Eastern Oregon University Women’s Soccer – Coach Josh Goodman
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Josh from the Eastern Oregon Women’s Program. We talk about their regional focused recruiting. He describes the strong support of their small town community. Lastly, we discuss how they like a roster with a deep bench. Learn more about Eastern Oregon University Women’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Josh Goodman from Eastern Oregon University. Welcome coach.
Coach: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Matt: Yeah, thanks for joining. Uh, hopefully it’s a, it’s a nice day out there in, in Oregon. You and I couldn’t be almost farther apart with me down here in Bradenton, Florida, but, uh, but that’s the beauty of the internet, right?
Coach: I’m sure your weather is a little bit better than ours currently, but
Matt: you mean it’s not sunny in 85 where you’re at?
Coach: Not sunny and 85 where we’re at. Okay. Alright. Beautiful.
Matt: Well, we won’t hold that against you. It’s all right. Um, well, you know what I, I know. Congratulations. I, I know you just became, you’ve been the assistant there, but just became the head coach here in the, uh, recently.
Um, so congratulations first of all, and uh, I. The way I’ll start the, the interview is, is with a question. How has it been recruiting, uh, going from assistant to head and kind of being new head coach, how’s that working out for you?
Coach: Um, it’s been pretty smooth transition over the last two years. I was a recruiting coordinator as the assistant, so I was doing a lot of it, um, already.
So it was kind of just, you know, picking up. I was already at. Um, but also I, you know, I’ve definitely gotten more emails and, and different things, you know, as the head coach. So it’s been exciting and, um, you know, I love recruiting. It’s one of my favorite parts of the job is, you know, I get to go watch soccer and, and talk soccer 24/7. So it’s great.
Matt: Yeah. Well, how. In terms of this cycle, um, you know, we’re talking here in March of, of 23, are you closed? Have you closed your 23 class? You still working on it? What, what does that look like in terms of your normal progression?
Coach: Um, we’re, we’re pretty close to closing for 23. We have a few spots left, but we also very comfortable with, with where we’re at with our roster.
So it’s kind of a, you know, if, if there’s someone that comes along that we feel can make an immediate impact, you know, we’ve got those spots, but, um, we are not necessarily, you know, actively looking for 20 threes. We’ve kind of turned towards our 20 fours, but, you know, anytime you can get better, if you’ve got a spot open, you know you wanna get better.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you said one of the things you like doing is watching soccer. So in your recruiting, uh, exploits, you know, what are some of the places that you are kind of always on your list as to, to where to go see players?
Coach: Um, so obviously being up in Oregon, we, we, you know, are in the Pacific Northwest quite a bit.
Anytime that we can get to a ga. Or, uh, an E C N L or E C R L showcase in the area. We try to get to it. Um, we go down into Utah quite a bit to watch, watch games, Colorado. Um, we’re active there. So basically the way that our school is set up, um, we have what’s called the wwi, the Western Undergrad Exchange Program.
So it’s basically like from Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, like. To the [00:03:00] west, we, uh, we have discounted tuition for everybody that falls in there. So typically we recruit within in that region, but, you know, we’re not opposed to going outside of the region. But typically, you know, that’s where we’re, we’re hanging out, going to lots of different events.
I’ll be at the Players Showcase in Vegas this upcoming weekend, surf cup. Um, if any of the state cups, you know, showcases
Matt: Yeah, it’s, uh, I know. I’ve heard a few folks I’ve talked to getting ready to, to go out to the players in, in Vegas. Um, what about camps? Do you guys host your own? Do you or your staff work external camps?
Do they factor into your recruiting at all?
Coach: Um, definitely. So typically we have a camp in. The winter spring-ish and then the fall, um, through the coaching change. Um, we didn’t get to host our typical February camp. Um, we’ve moved it to May, so May 27th, we’ll be having a, an ID camp day. Um, that’s a bit smaller than it usually is, but, um, you know, we wanted to get something in and then we’ll have one, um, end of August, beginning of September.
Um, timeline for our, our normal fall camp that we will usually do. So we do two a year as far as external camps. Um, You know, we work a lot of the club ones, uh, that we are close by. We go into Idaho, uh, go to the west side of Oregon quite a bit. Um, in the past I’ve, uh, worked some in Utah. So we, we do try and get into those.
Um, we try to get into the exact camps and we’ve had invites, but it just falls every time we, we get an invite. We’re, you know, playing a spring game. We’re, we’re, [00:04:30] we’re gone. So, but we, you know, we are planning on getting into some of those as well.
Matt: Okay. Is as, as times have changed in the college recruiting world, you know, there’s a big bigger use of social media, uh, you know, players putting stuff out there.
Does that factor into your recruiting? All are, are you looking at players social media? How does that fit in?
Coach: Yeah, so, you know, I, I was kind of, um, I graduated high school in 2014 and it was kind of going into that era where social media was starting to be evaluated just a lot more. And now in present day, you know, it’s, I get five or six new followers a day that are, are players that have, you know, their team, their position where they’re from, all located in their bio.
They’ve got highlight tapes. So you know, it, it does make it convenient sometimes. We actually have found two players on Twitter that have followed us and we’ve, we’ve seen their highlight tape and then, you know, They’ve reached out and it, you know, it’s, it’s definitely unique, but you know, it’s there, so why not use it?
Um, we, uh, you know, there’s been multiple times where I’ve been sitting at an airport or something and I’ve just tweeted out like, Hey, you know, I’ve got time. Send film to my email and I’ll get five to 10 highlight tapes and I’ll sit there and I’ll evaluate. And so that, it definitely has you. Change the way that we engage with people.
And you know, obviously as far as the recruiting side, you know, if you’re looking at social media and there’s, you know, some red flags on there, it can be, you know, harmful to the recruits. But I’ve found that [00:06:00] it’s very, very rare that we are seeing that. I don’t think we’ve had any issues with any of our recruits via social media so far, but I, I can see why it could be a concern, but it hasn’t been for us so.
Matt: Okay, well, whether it’s at a camp or showcase or, or anything like that, what, what is it that draws you to a player? What’s that hierarchy of things you’re looking for, whether it’s off the field attributes or on the field stuff?
Coach: Um, so, I mean, we we’re pretty thorough. Um, but for me, it’s the little things when I’m looking at players, you know, are they, are they getting their body shape right?
Are they getting their hips facing the right direction when they’re receiving the ball? Checking their shoulder to see where the space is. Um, you know, those, those little things are often the difference makers from club and high school to playing at the college level. Um, and then beyond that, you know, it’s kind of positional, but we, you know, we like vocal players.
Players that, you know, can take over a game and kind of organize and, and do some different things like that. And then, um, our conference is, uh, very physical. Not necessarily size isn’t, but the ability to handle physicality. We’ve got some small girls on our team, but they’re not afraid to get stuck in and, and, you know, play, play that physical style soccer, but we also put the ball down and we try to play, we build out of the back, you know, we’re big on our rotations and our, our buildup play.
So lastly is being able to do all those things and then keep, keep composed under pressure. Like if someone’s in [00:07:30] your face, can you find a way out, you know, and, and just different things like that, so.
Matt: Okay. In terms of recruiting, you know, the N N A I A, a lot of times you, you see a lot of international players, but it doesn’t look like you guys are, are huge on the international recruiting scene.
So does international recruiting or or the transfer portal factor into your recruiting at all?
Coach: Um, so, you know, like I said, there’s a lot of schools in an AI that are heavily international. Um, we don’t have any current. On our roster. Um, and it’s more to do with the, uh, the financial side. Um, because like I said, even for people in the United States, once they get out of that kind of wooey area that we talked about, our tuition price goes pretty high.
Um, so we just tend to, you know, find what we can in, in our area and, and we believe in the developmental piece and developing players. I mean, obviously we’ve. A lot of success. Um, in the four years that I’ve been on the staff, we’ve, we’ve made nationals twice. Um, we’ve been in the top 10 at the final site twice, and the two years that we didn’t make nationals, we still won 11 games and 12 games.
Those two seasons last year we won 12 games, had 14 shutouts in 19 games. So, I mean, we were, we were very successful at what we were doing. And, you know, we fell probably one game short of, of getting into the tournament, which, which hurt. But, you know, we, we believe, What we have in our area and going out and finding it and, you [00:09:00] know, giving people a chance.
And, um, you know, oftentimes when you’re in the transfer portal, um, the nai you know, kind of has a, a little bit of a stigma against it, and you hear it all the time, which I, I never understood because. Some of the best soccer I’ve seen played is, is in the n A I and those top teams, the na I can play with anybody.
And you, you see it in the spring and stuff. You know, we’ve played D one s and D two s in the spring and, and we’ve held our own, you know, and obviously in the spring maybe people aren’t playing their full lineup, but, you know, neither are we all the time. So it, it’s, you know, we’re very comparable with those D two s.
Um, I think, and you know, I. A lot of people would have more options if they were a little bit more open-minded about the n a i and even junior colleges, you know, I played at the junior college as well. So I think people often have that, you know, that big school mentality, which is nothing wrong with that.
I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna bash at all. Like, if you have that dream, by all means, chase that dream. But I think, um, my thing is just for, for anybody is where are you gonna be happy? You know, where are you gonna enjoy? Life and soccer because, you know, your four years of soccer are gonna end. So is it gonna set you up for, for what you want in your life?
And you know, there’s a lot of really nice n a I schools across the country that have great educations and, and different things. So, um, not just for Eastern Oregon, n a i in general, I’m hoping to kind of break through that stigma that goes against it.
Matt: Yeah. No, I love that. Absolutely. Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the school.
I’m sure there’s some folks out there not [00:10:30] familiar with Eastern Oregon University, so you’ve got a good insight having been the assistant coach, now, the head coach. So what are the, some of the things you find that are really awesome about the school that maybe I’m not gonna learn just by clicking through the website?
Coach: Um, one is the, the community support. You know, it’s a smaller town, but it means that every athletic event is flooded with, with the community. In the sense, I’ve always felt like it’s almost like a, a small town professional team, um, because they, you know, the community doesn’t have much else, um, as far as like your bigger cities.
Um, and then the environment. We are big on outdoorsy stuff. It’s gorgeous scenery. We’ve got lakes and hikes and snowboarding, any direction you go. Um, so we are kind of isolated, but if you, you know, are open-minded, it’s, it’s really fun place to be. You know, we have classes that are offered. Mountain climbing, mountain biking, whitewater, river rafting, snowboarding.
These are all credits that our athletes can take. And, you know, you’re getting graded to go snowboard down a mountain and, and have a good time. You know, you’re, you’re mountain biking and you’re getting grades for that, you know, so those are some unique features that the school can offer that you may not get in a bigger city, um, when you’re, you know, going and there’s obviously perks to that as well.
But we, uh, you. Those are the probably the two main things that you’re not gonna see too much of if you’re scrolling through. Um, as far as the school itself, we have most programs that you would want. We have a really good nursing program, which is big. [00:12:00] Um, exercise, science, business, math, biochem, all these different things, you know, so we, uh, we have almost everything that people are, are looking for, which is really nice when it comes to recruiting too, cuz for the most part, we’ve got something for just about everybody.
Matt: Okay. Well, with academics being such a, you know, big part of the college experience besides the soccer part, uh, how do you, how does your school support the students in making sure they have that balance as to what they need to do academically as well as athletically?
Coach: Yeah, so we, um, you know, being a smaller school that, that’s big on athletics.
All of our professors are great when it comes to working with our students. You know, we have a policy where if you’re missing for games or whatever, you have to be given the opportunity to make up whatever work that you’re missing. Um, which, you know, it helps with the stress levels for our girls. If they’re missing class, they know that they’re not losing points or they’re not, you know, missing out on anything.
Um, we have an awesome counseling. Where they can just go and, you know, focus on different things as far as, you know, stress and mental health. Um, cuz that becomes a, a big piece of, you know, being a, a college athlete is, you know, you’re trying to balance school and sports, so making sure that they have the support they need to get through that we have.
Tutors available for not just our athletes, but everybody on campus. You know, we actually have a couple girls who work as tutors because they get paid to do it, which is nice. Um, we do study hall as a team, you know, and then our library [00:13:30] has study rooms that you can get into that have whiteboards in there.
And, you know, any given time, I’ll go in there and see four or five of our girls, depending on their majors, you know, working together. Um, as far as like the athletic, like soccer, we try to practice either, you know, 6:00 AM or 6:00 PM That way our girls have all day to get whatever classes, labs that they need to get.
And we’re not interfering with the school part at all. You know, we’re not trying to give them, Hey, we’re practicing at one. So you’ve gotta schedule your classes around this. We, I know school first get, get your classes and then we will, you know, war work around.
Matt: Okay. Well, and that kind of leads me to my next question.
You mentioned practice time. Can you just think about the fall and kind of walk me through what a typical week would look like in terms of what winter practice times class, times meals, the game cadence, all that kind of thing.
Coach: Yeah, so we are in a, uh, a pretty cool, what I think is pretty cool is we are on the quarter system.
So when we report on August 1st, which is usually our report, We don’t start class until the middle of September. So when we’re going through our preseason and we’re, we take one big preseason, a trip a year. Last year we went to Florida, we’ve been to Arizona, Nebraska. This year we’re going to Tennessee and Kentucky.
Um, we don’t miss any class for that because we haven’t started, some of our girls will be in summer classes, but they’re all online so they can, you know, do ’em wherever we’re traveling to. And if we. A few doing that, we will make sure that we have time at the hotel, um, downtime so that they can get what they need to get done.
But for our girls that are coming [00:15:00] in, it’s a nice transition because you’re not thrown right into school and soccer. You kind of get a taste of, of the soccer. Um, and then school kicks in a little bit later. So the first couple weeks we are doing two a days. Um, but it can look differently. Some days it’s two sessions.
Some days it’s a session and a film session. Some days it’s a session and waits. And typically you. We share our field with the men’s team. So one of us will go probably 8:00 AM the other one will go at 10. Um, and then we’ll both be back in the evening, typically one at four and one at six. Um, and then as school kind of starts, um, and we get into games, um, about towards the end of August, we go down to one practice a day.
And it will typically be that 6:00 AM or 6:00 PM just to kind of get into the routine once school starts, the conference starts the same. Which is, you know, kind of nice. It just works out that way. We play Friday, Saturday, um, in our conference, which can be brutal, but it does mean that we are not missing too much class.
Um, if we’re at home, we’re not missing any class cuz games are at four and six 30. Um, our conference, the men and the women traveled together. They played back to back. So last year we played first at four. Um, this, uh, upcoming year we’ll, Second at six 30 and that’s our home game. Sometimes if you’re on the road, the game times change, but it’s, you know, same format.
Um, so we’ll practice Monday through Thursday, um, games Friday, Saturday, Sundays off. Um, and you know, we usually have a film session and a wait session just to maintain throughout the week, but nothing crazy. [00:16:30] Um, you know, the weight session is just more injury prevention, different things like that. Okay.
Matt: Well, Let’s talk a little bit more about the team and, and the soccer side of things, you know, but, uh, Friday, Saturday can be kind of brutal. So what does that do for your roster? How many players do you like to typically keep on the team each year that you find is ideal?
Coach: So we usually try to stay right around 30.
Um, obviously it’s changed a little bit in the last few years with our Covid seniors because we’re not losing the same amount every year. Um, last year we were still at 31. This upcoming year, I anticipate being right at 33. Um, so we will never go over 35. I mean, that’s the absolute most, and even that, we kind of like that.
That’s a lot for us. Um, so 30 to 33 is usually our range. Um, and we, um, in the c c, which is the conference we can feed in, I think, um, statistically I know most times. We are often the team that goes the furthest into our bench. If you kind of go and look at, you know, who’s making the most subs, we go eight, nine, deep into our bench.
Um, sometimes more. And if you look at the whole week collectively, we’re, we’re playing, you know, 18 to 24 girls, depending on the weeks, because we have a lot of depth and we believe in staying fresh. So sometimes there’s one group that plays more on a Friday and one group that plays more on a Saturday.
Sometimes it, it’s, you know, just one group that plays more collectively. It kind of just [00:18:00] depends on matchups and, and who we’re going against. And, you know, we also believe sometimes that if it’s not broke, you don’t fix it. So if things are going really well, um, you know, and when we communicate this with our girls is that, you know, maybe you didn’t play as much as you wanted to, but it might not be anything that you’re doing wrong.
This might be that the group that’s in is, is doing exactly what needs to be done. Our girls have really bought into that. Our culture is very much team first and you know that we over me, which, you know, I know a lot of coaches will say, but ours, you know, I truly believe that they, uh, they’re here for the reasons to, you know, get us back to the national tournament this upcoming year.
Um, to being one game short last year didn’t really sit right with a lot of the girls, um, especially when, you know, we were very close to even getting an at-large bid and, and you. If you ask the, the girls, I think they feel like maybe we should have and we didn’t. So there’s a little bit of a chip on the shoulder and, you know, we’ll see what happens this fall, but they’re, they’re working harder than they’ve ever worked before.
Um, I think they’re hungrier than they’ve been. And it’s, it’s fun to see, you know, the, the players take over and kind of set the mindset. Um, cuz when the coaches do it, it can only go so far when it becomes player led. That’s when I think really good things. Yeah, for sure.
Matt: Well, you know, obviously you’ve now moved from assistant to head coach, so can you just give me a brief overview of what the rest of your staff looks like?
What roles does everybody play, et cetera?
Coach: Yeah, so we kinda, um, As of right [00:19:30] now, we kind of bumped up just one spot each. So I, you know, took over for Jake as the head coach and then Morgan who played here. She’s the program’s all-time leading goal scorer. Um, she was a volunteer assistant last year. She’s now stepped into the assistant role.
Um, and then we are currently our keeper coach got the opportunity to move to a division two school in Nebraska. And he’s doing really well there. So now we are in the market for a keeper coach. Um, you know, we’ve got a few names that we’re kind of going through the process with right now, but we will have one by fall and it’ll be the three of us.
And we, uh, split recruiting. Um, you know, a lot of evaluation goes on between the three of us and, um, you know, as far as roles. It’s kind of, you know, just depends on the day. You know, there’ll be days where I ask Morgan, Hey, can you take the, the forwards and the keepers and run some finishing while I’m working with the midfielders and the defenders on, you know, some different things.
And, um, you know, it’s pretty cohesive. Um, obviously it’s new cause it’s only been three weeks with, with it, but you know, it, it’s not gonna change too much.
Matt: Okay, well how now that. Transitioning into the Head Coach role, has your coaching style changed at all? Can you tell us about your, I guess, your whole staff’s coaching style and the team style of play?
Coach: Um, I don’t, I don’t think so too much. I, the one or two things I’ll say about myself as a coach and I was the same way as an assistant, is [00:21:00] one, I extremely value the relationships off the field and we, we work night and day into making sure that the team is comfort. That they can come into the office and speak their mind.
You know, obviously things need to be done respectfully, but I give that same respect back to the team. And, you know, I don’t, I’m not much of a, a yeller. I believe in communication. I often will bring the team in and, and talk to them. Obviously in games when you’ve gotta communicate, that’s different. But I don’t really consider that, you know, yelling, yelling.
Um, and I, I do that because on the field it’s very demand. Um, if you’re gonna play for me, you’re gonna accept that we have a standard that’s gonna be upheld every day. And if it’s not, you know, you’re gonna know that it’s not, and not in a way that’s gonna demean you or tear you down just in a way that’s saying, Hey, you know, we’re not doing what we need to do.
You know, we, we’ve gotta get back to how we can play. It’s gotta be consistent. You know, the teams that go on and are success. Do the small things consistently every day. So it’s not negotiable here. You know, you’ve gotta show up every day with discipline, cuz you’re not always gonna be motivated. There’s days where sometimes, you know, as a coach you’re not as motivated, but it’s the discipline that kicks in.
So, you know, I think that you can do that more if you have a good relationship with your players because they know that it’s not coming from a mean place, it’s not coming from an angry place, it’s coming from a place of I care about you, so I’m not gonna let you be anything but your best.
Matt: No, I love that.
Well, in terms of [00:22:30] the, the, uh, off season, cuz we’re talking here in March and so it’s that time of year. Uh, what does your typical off-season routine look like for the players?
Coach: Um, so we have, um, our certain amount of weeks that we can train with the ball. So usually, typically January into February, we’re only, uh, doing some fitness and some lifting.
And we’ll usually kind of offset it. So I believe this year we are doing fitness Monday, Wednesday mornings, and then we are lifting Tuesday through Thursday evenings. Um, and that was it. As we transition into practicing, like we are right now, we scratch the fitness in the mornings because we start doing that at practice.
Um, and we’re lifting, you know, still Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and we’re practicing, you know, Monday through Thursday sometime is Monday through Friday, depending on the week. Um, we’re not going that full two hours, you know, it tends to be, you know, right underneath an hour and a half, kind of right there.
And it’s a lot more, you know, development stuff with individual work and trying to, you know, develop everyone. And then in the spring, after spring break, we’ll come back and we’ll start focusing a little bit more on, you know, tactics as we prepare for the fall. But same schedule roughly. Okay.
Matt: Well, coach, you’ve been real generous with your time.
We’ve talked about a lot of different things, and I want to end with one last question and that is, if there was one thing, one nugget of info that you could communicate to, to parents or players that are going through this process right now, [00:24:00] what’s the, what is that one thing that you would hope that they would know?
Coach: Oh, like I said earlier, I think it’s just, it’s being open-minded throughout the process. You never. Which school is, is going to be the right place for you or your child. Um, you know, it could be a big school. It, it could not be. And, and it’s just doing research, going on visits, and I think trying to put yourself or your kid around the team and the coaches and get a good feel for it.
Because, you know, if you’re just doing kind of window shopping on schools, things might look great from the outside. They might not necessarily be. So it’s just do your research and um, be open-minded because you never know what the best fit’s gonna be. And at the end of the day, it’s about where you’re gonna be happiest.
You know, you don’t want to go somewhere where you’re gonna end up transferring straight away because you’re not happy. So, um, and the other part is kind of stay the course. You see, I think a lot of kids these days, if they don’t play straight away, you know, their first thing is. Leave and go somewhere else.
Um, I think there’s a lot to be said about people who are willing to put the work in and, and earn what they’re given. So those two things would probably be the biggest for me.
Matt: All right. I love both of those things, so, and I appreciate that insight. Well, coach, congrats again. Wish you the best of luck in your first full season in the fall as head coach and, uh, hopefully we’ll get to talk again soon.
And, and you’ll be raising that, uh, conference championship [00:25:30] banner then.
Coach: I hope so. Thank you, sir. I appreciate you having me. All right. Thank you.
