Mt. Mercy University Women’s Soccer – Coach Gabriela Ponder
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Ponder from the Mt. Mercy Women’s Program in Iowa. We talk about being a new coach looking to rebuild a program. She describes the high academics and that they are in a fairly large city. Lastly, we discuss their offseason training in preparation for the fall. Learn more about Mt. Mercy 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 Ponder over at Mount Mercy. Welcome coach.
Coach: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Matt: Yeah, thanks for being here. Well, you are in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and you’ve been at the helm, I guess about six months now. Huh?
Coach: That’s right, that’s right. Now it’s nice cuz the weather’s warmer, so I’m enjoying a little bit more.
Matt: Well, there you go. Well, I, I’m down in Florida, so, uh, I don’t, I don’t, you know, I have like, Three days a year where it’s not warm, but, um, but anyway, so we’re, we’re talking here, it’s June, middle of June, I’m sure you’ve been hitting the recruiting trail hard in, in your spring.
So can you just give, gimme an idea of what your, what your recruiting calendar looks like, what your preferred timing is. Are you, are you hardcore? 20 fours? Or are you still looking at 20 threes? What, what does it look like as, as, as someone who takes over a new program or takes over a program as a new coach?
Coach: Yeah, absolutely. So when I, I, I took the job. It, it was a lot, you know, trying to get as many people as you can trying to, you know, build the program back. Now it’s a little bit more relaxed. Uh, we’re pretty much done with the 2020 threes. Um, we have a good group of girls coming in. I mean, I’m not the type of coach that’re gonna say, the doors are closed and I’m done.
Yeah. I don’t think that would be shooting myself on the food, you know? Yeah. So I’m open to it, but pretty much done with 20 threes. We’re really focused on 20 fours and 20 fives. Um, right now the beauty of. Coaching women, uh, women likes to be ahead of [00:01:30] it. They don’t leave things last minute most of the time.
So actually we have a lot of 20 fours and 20 fives, they’re ready to commit, you know, and ready to, to pull the trigger. So, um, with that being said, we’re pretty much done with our 20 threes. Looking to pick up a couple more as we have varsity and jv, so our roster’s pretty big. Um, but focusing more on the 24th and 20 fives, I would like to.
You know, in the summer I still do some recruiting. The fall is not gonna be happening since our season, but I, I try to keep myself ahead of the game as well. Um, so when the spring comes, it’s not like when I took the job, you know, you’re trying to do all your recruiting at once. I try to kind of balance out and do a little bit, um, by a little bit.
Matt: That makes sense. What you mentioned roster size. So with, with the two teams, what’s the total roster size look like that you’re trying to get to?
Coach: About 30, 35 players, uh, that would be ideal for me. It’s not huge, you know? Okay. Um, maybe as we progress, um, and grow in our program, we can have more up to 40, but as of right now we’re looking to 30, 35.
Matt: Okay. No, that’s not bad at all. Well, you mentioned, uh, hitting the recruiting trail, so, uh, you know, what is, what are some of the events that, that you like to, to visit and, and see players and, and where do you like to go? Uh, when it comes to recruiting?
Coach: Yes, I’m really learning cuz I’ve been most of my coaching career in the south, so in Tennessee, around that area.
So I’m new to the Midwest. We’re still learning a lot of the, the events around here. Um, we have a big one in Las Vegas is the Las Vegas showcase. That’s one that we gonna be [00:03:00] hitting. There’s a. One, and we’re just by Chicago. And Chicago has a ton of events, um, that people come all over the, you know, pretty much the world.
There’s some international ones that are there as well. So that’s the area we’re staying around here. Those are the main three areas that we’re looking to is just Las Vegas, the GRA event in Chicago. Um, with my contact in Tennessee, I still, every time I go there, I still keep in touch with the events there, but it’s hard to take someone from the south, um, to come to the Midwest sometimes.
So,
Matt: Well, and, and I’m guessing, judging by your accent, you’re not from the south or the Midwest. So
Coach: I am from the actual South, I’m from Brazil, so all the way down.
Matt: So with that being said, do you guys look to recruit internationally at all? Any international players on the roster
Coach:? Yes. We have, I would say 50 to 60% of our, my roster is international.
Oh, wow. Okay. Uh, we have a big, big amount of, um, foreigners on the team, which, I mean, I’m international myself, came to the United States to play soccer, so I know how the process goes and how it works. Um, so I really try to help the girls who are trying to do it as well. We have right now, seven different nationalities on our team.
Um, so it, it’s a big hit for us as well. And being n a i a, you’re a little bit more lenient with the roles with recruiting internationals. So we, we are focused, we have a lot of local girls, like from the Midwest and also internationally. Okay.
Matt: Well whether it’s international or domestic, what are you looking for in a player?
What is it that that [00:04:30] makes you want to say, okay, come join our team.
Coach: Man, work ethic is huge for me. Um, people that wanna win and wanna put the work in, being good and being successful doesn’t fall in your lap. You know, everybody, that being an athlete, you know how it goes. So what I’m looking for is for players that just wanna go after, you know, um, I always tell my recruiting process, if you’re not willing to give 1000%, I don’t want you.
And it’s just me being very blunt and honest with them. Um, also good people. Um, I think soccer is huge and that’s what, this is my job, right? I wanna win, I wanna trophies, I wanna rings, I wanna, all of that stuff. But the type of people they’re becoming is very important to me and my coaching staff as well.
We’re very international in intentional, sorry, uh, with focusing on them as people and investing them and helping them become good human beings. You know, soccer will end for everybody at one point. So who they’re becoming is very important to us as well. So can we, And also avoid the drama and be a good group of people.
You know, that’s what I’m looking for. And if a player fits, um, the mode, that’s who I want here. Okay.
Matt: Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the school. I’m sure there’s folks out there not familiar with Mount Mercy. You know, you, you’re quite a bit away from down here in Florida, so I’m sure, uh, a lot of folks in my club wouldn’t, wouldn’t know about it.
So you’ve been there for six months now. So what have you discovered about the school? That’s really awesome. What are some things that, that you’re really excited about with the, with the program and the school itself?
Coach: Yeah. Mount Mars is a great place, honestly. Um, one, we’re in Cedar Rapids. I know people don’t know much about Iowa.
I didn’t before coming [00:06:00] here, I had to do my research, but we’re actually the second lar largest city in Iowa, so the more, the capital is pretty big. And then we are at a pretty, um, good-sized town, which makes Mount Mars more attractive. You know, we’re not in the middle of nowhere. Um, and the school itself, we have a great structure here.
Academically, we’re very. High Rankly, uh, academically, our nursing programs and medical field, it’s pretty big, uh, as we have a couple hospitals, like a few miles from us, which attracts a lot of nursing and pt, all of that. Um, so Mount Mercy. We’re probably five minutes from downtown. So if you go to the top of the hill, you can see downtown from our campus, which is pretty sweet.
Um, and of course we are a couple hours from Des Moines, a few hours from Chicago. We’re at a very good location when it comes to that. Um, the school itself, I’ve learned a ton. Um, our athletic facilities. I would say, I know I’m biased, but the best in our conference. We have a great sports complex here. Um, it’s when people come to campus, that’s usually like a huge deal breaker.
People are like, oh wow, this is super nice and I wanna come here. Um, the school invest in athletics quite a bit. About 70% of our student population are athletes, so that’s very good. You know, the school knows the important, the importance of athletics. And they invest a lot in it. So that, that’s good. Now it’s like to mention this on the recruiting process, if anybody knows anything, bio, it’s cuz it’s, it’s cold.
Everybody knows that fact about it. Um, so our school has a huge perk to it. We have [00:07:30] underground tunnels that connect all the buildings. So during the winter, the kids don’t go outside. They just take the tunnels to go to class and to buildings, you know, which is super cool. Me being from Brazil, I’m like, if I went here, I’ll be on the tunnel 24 7 in the winter.
Matt: Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s a little different cold. I grew up in Ohio, so I,
Coach: I I can, I can. It’s a different man. It’s different, the cold here, like it hurts. It’s, it’s like that. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It’s awesome. It’s a, it’s a cool environment for sure.
Matt: Well, good. Well, obviously when kids are coming to school, it’s, it’s about soccer as well as the academic side of things.
So can you just discuss how your student athletes really balance the, the, the draws of, of. The school as well as their sport. And what kind of support systems does the school offer to help them be successful on both sides of that?
Coach: Man, it’s so important. We are at a small school, which I find very helpful when you’re a student athlete.
Uh, we have about 1700 students on campus. Um, not a lot, which makes your classroom size smaller, which makes more personable with professors. Um, like I mentioned just a second ago. Majority of student population are athletes, so the professors are really used to dealing with athletes and missing classes.
You know, you go miss class for training and games and traveling. Um, so we have a very good support system here. We have tutoring for free. You know, we have me as a coach and my coaching staff, we do a lot of study hall as well. So the [00:09:00] school itself require every freshman to go into study hall. That’s just to help them transition from high school to college.
You know, it can be demanding and overwhelming to be honest. Um, So we have that. But as a coaching staff, we also, I have a G P A goal that I require all my girls to hit. And if they’re below that, I do a little bit more, um, on the academic end as far as requiring to do tutoring set of an option, you know, and really keep in touch with the professors.
I mean, you call student athlete. For, for a reason. It’s not an athlete student. Um, I want them to succeed on the field, but I also live here with a degree and be able to get a nice job, you know, so we we’re very, very intentional about our academics in the school itself. Are is very well. Okay.
Matt: Well, I know you haven’t had a full season yet, you know, under your belt, but let’s fast forward a couple months.
Can you walk me through what you see a typical week looking like for your student athletes in terms of, you know, winter meals, classes, practice times, games, get cadence, all that kind of stuff? Yeah. What do you think it’s gonna look like for ’em?
Coach: Yes. Well, I can tell by, I, I was a student athlete, right? So it’s gonna be very similar wherever you go at this level.
Um, During the season, it’s very, very taxing. You know, it, it’s very, it goes by very fast. That’s the reality of it. You wake up early in the morning, you have your breakfast, and you go to class all day. And then in the afternoon you have your training session for about two, two to two and a half hours. Um, now at this level, [00:10:30] you know, you play two games a week.
So the only day you have off in our conference, it’s Sunday. So you train or playing games every day. Um, as far as your season goes, Then you have, you know, lunch in the middle and then dinner whenever you’re done with practice. I mean, of course there’s preseason prior to our season, which here at, we have two weeks of preseason prior to school starting.
That looks a little bit different. Um, we have two practice a day. There’s no school. Uh, we have a lot of team activities and team bonding and meetings, um, just so we can get the chemistry off the field and really figure it out our goals and what we’re doing. Um, so yeah, that’s how it goes. Preseason pretty, I always say as an athlete, that was my favorite part.
You know, it’s, there’s not a lot of school. All you do is play soccer, hang out with your friends. Um, so that’s, that’s how it goes in the season, um, that we’re looking forward. It’s gonna, it’s gonna look like that. Okay.
Matt: Well, now I know like you’ve only been there a few months, but, uh, can you. Give me a rough idea.
You know, as a parent, I’m always concerned, okay, how much is this gonna cost me? Right? So can you just gimme a rough idea what an average soccer player would be coming into in terms of how much it would cost scholarships, whether those are academic or athletic, kind of what’s, what’s a typical financial aid situation look like there?
Coach: Yeah, absolutely. So great thing about malware is we stack scholarships. So that means you can combine multiple type of scholarship, right? Or of course if you are an in-state kid, you might have a little bit more ages because you can [00:12:00] apply to all the grants and stuff like that. Um, but we do offer athletic scholarship.
It’s really up to me how much I give. Um, and academics is solely based on your G P a, that, that’s how it goes. Mm-hmm. Here and athletic solely based on your performance. That that’s how it is. Um, but then we have a lot of little scholarship as far as like if you come on a visit, you get a grant. Mm-hmm. If.
We are at a Catholic institution, which it doesn’t mean you have to be Catholic to come here, but if you go to a Catholic high school, you can get another grant. Mm-hmm. So we do have a lot of things that you can stack up and we actually have a really good deals for internationals. So for international student to come here.
They don’t have to have a certain G p A, um, so they get a, a chunk of money just for coming here from their country, which it kind of takes a little bit of the weight, you know, out of, uh, internationals. And sometimes the grades translate different too. Um, so. So that’s why another reason why we have so many international is we have a pretty good, um, scholarship when it comes to recruiting foreigners.
Um, so yeah, it’s, it’s pretty, it’s pretty good. I would say if you’re a good student, um, and you are a decent player, you are gonna be very sad here at Mount Mercy.
Matt: Okay. No, that’s great. Well, we’ve, let’s shift gears. Talk a little bit about the, the team and the, and the soccer side of things for a bit. You mentioned your roster size and you mentioned your staff.
So, so what does your staff look like? How big is it? What role does everybody play? How, how does that look?
Coach: Yes, it’s, so I, it’s me and I have two assistants. Um, I have a [00:13:30] full-time assistant and a ga, which is awesome. It’s very, very helpful. Um, they, they’re both, we’re all doing varsity right when it comes to the JV team.
My GA is actually the head coach for the JV team. Um, so that’s how we divide things. And of course I’m coming to as many sessions as I possibly can in home games cuz JV play games as well against other schools. So we’re just trying to keep a very close bond and. Seeing girls progress, but it, it’s, it’s just the two of them.
Um, which I have my assistant coach, my full-time assistant coach, she was here previously and I kept her, and then we just got a new GA that’s joining us next month. Um, so that, that’s as far as my, both of them have played at a very high level, you know, very, very helpful. People definitely could have been doing by myself.
We all do recruiting, we all do coaching, we, we do everything. It’s, it’s a small school, so you do everything. That’s how it goes.
Matt: Yep. Yep. I remember those days. Very invested. Yep, yep, yep. Well, in terms of, you know, obviously you haven’t had any, any games yet, but how would you overall describe your coaching style and the style of play that you wanna impart on the team?
Coach: Yes. Um, it’s gonna be a change. The girls, you know, they can already see a change from where they were to where we’re going towards. I mean, as I mentioned before, I’m from Brazil, so I like the pretty soccer, right? I like to watch pretty soccer and I like to play so pretty. Soccer. That means I’m a very possession or oriented type of coach.
Um, don’t enjoy a lot of the Kiki and running, therefore, I know there’s [00:15:00] times where you, you need to do that, right? You need to adapt, um, as a coach and as a team. But I do like to keep the ball on the ground and, and play the feet. Um, grew up. Up in Brazil with the saying that the ball is who does the work?
Um, you know, which is very different here in America. I played here, um, the games, he’s very athletic, um, very physical. So just combining how I like to play the possession oriented with this team being very athletic, you know, and things like that, that that’s, that’s how I wanna play. I wanted people to watch Mount Mercy and be like, man, this is fun to watch.
Matt: Okay. All right. I like it. Well, you did get to have a off season, you know, the spring season with your team. So what did that look like? What should players expect to do when they’re not in their regular season?
Coach: Yes. Um, my off season still pretty intense. The girls would say the off season. Feels very much like a season.
Um, I do find an important doing off season. I’m not the type of coach that’s just gonna let my players go and do whatever they want. Um, cuz I tell you, I, I really think impact our season, the spring, you know, in the summer as well. So we did, we played, um, four games. Um, and we want three of them. So we made quite a bit of progress.
It was really good. Um, really intense. Like if you talk to any of my girls, they would say, coach is intense. That’s the word. They would probably describe me. Um, our off season, we still train two days a week, sometimes with lifting and with ball work in the afternoon. Um, I, [00:16:30] I try to give them goals and hold the, the bar very high, you know, so they approach each other and know where we wanna get.
Um, So, yes, my off season, I, I try, you know, as a coach, we’re all intense. We wanna win, we wanna progress. Um, but I, I, I try to also understand that the spring is a time that. They’re gonna work more, you know, and they’re gonna, um, take harder classes to try to, to catch up and things like that. So I try to balance out.
Sometimes my assistants have to tell me, Hey, we need to give them a day off. But I’m open to it. I’m very open and you know, if we have to change, we’ll change. But that the spring, that’s how it looks like. Um, for, for us here, Mount Mercy, just getting ready. I always tell the girls I. I feel like it’s, it’s an ongoing thing.
So in the spring you shouldn’t be picking, it’s not our season, but you should be progressing and getting better. Um, so when the fall comes, that’s when you hit hitting the top, right? Cuz that’s our season. So that’s how I see it. Spring comes, you’re going up, up, up. Summer, summer, fall comes, you’re picking and at your best form,
Matt: No, I love it.
I love it. Well, coach, I always like to end these with, with the same question, and that is, if you had one piece of advice, one, one nugget of information that you want to impart on any, any family players going through this college recruiting process, what would that be?
Coach: Yeah, I, I would say don’t be so fearful.
I feel like kids come in, um, thinking this is something out of the world, you know, like, uh, so afraid of it. It’s very doable. Playing and going [00:18:00] to school is very, very doable. Um, and honestly, most of it’s fun. It’s probably one of the most fun four years of my life. You know, it’s being that and making a friendship and enjoy yourself and getting a degree.
Um, so I would say for family, just like, Don’t be afraid to ask questions and go after it. That’s what we coaches want. You know, it’s really hard on the recruiting process when parents are not engaging or the kids are not engaging. You constantly have to chase them. It’s like, just, just ask questions, you know?
Um, be comfortable with the process. Most, most coaches sitting in my chair, Have gone through the process, um, themselves as a player. So just, just understand that we know what it takes and how it goes. And for recruiting, it’s because we see something, something in you different, right? Uh, so just telling the, the kids that, um, yeah,
Matt: Awesome. Well, coach, wish you the absolute best of luck, uh, in your first full upcoming season. And, uh, if you do make it down to Florida for any of the big recruiting events,
Coach: I was just there two weeks ago. Oh, where’d you go? I went to Fort Myers. That’s where some of my family
Matt: Oh, that’s great. It’s just about, I was actually in Fort Myers, uh, last week myself.
So where are you located? I’m in Bradenton. Just Oh yeah, just a little bit north. Yep. So we get a bunch of recruiting events down here, E C N L and and stuff over at IMG and stuff like that, so, absolutely. All right, well coach, best of luck and thank you so much for joining us.
Coach: Thank you for having me. Have a good one.
You too.
