Florida Atlantic University Women’s Soccer – Coach Patrick Baker
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Baker from the Florida Atlantic Women’s Program. We talk about their recruiting timeline and their conference. He describes the “Boca bubble” and what draws people to FAU. Lastly, we discuss how his staff help ensure the strength of the program and the players live like a champion. Learn more about Florida Atlantic 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 Baker from Florida Atlantic university. Welcome coach. Good morning, sir. How are you doing? Well, thanks. Good to see you on the screen. Got to see you, I guess a couple months ago at the, uh, the Tampa super cup. So that was fun.
And, uh, it was really excited to be able to see, uh, you guys play in your conference tournament they held over at premier. Uh, so that was fun. Did you, did you guys like that having that kind of neutral site conference tournament?
Coach: I think what we did, um, you know, first, first year having it there, um, you’re going to kind of have some transitional, I mean, I want to say issues, just transitional things that pop up, you know, I think a lot of us appreciate the fact that.
Um, none of the institutions have to host it, um, because there is the pressure of putting on a wonderful event, right, for the student athletes. But I think there are so many conferences that are going to a separate destination, all roads lead to wherever, you know? Um, and so all roads leading to Lakewood Ranch was, was, was pretty cool.
And so many of our girls had played there as youth players that, uh, coming back again and playing, um, important games, uh, was really nice. The weather was great, so that always helps, you know, um, weren’t two coaches complained. It was a little too warm during the day, but I was like, well, better to say that than the alternative, in my opinion, but you know, that’s just us Floridians [00:01:30] talking, you know?
Matt: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And you got a couple, uh, couple of the, of the area girls on your roster, which is great. Um, but you know, we, we saw each other, uh, kind of after that. And, um, you know, the, uh, ECL event was was there at that same facility and so we’re in the throes of of recruiting time right now. So give me a little bit of sense in terms of your overall recruiting calendar, right?
So you’re when you know, do you still have some. One or two 24s you’re trying to lock in. Has that been done and dusted for a while and you’re really hard on the 25s? Are you, are you even writing down names of 26s? And what, what does that look like right now for a division one program?
Coach: Yeah, I would say ours is probably a little different than most, you know, because, um, we do always try to keep one or two spots, you know, um, we do a lot with international players.
Um, and so that time timeline takes a longer time, you know, um, and hopefully you get to see him. And of course, you’re doing a lot of this with them and their parents. Um, of course, it’s easier. So, right. You’re like, hey, we live in the weather, you know, and they’re like, uh, so there’s only 1 flight and they’re going to be in sunshine the whole time.
They’re like, where do I, you know, um, so from an international standpoint, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, [00:03:00] it’s a nice thing, but, um. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, going with recruiting, I would say all the above, like, you know, we’re jotting down names of 26 is that we can’t communicate with. Um, probably the, it’s a sweet spot, you know, for the 2025 class.
Um, of course, there’s always the odd story. Sometimes I shouldn’t say odd. There’s, there’s the interesting story. I think at the end of each recruiting class, that’s something I always tell her. You know, our staff, we got to always be prepared because you never know a when someone unfortunately might leave your program, but on the flip side, uh, there may be an opportunity to bring someone into your program, you know, so, um, yeah, so from a recruiting standpoint, it was great to have the, uh, the, you know, the dead period.
I wish that was around when my kids were younger. Um, you know, coaches now they don’t even know that there wasn’t a dead period, you know, during the holidays. So, uh, probably aging myself there, but yeah. You know, you come out of that event and, you know, you’re hitting the ECRL event there and, um, in Orlando, you’re hitting the ECNL event, Lakewood Ranch.
Um, you know, you’ve got a lot of the clubs are doing ID, their own ID camps, which is great. Um, of course, colleges are doing the same. Um, you’re getting your team ready for spring. Um, so, and you want some second looks at some of the 25s, you know, you go to one game and you say, wow, you know, and you come back the next game, you’re like, Where’s the player I saw yesterday?
Or where’s the player I saw at the last event? So, um, just kind of building the consistency, I [00:04:30] would say, of evaluations with a lot of the young ladies is kind of a big thing right now in the recruiting process.
Matt: Well, and you mentioned ID camps, and I know, you know, your staff is active it at some of the, uh, the, I guess the multi school camps.
And I know you guys are hosting your own here coming up and in a little bit and later in the spring. So how important are those ID camps kind of? Is it one of those things where? Kind of the order of operations is player reaches out. You try to see him at a tournament. You say, you know what, let’s come, come to the ID camp.
And like, is there kind of a process that you tend to go through at least with the domestic players?
Coach: Um, I think, I think it’s a two part. Let, let, let me just address the, the clubs having them. So it’s great because. If the club hosts it, right, then all their age groups can kind of be involved. Right. And it’s great for the, for the, for the families, the patrons, right.
The paying customer that they can see a lot of college coaches, hopefully, you know, in their own backyard. Right. So limited travel, you know, and for us, it’s really important as, as universities and colleges to get to those different places because, um, that’s how. We’ve built FAU women’s soccer is with the in state talent.
We’ve dabbled internationally, but when we first got here, first of all, our roster was 65 percent [00:06:00] out of state. Now, Matt, we’re at a state university. That shouldn’t be the case. Um, we, we had horrific recruiting stories. Um, One of the best coaches in the state of Florida is Mike Pickett at St. John’s Country Day up in Jacksonville, right?
And he brought, he, my predecessor, he brought, he brought to my predecessor three recruits on a weekend and said, hey, we’re coming down, got three recruits, you know, we want to tour the campus. And, um, there was a no show on campus. So Coach Pickett toured campus, showed the girls around, right? Left the note, put it on the coach’s door.
He’s still waiting for a response. And this is. 15 years later, you know, so I’m like, well, at least we can show up and meet people, right? I mean, at least we can, at least we’ll be able to do that, you know? Um, and so the clubs, it’s massive because they are a lot of times dictating the message to the players, right?
And so if we never show up at any of their events, it’s very hard for them to know who we are and what we represent and how our season’s going, right? Um, and then on the flip side, Us being able to host the girls get to be around us individually, maybe a little bit longer. They get to meet our players, which I think is huge.
They get to be in the [00:07:30] facilities and be kind of like, okay, this is a potentially like a day in the life of what it might be like, like if, you know, you mentioned, you know, Nikki, my assistant, if she, if people meet Jeremy or Nikki or myself and be like, okay, this is a staff that I think would help me. You know, as a student athlete in my future, well, then great, you know, um, maybe you come to campus and you realize, I just don’t want to be that close to the beach, you know, I don’t want to be that close to great shops and whatever, you know, I don’t, whatever it might be.
And, but I think that’s the other piece, you know, sometimes people are like, well, when do you care when someone visits and we’re like, we really don’t care. We’re all going to kind of be the, the same when you visit, you know, so, um, as long as we get a visit and I always tell recruits. If you visit us, the greatest thing that can happen is that when you leave with mom or dad, you know, um, is that you say, Hey, I’d like to go back for a second visit, you know.
Um, because you’re probably not going to say, Hey, I want to commit, you know, you’re going to get married after your first date. No, you know, so hey, and I do think that the, I think the thing, Matt, that young ladies and young men for that matter, but we’re talking about women’s soccer. So I’ll say young ladies, young ladies really are struggling with is there’s this, like, they feel like they’re in a.
A pressure cooker and the, and the clock on the wall is ticking, you know, and they look at social media and they see people are committing and this and that. And why not me? And, and [00:09:00] I feel bad, you know, I really feel bad, um, because you hope everybody makes the right decision, but a lot of times, you know, they don’t.
And that’s why the transfer portal, which I don’t even know we’ll get to, but, you know, the transfer portal is over 1600, you know, women’s soccer players. That’s, that’s nuts.
Matt: Yeah. I agree. And I was going to ask if, if you guys look at the portal at all in your recruiting and how it’s kind of changed maybe the way you, you, you fill classes and, you know, is there, is there a roster size you’re trying to hit each year to, so you’re, you’re, you’re using the, the portal to fill in and, and, and what kind of how.
How does that look for you guys?
Coach: Well, our, our cycle, when we first, when we, when we first got here to FAU, we were like Noah’s Ark, we needed two of everything, you know, we needed two centerbacks, two forwards, two wide midfielders, two goalkeepers. So we were like, come on, come on. And so we, we, we’ve had this every four years, you know, is, is kind of our cycle.
And that, but that’s also when we’ve been the most successful as we build, build, build, build, build. We’ve got this great class. And because we’ve had that kind of big class every four years. Um, it’s just kind of stayed with us to your point. Would it be nice if it was like six or seven players every year and it just stayed that way?
Yeah, but covid changed a lot. As you well know, the portal has changed, you [00:10:30] know, now with the new legislation, Matt, they’re, they’re claiming that you could go to a different school all four years. I’m sorry, every four years you could go to a different school so you could play it At University A, then go to College B for year two, then you go to another place for year three, and then you do your final year, year four, and like, well, that’s not what, you know, that, but it is kind of what is happening sometimes at the club level where people jump.
Right. Absolutely. You’re allowing them to jump in college and you know, um, we’ve, we’ve, I know this isn’t what you’re asking about the portal. So we’ve only had 1 player in 3 years with undergraduate eligibility to jump in the portal. I think that says 2 things. Number 1, um. People enjoy it here, like they enjoy their student athlete experience.
They feel like they’re being challenged educationally, being challenged with their soccer, uh, they’re growing and developing. On the flip side, there’s too many, and I would say this if they were sitting on this call, there’s too many coaches that after one semester are like, you know what, you’re just not panning out and you should probably get into the portal.
To me, it’s like, where has the development gone? Like you made a commit, like you made a commitment. They made a commitment to you. Right. And unless they’ve just come in and just been absolutely, you know, [00:12:00] the worst player, the worst teammate, you know what I’m saying? Like, okay, there’s that conversation, but.
If they’re truly trying hard, like you got to at least give them a year or two, be like, we’ve done everything. You’ve done everything. We’re just at a crossroads, you know, maybe it’s playing time. Hey, if it’s really playing time that you’re interested in, let’s help find you another home. Right? But it goes both ways.
Don’t get me wrong, right? You know, because players will come in after a semester and be like, It’s not working out, you know, I’m leaving. And then on the flip side, coaches are coming in, you know, having meetings and they’ll come in and be like, Hey, listen, you know, you didn’t even make the travel team this year.
You should look for another school. You’re never going to get that great story about, hey, as a freshman, I was here as a sophomore. I was here. I really got it when I was a junior and then I became this unbelievable captain, you know, starter and let our team to the conference championship or an NCAA bid that that story is, is, is going to be well lost, I’m afraid, you know, or, or it’ll be a much smaller percentage than it was, which is kind of a shame.
Matt: No, you’re right. It’s, it’s, it’s tough. Uh, it is tough. And, and you see it very different, I guess, approaches at different schools and, and, and then you just see these numbers and the constant churn. And what’s sad is how many of them never, never end up somewhere else. Right. But, uh, but it is what it is.
Coach: And unfortunately, there’s some administrations that are like, Hey, just win.
Yeah, exactly. The [00:13:30] portal is part of the solution. Then if they’re not good enough, then you have every right to let them know. I totally understand that. But I guess, you know, when you have kids of your own and you’ve got, um, you know, my son currently plays in the college realm and, um, you just look at it differently.
You know, I get it. If it was your own child, you’d look at it differently, too. Right. But I know looking at mine, I always feel like if our players, if one of our players is sitting across from me, I’m like, you know, is that my dog? If that was my daughter and I have one, if that was my daughter, how would I want this conversation to be handled, you know?
And, um, you’re not always going to get it right, but you’re trying as best you can. And, um, yeah, I think that’s another thing to talk about graduation rates. I think they should talk about a transfer portal. Rates, how many, how many you keep and how many go in, you know, I think it says a lot.
Matt: Yeah, for sure.
Well, coach, let’s talk a little bit more about the school. Uh, you know, you mentioned it’s a gorgeous spot, uh, Boca Raton and, and you’ve been there for a few years now. Kind of, what do you, what do you think are some of the, the, the great things about Florida Atlantic? Maybe some stuff we wouldn’t even know just by going through the website.
Coach: Well, one of the things, um, that we always share with people when they come to visit is, um, You know, we’re, we’re located, we call it the Boca bubble, you know, Boca Raton, it’s a very affluent area, beautiful houses, cars, shopping, restaurants, you name it, um, and right [00:15:00] smack in the middle is a major division one university, you know, so it’s not a sleepy college town, right?
And it’s not a downtown, you know, um, so it’s unique in that way. If we were conversing right now and you’re like, coach, I lost track of time. Um, yeah. Um, I got to meet my wife, um, at the beach for, you know, uh, a quick, you know, whatever, quick coffee. Um, you would call me back in 10 minutes, feet in the sand, coffee in hand, holding your wife’s hand, being like, okay, coach, we can resume that conversation.
So our location, right, and overall climate is attract, because it’s a, it’s a tropical paradise, right, as most places are in Florida. People sell the sunshine, but like, we are literally, like, that close to. You know, the beach. Um, and so being having players that are loving the outdoors and of course, love the water.
It’s always a, it’s always a big thing. Um, we actually, the premises of the campus was actually a, an air force base in the 1960s, and it went defunct as an air force base. And then the state of Florida wanted to open up a major university somewhere in South Florida. And so they didn’t choose a current existing university, they created Florida Atlantic University, um, which used to be, um, an Air Force base.
And there’s actually still a couple barracks on the backside of campus. Um, we actually had, now, again, this was like, you know, [00:16:30] 50s, 60s. There’s tunnels under our campus. Now, you can’t get in them now, but, um, back then, you know, spies were big. You know, they would come over. We’re so close to the water. Spies would just hang out at the bar or the restaurants and try and hear what, you know, the Air Force people were saying.
And the actual very first threads of anthrax were developed. On our campus because, um, at the air force base, they thought they were going to wipe out Russia, um, and their wheat fields by using anthrax, you know, but so there’s certain places on campus that if, you know, we’ll, we’ll be on a golf cart tour or somebody and be like, Hey, you know, that’s one of the big events that goes to the tunnels.
And you wouldn’t know it like unless you were like with us and we’re pointing it out, you would assume like it’s a, an air duct for something or a sewage line or something, you know, just like, um, but I also would say from the campus standpoint, it’s, um, it’s a very walkable, bikeable, skateboardable campus.
It’s not like there’s because it was an Air Force base. There’s actually no roads that intersect the middle of campus. So it’s kind of, I would say it’s like a, it’s like an onion layer, you know, and the middle of campus is protected. And then, you know, um, there’s parking and then there’s a big loop that goes around campus housing inside and out of it athletics.
Um, they did keep the runway, [00:18:00] um, from the Air Force, uh, base time, um, but now it’s just a private, you know, a private runway, um, but we train right next to it. We, we, our stadiums right close to it. So sometimes you’ll see a plane, you know, dropping from the sky, you know, appropriately and, uh, they’ll think, well, that’s landing really close, but it’s because of the Air Force, um, base so long ago.
Matt: Yeah, that’s cool. That’s really cool. I didn’t know that. Um, well, let’s talk a little bit more. You mentioned the practice right next to us. Talk about the team and kind of the overall soccer side of things. You mentioned your assistant coaches kind of talk more about your staff and maybe any support staff that in the athletic department that also help out with that team.
What does that look like?
Coach: Well, we just so we just moved to the American Athletic Conference and a great move. Of course, it was football driven. You know, we were in Conference USA. So when we, when we, when we got here in 2013, we were making the jump from the Sunbelt to Conference USA. Um, and. You know, it’s like, Hey, how you gonna beat North Texas?
Who’s gonna beat North Texas? And, um, you know, we managed, we managed to, you know, kind of make our mark in that conference, which was great. Um, and, but they’ve also along with ourselves and For other schools, a total of six altogether have left Conference USA to join the American and Memphis is a fantastic program.
You know, I don’t know if you’ve had Brooks, but he would be someone I would recommend, [00:19:30] um, who’s just doing an amazing, an amazing job. And so I think, you know, now it’s like, okay, who’s going to get Memphis, you know, and so now being in this new conference. We know that we’ve got to recruit differently. Um, systematically, I think we’ll, we’ll be okay.
Um, but even if you look at the end of this year’s standings, the top four teams were all returners from the American Athletic Conference. Uh, Charlotte, who was in Conference USA and made the leap, uh, they were fifth. Tulsa returning team from the American was six. We were seventh and we probably had the youngest team.
Um, and then UAB was eight. And so to us, it just showed how strong the strength of the conference, because so many of the returning teams fared well. You know, and, um, so this kind of year, this was like a kind of get to know the conference and feel things out a little bit. And of course, even last year, you didn’t play everybody away.
So this year, we’ll see some teams for the first time at their own places. So even this year will be like an introductory year of kind of how to find, you know, all the different venues. But the conference has been great. The venues have been phenomenal. Um, Jeremy and Nikki are. Kind of like my my two right right hands.
Um, Jeremy just joined us, but deals a lot with our goalkeeping and our back line. [00:21:00] Um, Nikki has been with us for a couple of years now. Um, won a championship with us in 2019 and kind of leads our recruiting efforts and just does a great job. Also worked with our forwards within our system. So, um, love our staff and and that’s we’ve we found out as we were looking because the N.
C. W. A. Is just allowed for a third assistant. Um, And so it’s been interesting to find out who in our conference next year, we’ll have the third assistant and of course, we’re not there yet, but we’re hoping to, um, but love our staff. And I think our players would tell you that, um, everybody has a, every, everybody has a voice, you know, and, um, Nikki can lead the team.
Jeremy could lead the team. Um, and the culture, you know, I think the culture is key. Um, we have a, we have multiple t shirts every year that change with our camps and it’s called Live Like Champions. And, um, it’s not like go to school like a champion. It’s not like play like a champion. It’s live like a champion.
Live your life like a champion. We want to be great in the classroom. Our GPA last semester was a 3. 68. 3. 68 for the team. We had 30 players and we had, you know, there was no yahoos. There was no outlier. You know, everybody had above a three. Oh Um, now that doesn’t get the kind of coverage, Matt, it should, because to me, the academic prowess and what the girls do in the classroom, right, is just, if not more important than what they do on the field, but everybody looks at that [00:22:30] piece first, right, because that’s where you’re looking at your social media, you’re looking at the websites, right, and you’re going to see, oh, this player did this, this player did this, so we internally try to, as much as we can, promote, um, what our girls are doing academically.
Um, And socially, we want to be darlings in the community. We’ve always said that it’s very hard to ask people to come watch us play. Um, especially early when we really didn’t have an identity. Now we draw quite well. Um, but you gotta, you gotta go to others first. You gotta reach out to those, right? Um, and so just doing things throughout the community on a, on an annual basis is really important.
But we hope by doing that, then they’ll come back in the fall and support our players in a big way. Great.
Matt: Well, but now I got to train the guns on you. How would you describe kind of your coaching style, uh, and what you’re trying to implement there within the team? Um,
Coach: I’ve always, I’ve always said that if someone were to show up in the stands as a neutral and not know which team was FAU and which team was the opponent, I would hope that after a very short period of time, they would like a couple of things.
And number one, the attempt to try to keep the ball. Um, how we press and, and, and counter press, I think is, is one of our strengths. Um, you know, and, and I get why people [00:24:00] put a lot of, you know, like goals out there because I think goals are important, you know, to try and goal setting is important. Um, but I’ve always said, you know, if If we win more than we lose and we’re playing our best soccer at the end of the year and we’re healthy, then we probably stand a good chance of being successful and we’ve just kept kind of the recipe.
Pretty simple. Um, we’ve invested in the state of florida as far as our players, you know, we, we played, um. USF and the quarterfinals of the American and, um, you know, we were, we were, you know, we, we, we played well and, and, and fortunate to win the game one zero. But afterwards, um, one of the things that I did, uh, was I reached out to all the Florida club coaches that had players that were in our starting lineup and I thanked them because, you know, um, seven of the 11 that night were from the state of Florida.
And I just think that matters. You know, um, we’re state institution and we want to, you know, we want to grow and continue to develop our identity within state players. Um, and I think we tried to. We’re definitely a crossing and finishing type team. You know, we believe in wide players. We believe in, um, using the flanks, you know, um, we traditionally played out of a 442, but we’ve actually kind of transitioned playing in more of the out of the [00:25:30] 433, but we play both.
You know, on the regular and training, we’ll mix it up, you know, and sometimes if we have an inner squad, one’s playing one one’s playing the other. So we’re never that very far from either system, but I also think now we’re finally, you know, probably six years ago, if I said, Hey, we’re going to change, you know, our system, they would have been like, no, you know, what are we doing?
You know, uh, you can’t change, but, um, now I feel like we’ve introduced it long enough where we’re very fluid and we can, you know, make a substitution and they can walk on the field and be like, Hey, we’re moving to this and no problem, you know, Okay, great.
Matt: Well, I don’t want to take too much of your time. I got one last question for you.
Uh, it’s pretty broad, but, but I, uh, if you, if you could just pick one nugget, one piece of information that, that you think is crucial for, for any parent family player going through the recruiting process to know, uh, as they’re, as they’re going through this journey, what would you want them to know?
Coach: I think you’ve got to be organized and I think you have to be thorough in the process. What you put into it is what you’re going to get out of it. If you put very little in and you hope that everybody else is going to come running, probably doesn’t happen. There’s a very small percentage of players that actually want to attend this school, and that school recruits them.
And so you have to be organized, and you have to be thorough. So if you [00:27:00] don’t get that school, well, what is the second one, the third one, the fourth one, and how close can you mirror that? Um And enjoy it. That’s the one thing that I just feel like, I don’t know who’s the entity that provides the most stress and maybe it’s a combination of both, but I just feel like you’ve got to let your, your child enjoy the guide them be insightful, but they got to enjoy it because their happiness, I can attest to this as a parent as much as a coach.
Your child, when they are happy, there’s no greater feeling as a parent. And if they are not happy and they’re jumping in the transfer portal, then it probably done wrong and you don’t want to have to do it all over again.
Matt: Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. Well, coach really appreciate the time. Uh, hopefully I’ll see, I’ll see you somewhere along the, uh, the tournament.
Yep. In the spring. All right.
Coach: Okay, sir. Thank you. All right.
