to them. Occasionally, you know, a kid like my two sons, they were both all Americans, but they didn’t start their college.
Search until, you know, fall of their senior year. So occasionally there’s a kid like that, but not very often.
Matt: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, you, you know, obviously you’re not on the road as much, but in terms of your staff and, and, and the players you have coming in to take a visit this weekend, [00:04:00] you know where.
Where do you usually go to see those players? Are, are you, are there tournaments that are kinda have to hit, uh, events on your list? Uh, do you guys look at high school games at all? What, what does that look like?
Coach: Very few high school games. Um, I will go out, The Ohio High School Tournament is starting this weekend.
So I will go out not this weekend, because if you recall, I mean the first couple of rounds are just blowouts, you know, because the way they see here in Ohio. But once things get down to the round of eight and so on, I will go out and watch some high school, uh, games, but I leave the club. Stuff with, with my assistance.
And that too has changed. Matt, you know, in the early days, the Capital Cup in Washington was a big one. The Dallas Cup was a big, a big one. The, uh, the, I I, I’m forgetting the name of it. The, it, it’s in Raleigh, Charlie.
Matt: Well, it’s changed. It’s changed names .
Coach: Yeah. A few, a few times. Charlie [00:05:00] Stengel was in charge of that.
Yep. You know, I’d, I’d hit all. Every single year. But now as you say, there were so damn many tournaments and it’s really difficult to ascertain, which have quality players versus which have recreation teams and so on. So it’s a challenge. Believe me, every year is a challenge and every year is different.
Matt: Yeah. And, and one of the questions we get, From folks through our social media and things, or, you know, does, does the alphabet soup really matter? Like does it matter that I’m playing for an ECNL team or an MLS next team versus a DPL team or an edp? You know all, I mean all the letters, right? Does it really matter what league I’m playing in in order to help get recruited?
Coach: For us, it doesn’t because there are many, many young men who are really good who might not be on an MLS NE Next, or one of those, those alphabet [00:06:00] soup leagues, you know, and there are some kids on in those leagues that quite frankly aren’t good enough even to play at Ohio Wesleyan. So it really, it really doesn’t matter to us.
We. You know, the, the name of the club. I think because some clubs are just better than others. Like right now, OP in Ohio, Central Ohio has. I think last year they won two or three club national championships, so you know, they have quality players and so, you know, so we’ll I think it’s the club that we’re more interested in, not, not the league.
Matt: Okay, that makes sense. Um, what about camps coach? Do you guys do your own camps? Does your, you or your staff work at other people’s camps? How to camps fit into the whole scheme of things?
Coach: Matt, I hate to say this cuz if any of our, my colleagues listen to this, they’ll be mad as hell at me. . But Mo most of these ID camps are money grabs.
I think you’ll agree with that. Oh yeah. And, and they bring in these kids at some [00:07:00] exorbitant price for three hours and they have 14 college coaches there who are busy talking to each other on the sideline and not really looking at the competition. And, um, So, uh, with that said, we have two ID camps, but they’re three days and all the money I make on those goes to my assistant coaches and it’s by invitation only, which I think is different.
And I’m, I, I say that cuz it’s not a money. Grab. Do we make money on it, Matt? Yes. We make a few bucks and as I already said, it goes to my assistants who are grossly underpaid and um, but if you invite a young man that shows, at least at that point, some mutual interest, you know, he’s interested in us, we’re interested in him, he can come on campus and see how we coach, see our facilities, meet some of our players.
We’ll be working the. And things like that. And, you know, I would, I would say now that, um, [00:08:00] uh, I, I’m guessing now I, I could go through the roster, but I would say 50 to 60% of our current roster came to our ID camps. Uh, But let me reiterate, they were all invited. We had seen them earlier and we thought they were really good and we just wanted to take ’em to the next level and, and see to, to me, Matt, for example, when I go to a high school game that you mentioned a few moments ago, I get there 20 minutes early and I watch warmups and I can tell you just about everything I need to know about a player in warmups and I might watch the first 15 or 20 minutes of the game.
And that’s what we try to do with our, our ID camp. I wanna see how the kids prepare to play what they do off the field, you know, and, and those types of things. Because in the end, to me, those things are maybe more important than what they do on the field.
Matt: Oh, absolutely. And that kinda leads me to my next question.
When you’re looking at a player in that 20 minutes of, of [00:09:00] warmups or in at the camp or anything, kinda what, what’s, what are the things on your list, whether it’s on the field stuff or off the field, stuff that, that kind of ticks the boxes for you and says, Okay, this guy can be an Ohio Wesleyan player.
Coach: Yes. Look, it all starts with on, on the field, doesn’t. I mean, you watch a, you watch a group of kids play, you go, Hey, that number 16 is, you know, he’s really good. I think he could play at Ohio Wesleyan. So the initial invitations go to young men like that. Then what we try to do at camp is we try to take it to the, you know, proverbial next level and that Okay.
You know, what does the kid eat at lunch? I mean, we, we, we sc these kids don’t even know it, but we scrutinize these kids. What do they do at lunch? You know, how are they on time to practice? Are they ready to practice? Are they, are they getting ready mentally and physically to practice? You know, do they give a hundred percent in practice?
Do they. Do they, um, do they interact with their new teammates? I mean, they, you know, [00:10:00] they’ve hardly met any of these kids before and, and, and so on. And Matt, we have actually stopped recruiting young men in the past. We had a young man last year at camp who was really, really good player, but I overheard him telling, A couple of the other campers, he goes, Hey, this, this camp sucks.
I’m the best player here. I have no competition and so on. We never call him back. I’m not interested in a young man like that. And, and, and he was good, but I don’t want a young man in the locker room who’s gonna be like that. That just, I’m a, I’m a relationships empowering coach and. I don’t want somebody who’s going to screw up that kind of, that kind of atmosphere that we have.
Um, some people call it culture, which I think is an overused term, but I don’t want somebody coming in with an ego, you know, that I’m, I’m so damn good, you know, I should be playing D one or whatever. I, I’m not interested in that kind [00:11:00] of young man. So it goes both ways. We wanna see, and he, and let me, this is the third time I’ve said this.
This kid was good. He was really good, and he would help us on the field. , but, but Matt, that’s an hour and a half or two hours a. What’s he doing in the other 22 hours? You know, is he going to class? Is he a good teammate? Is he, You know what we have a saying here? What have you done today to help the, the Ohio Wesleyan Soccer Program?
And a lot of that ha ha happens off the field. You know, our guys do the laundry. We pick up the trash. The only thing billions and grounds does for us at Roy Rike is uh, they line the field cuz I don’t know how to do that otherwise, our players do everything. And so I don’t want a kid, they move the goals.
I don’t want a kid who. Who doesn’t move the goals because he thinks he’s too good. It just, it just, it, it disrupts the, a cart.
Matt: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Love that. Well, let, let’s talk a little bit about the school itself. There’s probably folks out there who, who aren’t familiar with Ohio Wesley, [00:12:00] and, uh, didn’t have the opportunity to grow up a few miles away from it like I did.
But, uh, so. You’ve been there a couple years, Jay, so you probably know a little bit about the school. Uh, so besides what somebody might click and find on the website, uh, give us some inside scoop. What are some some of the awesome things about Ohio Wesleyan?
Coach: I wanna remind you and our viewers that I’m also on the faculty and have been on the faculty for 45 or 46 years, whatever it is.
I’m a professor in physical education. I, I teach every day as well as coach every day and, and so on and so forth. So I have a unique respe. Perspective, excuse me, um, of our institution, not only as a soccer coach, but as a member of the faculty. And you know, just an aside, Matt, that that has changed as well.
Unfortunately, the division one model of coaching, In all sports, but especially soccer has now permeated division three. In other words, the head coaches in [00:13:00] division three, a coach only now, and they have an assistant coach two, and their job is to win games and to recruit, and it’s changed everything in my mind about division three when I started here in 1977.
My doctoral dissertation was on leadership of coaches and, um, all 25 coaches of the top 25 in division three were on the faculty of their institution. Last year there was one of the top 25, and you are looking at ’em, and it’s really, it’s really, really too bad. But anyway, the, the number one thing, the best thing in my mind, I say this to alumni groups all the time.
The best thing about Ohio Wesleyan is the students. The students here are, are really, really high caliber, intelligent, many, many good athletes. 45% of our student body plays of our city sport, both men and women. And then they grow up to be [00:14:00] great alums who support the institution. I mean, undying loyalty to the institution.
I think the second thing that, that, that I like about Ohio Wean is, and it’s not because I’m on the faculty, it’s cuz I observe my colleagues, the faculty here. are, are very, very good. And they actually care about the students and they have, um, you know, if a student, if one of our guys is struggling, I’ll get a phone call from a colleague and Jay, you know, you know, Matt’s struggling in whatever course it is.
You know, what can we do to help him? Now, Matt, that’s a huge thing coming out of a faculty member at any institution. What can we do to. Him and the faculty, it just absolutely sensational. Um, we’ve just had a total renovation of many of the buildings on campus. Um, our athletic facilities are absolutely sensational.
Our graduation rate is very, very high. Our pre-professional curriculum. [00:15:00] Pre-med, pre-dent, pre vet, and so on and so forth. We have 100% placement every single year. And, and, and, and part of that is because, because we have a smaller class of pre-med students versus like an Ohio State, you know, they might have 150 graduates, we might have 15, so our 15 get placed in, in, in medical school or wherever they want, or wherever they want to go.
But the, it’s, it’s just the. It’s just the, for our recruiting, the combination of academics, which is always number one for us and our soccer program, uh, I think I, I will put, put us against any school in the country and uh, you know, we’ve had, people always ask me, you know, what’s the most important thing that happens to you every year or whatever?
What do you like most about the pro, whatever. And the number one thing is, Matt, on Mother’s Day, when we have Graduat. And I watch all of our seniors, [00:16:00] 100% of them walk across the stage to get their diploma. That’s the best day of the year for me. And, um, hopefully they learn something from the soccer program.
Anecdotally, I think they do, from what I understand. But that’s, that’s the number one thing. First class young men and women at Ohio.
Matt: No, that’s, that’s fantastic. Well, can you kinda walk me through what a typical day for one of your players looks like? Or, or a typical week, excuse me. Uh, you know, in terms of when is meals and classes and practice and what kind of your game cadence is and, and just kind of give folks an idea of, Hey, if I’m on this team, what, what’s a week gonna look like during the season?
Coach: Okay. Uh, our students take four courses, a. Our classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are hourly on Tuesday and Thursday, they’re every hour and a half. Um, I want my guys to take classes every day. Some of them like to go Monday, Wednesday and Friday and take Tuesday and Thursday off. It’s a big [00:17:00] mistake, believe me.
They, they say they’re gonna study and so on, but you know how that goes, . Some will, some don’t and, and so on. So, so on average, our guys have three hours of classes, a. Um, the classes, all classes are over by four o’clock because at four o’clock, not only do sports take place, but other, you know, debate club and all these other clubs take, take place from four to six.
That’s our, that’s our extracurricular time. Um, most of the guys, the meal that, the meal, the meal situation here, Matt, has changed so much and it’s really unbelievable. Probably like many colleges, I mean, the different offerings are different than when you were in college and certainly when I was in college, , believe me.
But, you know, they eat, they eat three meals a day. We make sure they get up for breakfast, especially in season, which is a little easier for us to control dinners. They, they have plenty of time. We, we practice from four. To [00:18:00] at the latest five 30. I learned a long time ago that young men of this age can’t, can’t concentrate for two hours.
And guess what? Neither can I. So an hour and a half is is a, but if it’s a well planned out and our practice is a really well planned out, we go from activity to activity to activity and hour and a halfs. Believe me, you know, the, the intensity that’s, that’s fine. About this time we’re dialing down prac practice this morning was 50 minutes and in a week it’ll be 45 minutes.
Um, And then we do have Study Table, which is run by the seniors. This is a program for the players and it’s run by the players. Tom is o Michigan State Basketball has said many times a. Player coach team is much better than a coach, coach team. And I’m, I believe that Steve Curse says the same thing.
Popovich says the same thing. I want these guys to take care of [00:19:00] everything. And they, And they do. So, you know, there’s a study table every night, I believe, Matt. It goes from seven to nine. The guys have to go four nights a week. That’s Sunday. Friday, Sunday to Thursday. I’m sorry, Sunday to Thursday. They have to go three nights.
Not every night. Cuz I know stuff happens in colleges. That’s fine. Um, if they don’t go to three, they don’t play on the weekend. It happens once a year. And you know, they think I’m kidding. Then they know I’m not and they, they, we don’t have that problem anymore. So I think, I think, you know, and I, I hesitate to say this, but some of the.
Sports at Ohio Wesley and some of the coaches, you know, they’re pr and I’m sure this happens elsewhere. They’re practicing two and a half and three hours a day. And I keep telling ’em, you guys are making a huge mistake. But cuz now the kids who are exhausted and what, how are they gonna do homework and take care of business?
I mean, it’s, it’s very, very difficult. So I, [00:20:00] as I said earlier, I believe that we offer the perfect blend between academics and athletics. And I tell my team if there’s a conflict between academics and soccer, There’s no conflict. They go to academics. We don’t even talk about it. If they have a study table or something for a test tomorrow and they have to miss practice, guess what They miss practice.
Our leading score this year can’t come to Monday. Practices cuz he go, He’s taken this very special course, has offered to just a few students. I don’t even wanna see ’em on Monday. He goes to class, he takes care of business. That is, as long as he keeps scoring goals. If he starts scoring goals, we’re gonna have to talk about it.
But I don’t know. I don’t know. But you get, You understand what I’m saying? There’s no conflict. It’s academics. Yeah. And I think the reason I have a PhD, it doesn’t make me a better person or teacher or coach, but what it does is help me serve as a role model for my guys. that I think academics are important.
So when they see that Dr in front of my name, although I don’t allow them to call me Dr. Martin, [00:21:00] but when they see that, that they know, especially in the recruiting process, okay, this guy’s a PhD and so on, and you know the, and, and look you, you’ve been through this process. 90% of our guys come to Ohio for soccer and it’s my job to make sure by the time they are juniors and seniors, that priority list change.
It’s now academics are number one. I want soccer to be a number two, but that might drop down too. Maybe, you know, fraternities or student government or something like that. And all of those things are really, really important.
Matt: Yeah, no, and and honestly it’s why I chose division three cuz I the same, went to a school, the same thing you school, school first and that, and that was the important thing.
Um, so no, I absolutely love that. Well, let, let’s talk a little bit about the soccer side of things. Don’t want to keep you too long here, but, uh, is there a roster size you like to, to try to hit every year, Jay? Or is the school tell you you gotta have one of a certain size .
Coach: Well, that’s funny because each team at [00:22:00] Ohio, Wesleyan now has a quota for recruiting.
I. I, I have tenure, so I don’t have to do anything like that, but, um, we have 32 lockers in our locker room, so that kind of, now, you know, maybe, maybe then we have 35 at, at times and a couple of freshmen have to double up or something like that. But we don’t go much more than that. In the, in early days when everybody had a JV program, we might have had a few more.
But nobody does JV anymore mad. And so, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re a varsity program and, and, and that’s how it is. So we’re looking around four goalkeepers. We try to recruit a goalkeeper in each class because everything we do is to goal. Four goalkeepers and 27 or eight field players. That’s our goal.
Matt: Okay. Um, what about your staff? You know, you mentioned you have have great staff, so how many folks are on [00:23:00] staff? You mentioned their recruiting roles. What other responsibilities do they have and, and how do they fit into the whole picture?
Coach: I have a full-time assistant who, who went to Otterbein cuz he couldn’t get into Ohio.
We, and that’s like, that’s what I tell him. Um, And he is in house with me. Um, he has his own office and all those other things. He is, uh, In charge of recruiting and academic support. He meets with every freshman and every young man under 2.5 on the team, which thankfully there aren’t many, but he meets with every freshman, once a once every week for an hour.
Goes over what, what’s, what’s going on? What’s happening, any problems, How’s the transition going? And so on. And he’s the point man for recruiting. We have a second part-time coach who doesn’t have an office. In season. He’s on campus every single day, and his job is, uh, he does the initial, [00:24:00] He’s really good at it.
His former job was something in it, and he’s, he, he’s, he’s in charge of looking at all the video, looking at all the high school games and all those things, and he tries to identify good players. He passes them on to Matt, you know, Matt follows up with their coaches and so on and so forth. Then, As I said, then I close the deal.
If, if it’s, if we think that’s somebody we, we want, So Corey is more of a, our second guy is more of an in season guy, although he does get paid all year round in the second semester, January, February, March, April, he is on the road. He, he’s got a club team with op, He’s on the road identifying players. Okay.
Matt: Well, You know, you, you kind of mentioned in practice you like to do everything to goal, um, and you mentioned a few things here and there, but if, if, and I’m not trying to pigeonhole you here and I’m not holding you to hard and fast, but kind of just gimme an overall description of, of [00:25:00] your style of coaching and the team style of play.
Coach: My style is one of empowerment and relationships. I listen to the players. It’s not unusual for me to walk around on the field and I talk to every player, Matt, every single day, and it’s usually not an o, a soccer related kind of conversation. You know, how is that econ test yesterday? Whatever it is, I want them to know that I care about them beyond the soccer field and I don’t do a lot.
On field coaching as much as I did early on. Matt and Corey take care of that, and I work the room and I, you know, now we, we meet together and I tell ’em what we wanna do and how we’re gonna do it, and so on and so forth. But then I let them do it because I’m also preparing them to leave, just like I’m preparing the athletes to leave.
I want them, I’ve got like 30 some. Former players who are coaching in college around the country, and, [00:26:00] uh, and the pros, a couple in the pros, including my son. He’s coaches the USL team. Um, so I, so it’s, it’s all about the players here. All about the players. We have a leadership council that meets every Monday.
We’ve had a leadership council for 25 years, which is before anybody ever heard of a leadership council. And they act, you know, it’s, it’ll be the captains and an elected representative from each class, and they act as a conduit between the, the, the, the, the team and us, you know? So on Monday, how are we doing, guys?
We have two big games this week. How are we doing physically any problems on the team? And so on and so forth. So it’s all, all about the players. And I don’t yell and scream from the sideline, and I don’t let my assistant coaches do that either. Um, we try to prepare the players during the week and then they have to figure it out, uh, during the game and, uh, you know, maybe we make an adjustment at two and half time, whatever it takes, [00:27:00] but, but it’s, it’s, it’s all up, it’s all up to the players.
Now with that said, freshman coming in, oftentimes have difficulty, um, with my style because they’re coming from clubs in high schools where the coaches are yelling and screaming for 80 minutes. Or 90 minutes depending on the club or whatever. And, um, and, and they, but you see what happens with that, Matt?
The, the responsibility for that in their mind then is on the coach. I want them to be responsible for their actions and accountable for what they do. So if they have to wait to hear Matt and or I yell something out there, first of all, the play’s over. It’s gone. It’s another play now. But they’ve gotta learn how to make decisions and react and read.
Read the script and see on their own how to take care of this. So do they make mistakes? Absolutely. But we encourage mistakes. We don’t encourage mistakes in games. Of course, Matt and um, [00:28:00] But, you know, this is complicated. I’m huge on, on the mental aspects of coaching and have been since I’ve been here.
But, um, we want them to make mistakes in training and hopefully learn from ’em. So we will point those mistakes out and say, Okay, ma, well what could you have done differently that would’ve been better with the, Hopefully they bring that onto the field, they make a mistake, and they ask themselves, How could I make that better?
They ask it instead of waiting for me to yell, you idiot. You know, blah, whatever, whatever. We just, we just don’t, we just don’t do that. One of the most important elements in my mind, and the difference between elite athletes and our athletes is that elite athletes know exactly what they can do on the court or the field or whatever, and that’s all they do.
Where our athletes don’t know what they can do. Or what they can’t do. And in games we’ll try to do something for the first [00:29:00] time, which is the kiss of death cuz it won’t work and their confidence will go down the tubes. But you know, my example to the guys is always Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. So Michael Jordan had a great skill set, maybe the best ever in basketball.
Larry Bird did not have that skillset, did he? His skillset was much smaller. But Larry didn’t try to be like Mike, Larry was Larry and all he did is what he could do. He couldn’t, you know, do a twist and turn dunk under the rim. I mean, he couldn’t do that. So he didn’t, and that’s why he was one of the best ever.
And why Michael’s one of the best ever. And I think that, you know, that’s part of, So we put a, we put a lot on the players, but I think in the long run it makes ’em.
Matt: No, that’s absolutely right. Fantastic. Well, coach, we’ve covered a lot of ground, talked a lot about a lot of different things, but I like to end these all with the same question and that’s what didn’t we cover.
What else would you like to say about any, any of the [00:30:00] topics, whether it’s recruiting your Ohio Wesleyan, uh, the on the field stuff, the college recruitment process? Uh, now’s a chance.
Coach: Well, uh, for those who are listening, who might be dissuaded about Ohio, Although you’ve moved out of Ohio, so this doesn’t count about it to you.
But look, Ohio is really, really boring. We don’t have forest fires, we don’t have tornadoes. We don’t have floods. We don’t have five feet of snow. We don’t have any of these other things that are all over the country. Ohio is Ohio, and my wife, who’s from New Jersey and I’m from Boston, we have found a very nice.
That we like a great deal in, in central Ohio, and as I said, it’s a great place. We, you know, one of my sons works in Panama City, Panama. We go down and visit him. It’s fantastic. You know, my other son is the head coach, loud, United, in dc. We go out to DC and and visit him. It’s fantastic. But Ohio is a really, really nice place, and [00:31:00] I don’t know how long you’ve been out Matt, but Columbus is, has be, is becoming a world class city.
Matt: Absolutely. I, I mean, I left in oh eight, but I was back, I guess in 2019. Uh, came back, played the alumni game there at St. Charles and, uh, and, and checked out the downtown area and it, yeah, it’s unbelievable. It’s a 180 for sure.
Coach: It’s unbelievable. When I first came here from Boston, I was shocked. I was like, God, what is this place?
As you remember, it used to be called Cow Town USA with Reason, but now it’s not. It’s a fantastic city. Really, really fantastic, great restaurants, you know, great shows, great everything so, so don’t let Ohio put you off. Come on out and check us out. Awesome.
Matt: Well, coach, I truly appreciate the time. Wish you the best of luck with the rest of the season and thank you.
Uh, we’ll hopefully, uh, get you well on the way to that, that third national championship.
Coach: Alright. I hope so. I hope so. We’ll see.
Matt: All right. Thanks coach.
