Virginia Commonwealth University Men’s Soccer – Coach Dave Giffard
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Giffard from the VCU Men’s Program in Richmond. We talk about the June 15th recruiting start date. He describes how he recruits a team that reflects the world. Lastly, we discuss their positional possession of style that plays to the strengths of their roster. Learn more about Virginia Commonwealth University Men’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to discover college soccer today. I’m lucky enough to be joined by coach Dave Gifford from VCU. Welcome coach.
Coach: Thanks Matt. It’s great to be here.
Matt: Yeah. Glad to have you. Always good to talk to the folks from Virginia. I spent many, many moons there, although, you know, down here in Florida now, but, uh, we’re talking here beginning of June, um, on the recruiting side.
10 days away from that famous June 15th date that every, but you know, a lot of people get concerned with how important is that date for you guys? How much work are you going to be doing on June 15th or is, is for, especially on the guy side is kind of two years out. It’s not even really. That important right now.
Coach: No, to be honest at this point, you know, not very important. I wouldn’t say totally irrelevant, but, but pretty irrelevant. You know, I think that, uh, you know, when you’re comparing the two sides of the game and this is evolving and changing, you know, all the time, but, you know, on the women’s side, you have so many opportunities and historically you haven’t had, um, enough good players for those opportunities.
Um, and, and now as time has gone on and the, and the women’s game has continued to grow both in our country, but also abroad, you know, I think it’s, it’s becoming more and more competitive and more and more difficult. And I think, you know, over the course of time, it’s, [00:01:30] it’s slowing a little bit where, you know, you don’t see as many.
Um, whether the, the number of good players has increased or, you know, some enforcement of some of these different rules and policies has helped, but you don’t see as many girls at 13 and 14 years old making commitments like they were eight or 10 years ago. And so that’s really positive. I think for everybody, you know, for us, Um, you know, if there’s somebody that we really track on and reach out to on the 15th and great, but, you know, for the most part, it’s so far away from the picture that we’re looking at, you know, it’s, uh, you know, obviously from a negative standpoint for a lot of the young players in our country.
You know, you have the advent of the transfer portal and and and all some of those things that, uh, you know, that have changed recruiting over the last, you know, 3, 4 years and are going to continue to, you know, really evolve that piece where. You know, more and more you’re, you’re having a lot of, of top division one and really not even top division one, but the middle of the road and the bottom, I mean, they would prefer to add a 22 or 23 year old, um, you know, player who’s had three or four seasons of college already, they’re more ready to go.
And so, You know, the, the [00:03:00] idea of calling a 15 or 16 year old, um, rising junior on June 15th seems, you know, very strange in the current landscape. But there will be some calls on the guy’s side. You know, I think that more than anything, you know, what you’re doing is great because you know, what I find is you have a lot of worries and concerns from parents, from coaches, from, you know, sometimes the players, Hey, what’s happening?
No, is this going on? Am I late? You know, those types of things. And, and, uh, you know, I think it’s great to get the information out there that Um, most young men in this position should not be expecting their phone to be blowing up at, uh, you know, at midnight Eastern time on, on the 15th of June. Um, now, you know, if I was a coach of a women’s team, maybe, uh, like I said earlier, maybe I’d feel differently and maybe I’d say, hey.
Put your phone on silent if you don’t want to talk, um, until you’re ready to talk. And so, but I, in our side of the game, you just don’t see that as often with very many players. Sure.
Matt: No, that makes a lot of sense. What have you seen? I mean, as you’ve been at VCU now, you said this is the start of year 15, I believe.
So in the last few years, with the advent of the transfer portal, And I guess we’ll just call it the globalization, right? Of, of college soccer, at least. Um, have, have [00:04:30] you kind of changed the way you operate in terms of your recruiting calendar and where you go and how you look for players or, or, or is it kind of stayed the same or, or, or what?
Coach: Well, I think we’re probably in the minority where we’ve stayed pretty similar, right? I mean, how we play, what we do. Uh, how we try to help our players develop and the number of our guys whose goals are to play professionally beyond, um, you know, their college experience. I can’t make big changes and big adaptations to a player.
I can’t help them to make. You know, the gains that they need to from where they are now to where they want to go in three months or a year and three months like that, just, that just doesn’t happen. Um, and so I think for a large majority of division one, you know, you, you felt like, Hey, let’s get older. Uh, let’s be more ready, more experienced.
I mean, for the last 12, 13 years, we’ve, we’ve played one of the best five or six schedules in the country every year. And the biggest difference I’ve seen the last three or four years. Is starting lineup right when they call it the players out. Um, it’s like grad student, grad student, you know, senior, grad student, grad student, grad student, junior.
Oh, that’s a young player for them. Um, and, you know, and that program to program and a lot of the top places, um, that’s the direction that it’s gone. Right? And there’s just such a big difference between an [00:06:00] 18 year old. And a 24 year old or a 25 year old. Like there’s an enormous difference, not just in maturity and age and experiences that occurred here in the college game, but you know, in a lot of places that these young folks come from, um, you know, you got players coming from, um, as the NCA has become more lenient and more understanding.
You have players coming from whether it’s Europe or South America or wherever, you know, developed footballing countries, uh, players might be recruited from. You have guys coming who have spent three, four, five years in pro environments, just haven’t played a certain number of games, or haven’t gotten paid a certain amount, or.
You know, can’t be proven that they signed with an agent or whatever it might be. And, you know, the experience that that player has versus an 18 year old from, um, you know, from Arlington in Northern Virginia, I mean, it’s, that’s a big, big difference. Right. And, and so, um, yeah, you do see that a lot, you know, on my, on our end, again, one of the things that I feel like.
College soccer is great for, and it’s not a popular opinion in the U. S. Soccer circles of people that quite frankly, don’t know. Um, you know, they think all college just is a waste. It’s not helping develop players. The real problem, quite frankly, is in the youth game. Um, the game’s unrealistic. It’s so slow.[00:07:30]
Um, the, it’s not the job of the club or the director of the coaches to develop players. It’s the job to create teams that players and their families enjoy to be a part of, to win, to continue back again the next year. And that’s their job, right? I think we’ve got a lot of really, really good quality youth coaches in our country, but their job is not to develop a player.
And, you know, what you find in the majority, even though our nation so large, the number of players is, uh, is it the highest that it’s ever been? Um, you know, what you find is the ones who really have aspirations to move on and play beyond. They’re out finding alternative solutions. How do I get better? How do I.
You know, how do I get more touches? How do I improve in these things? Because I want more than what is crazy as it sounds for 5 nights a week of training gives me. Um, and that’s just the reality, but I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault. It’s just the genesis of our system and how the game in our country works.
And so, you know, I think from the perspective of how does that fit us? Well, okay for a handful of players in our country The the pathway is to go directly into a professional team Now there’s a difference between a player who’s ready to do that and a player who’s in an mls academy who quite frankly?
Um, [00:09:00] you know, those teams have invested now in the last five or six years, pretty significant resources in, um, and they now need to find a way to monetize those players. And, you know, up until this winter, you know, we were one of the only countries in the world that does that don’t participate in FIFA training compensation.
And so everywhere else in the world from a certain age on, I think it’s from 13 or 12 on. Those clubs that a player is with, they’re entitled to compensation from the first professional contract that that player receives. And so those clubs business models are set up for them to develop players, right?
And, and the coaches at the U14 and U16 and U18, whatever ages that country or that club happens to sponsors, they’re evaluated upon how many players progress from their group and they’re ready to progress on to the next group. And the young men and women who coach, not all of us are so young anymore, but the ones who coach in the youth game in our country, you’re evaluated on, you know, how many parents complain, how happy the kids are, how much you win.
Because again, as a, and I’m a parent, I have two kids that play, um, and you know, I sit on the sideline and listen to all the craziness from all my sons and daughters, friends, and you know, it’s, uh, I can understand you’re, you’re, you’re putting a lot of time and energy and money [00:10:30] into it. And you want to make sure that your child has a good experience because you’re a consumer.
Uh, and these other, in essence, every other high level soccer environment in the world, um, the parents aren’t involved. The club identifies and selects the kids and then, you know, parents get told, here’s what happens, here’s what it is. But on a positive note, Uh, the parents aren’t stroking a check, uh, on a negative side, the, uh, the club views your, your son as a commodity and, uh, and commodities need to be shaped and valued and taken advantage of and sold.
And that’s the way the business works. And so it’s not all doom and gloom because, you know, we’ve got millions of kids in our country who get to play and have an amazing pathway and experience that they enjoy. Um, it’s a game. It’s fun. If you’re. I always tell my son’s, uh, friends, parents, you know, look, if your son goes through a terrible time, they’re going to put them on the next team down.
If he does great, they’re going to move them to the next team up either way. He’s got 16 friends that, uh, he hangs out with, they all have similar interests and likes you get to spend your free time instead of. You know, doing whatever the kids do on their phone or the computer, you know, you’re at the soccer fields, you’re traveling together as a family, you know, that’s what it is.
And, and, but there’s a gap that exists in that model. It’s a gap of, okay, a kid really loves to play. He [00:12:00] has some natural ability, but the, the space has grown from, you know, you at, at 11 versus a kid in Spain in 11, they were similar. Then from 11 to 18, that kid became, in essence, a professional, and your kid continued to be a kid.
Um, now he doesn’t not have tools, not have qualities, but how do you then take that player, create an environment where there’s an opportunity for them if they’re able to do it, um, you know, to not only continue their educational process, continue the part that they love, but, hey, can we create now an environment to bring out, you know, some of the things that you’ve missed.
Um, bring you up to speed and, and try to help you to reenter back into, you know, back into the pyramid at some point, whether it’s in our country, into USL, USL one, USL championship into MLS next pro into MLS, or we’ve had a lot of guys that, you know, have, have entered into those, uh, those leagues abroad as and, and whether it’s in the Netherlands or Spain or You know, back in their home country.
Maybe you’ve had kids come from places and reenter back into, uh, To those countries, French kids go back to France, Costa Rican kids go back to Costa Rica. Um, you know, I think there’s, there’s a lot of possibilities out there, but on our end, and it comes back to your initial question, right? [00:13:30] Of, okay, how big is June 15th?
Well, I’m looking, when I look at a player for VCU, You know, if I’m watching you as a high school junior, for example, um, well, you got your whole junior year, then you have your whole senior year. Then you have four and a half years with me. And so I’m looking at a player six and a half years away from where we can help you to get to.
And I always talk to players and their families when they’re, they’re in to visit, like, Hey, think about yourself six and a half years ago today. How different are you six and a half years ago? Well, that’s the same amount of time that we have to work together. And so, you know, from my perspective, I want to get as accurate of a picture as I can, um, of what that person is capable of becoming, right?
And, and, you know, six and a half years is a little bit harder to predict than five and a half years and four and a half years, et cetera, et cetera. And so we’ve, we’ve had a lot of years where we haven’t even taken a commitment until after Halloween of a player’s senior year. Um, and, you know, then we’ve, we’ve gone all the way up through, you know, we do like a, like a two day little prospect camp, uh, that we don’t advertise a lot just to kids who are like, Hey, You want to come come with our guys and we do it right before preseason and we’ve added three or four times guys at that camp to start like four days [00:15:00] later.
Um, and so, you know, that tends to be kind of the window that we work in most often. And, you know, for players in other parts of the world, that seems to be a similar timeline, too, because in, in November, two year, or excuse me, June, two years earlier, all those guys think they’re going to be pros. And it’s not until April or May of, you know, their gap year or their, their last year that they realize, wow.
This isn’t going to go the way I thought what’s going to happen next. Um, so that’s a really long answer to, uh, you know, how important is June 15th? Not really, to be honest.
Matt: Well, I appreciate that as some great insights. And, uh, I definitely agree on, on, on many of those points, but let’s talk a little bit more about VCU.
Uh, you know, I mean, you guys are. Perennial strong division one men’s program, but I’m sure there’s some folks out there, maybe not familiar with the school. So you’ve been there 15 years. Now you’ve got some great insights. What is it about the school that, that, that you’ve specifically enjoy what, what makes it unique?
Maybe some things we wouldn’t even know by going through the website.
Coach: Yeah. I mean, I think what I’ve always enjoyed and what has kept me at VCU for the last 15 years is the type of person and type of player that we get to work with. Right. And, and our game and our country in one of the only countries in the world is filled with really, um, one type of player [00:16:30] specifically from a very affluent background, um, good family has the expendable income to be able to do a lot of things, many options in life are open to them.
And, you know, that’s not always the case in our country, but it’s interesting because our game in general, in most of the world. Is a game for the people, right? There’s very little cost. Um, you know, you, as I travel all over different parts of the world, I mean, kids are playing with no shoes on, on concrete with, uh, you know, with rags rolled up as a ball with a plastic bottle with tape on it as a ball.
Um, you know, and I make fun and myself, right. Is my five year old daughter. And I roll out to what looks like a putting green for her to go play in her, you five, uh, go add recreational game on the nicest field that any of my players would have ever played on. Um, you know, and, and what I like about VCU both during my time here, but also, you know, for a long, long time prior to that.
Is it’s always been a place for, you know, 1st generation college students, right? Like, and my team is, is we try to create the group to look like the world, right? And feel like the world. Um, and so, you know, you’ll have 1 guy on the team. Who’s 1 of the brightest and maybe best students at the university.
We’ve got an excellent. Uh, medical school, 1 of the best medical schools on the East [00:18:00] coast business school engineering. You know, a lot of these pieces are really, really top academically, but then we’ve got, you know, a handful of guys who don’t speak English, right? And, and maybe aren’t even good students and they don’t speak English and they’re barely qualifiers.
And you know, we’ve had guys from some of the poorest backgrounds in, uh, in the world. Um, and they live with guys who, you know, their parents are, uh, are surgeons, right? I mean, we, in our first recruiting class and two guys that lived together for four years, we had one guy from a country, um, not as affluent as the U.
S. Who was homeless from age seven to age 17 and lived on the street and popped around from one family or, or, you know, gosh, under a bridge or whatever. Uh, and he lived with a guy whose father was one of the leading kidney, uh, research physicians on the East coast. And, and they were roommates and best friends and played in the midfield together and, and that kind of thing.
I really, really enjoy. Um, I don’t know that I would be as fulfilled or as enjoyed if my whole team were guys who quite frankly only needed us or our staff or our athletic department just to help them play soccer. Um, so many folks, you know, they’re, they’re changing the direction of their life. their family’s life.
[00:19:30] It can be multi generational, whether they’re from here in Virginia Beach and, and, or Roanoke or, or Richmond or wherever it might be, or whether it’s, you know, guys from Senegal or Ghana or, or Jamaica or, you know, wherever they might come from. Um, that part is really, really, really enjoyable and fulfilling to go to work with every day.
Matt: Yeah, I can imagine that that’s awesome. Well, in terms of, you mentioned staff, so, um, let’s talk a little bit more about the team side of things. What besides yourself, what does your staff look like? What roles does everybody play? What other support staff maybe? Uh, does, does, uh, the athletic department supply to help with the team in various ways?
Coach: Sure. So, you know, it, it evolves and changes over time, but, but we’ve got, you know, two full time assistants. Um, Lucas Paulini, who’s been with us now, he played with us my first year, uh, then left to play professionally, came back to finish his degree and was like a GA while he did that, then left to go work full time as, uh, as an assistant somewhere else and then came back.
So he just kind of keeps yo yoing, you know, back and forth. He’s been with us now in this third go around. Um, he came back during Right at the beginning of coven. Um, and so he’s been with us since I guess that was spring of 20, then, uh, 1 of our longtime assistant coaches who’d [00:21:00] been with us for since he came when I came, he left to take the head coaching job at Mount St.
Mary’s this past, uh, end of the fall. And then we hired, uh, Carlos Pedraza, who was one of the right hand guys down at Montverde for the last eight years. And I’d gotten to know Carlos pretty well through recruiting a lot of the players at Montverde. And, uh, so he joined us this spring. Uh, both of those guys are great.
Uh, we also have been very fortunate to have a full time strength conditioning coach that works with our team and women’s tennis and an athletic trainer who does the same. So they are with us every day. They travel with us. They’re involved in training every day all the time. Uh, you know, so those parts are great.
I think a lot of the top division one schools around the country. I mean, they have similar setups oftentimes where you got academic advising, everything is provided tutors. You know, you’ve got a whole nutritional side of it too, that as players we never had, and so the guys will come in and they’ll get, you know, meals and, and, and snacks and all this stuff every day.
You got a nutritionist and a dietitian that work with guys to help them to, uh, you know, help them to maximize their stuff. You got sports psychologists who do the same. You know, you’ve got a counseling, you know, front of folks who do the same. I mean, you know, truthfully in [00:22:30] division one college athletics today.
I mean, it’s more professional than most professional teams. Um, the difference is you don’t have, you know, 28 year old pros, 30 year old pros. Um, you know, and, and not everybody gets paid something, right? So, but besides that, the way that they can treat you and the opportunities that these young men and women have are just, it’s insane.
It really is insane. Very, very different than my. You know, all right, we’ll give you a coupon for 50 bucks off some shoes before we go to the game and load up in the vans. We’re going to eat on your own at the dining hall, and we’re going to get some pizza delivered to the vans after the game. And, and, uh, you know, if my coach really hustled, then he got some T shirts and shorts donated from the local businesses for practice gear.
And if not, you had to wear the. Awful practice gear that you got from school and you know, whatever it was. It’s very, very different dynamic and experience 30 years later, uh, without a question.
Matt: Yeah. I, I, I can relate as a, you know, being, being the senior captain, you got to drive the other van that coach wasn’t driving.
Right. So yeah, a hundred percent. Those days are long gone. Yup. Yup. Well. Coach, we talked about your staff. Uh, you want to give us some insight into your coaching style, the style of play that you, that you like to play, the kind of type of player that you look for when you’re recruiting?
Coach: Sure. So, you know, we [00:24:00] play and have always played, uh, a form of positional possession.
And so the, the shape changes. You know, probably year to year based on the dominant players within the group. At that time, we build the shape and a way to play around the, uh, whether it’s 5, whatever it is, guys that are most ready at the top of their game at that time. And then we fill in the squad with the rest of the guys that are the next best ones next best ready to go.
Uh, and so there’ll be. You know, 4, 3, 3 with inverted fullbacks, 4, 3, 3 skewed out one side and two guys, uh, more in central, right? 4, with both 7 and 11 inverted diamond 4, 4, 2 with, you know, two eights to six and a 10. Um, I mean, any formation you can think of. We’ve played that way because it fit. Um, like I said, the dominant personnel in the group, but in general, it’s philosophically always the same.
It’s a form of positional possession. Um, you know, a lot of people like to say, Oh, yeah, our team play. Well, no. Our team plays, um, and it’s very, very difficult to do. And we do it against the very, very best teams in the country every year. And it takes time to teach guys to play that way because the time and space demands that, you know, we talked about earlier that are, that are just not present for players, [00:25:30] um, you know, in the, in the U S but it’s the same abroad.
To be honest, I mean, And I tell, you know, 20 years ago, if you recruited abroad, what you sold to these young men from wherever they were from is, hey, here’s a pathway to MLS, right? You come here two, three years, you score a lot of goals. You defend very well, you know, whatever position you play, you can move into MLS.
Well, that’s a very, very difficult jump now, right? Like that’s not very realistic. Um, you know, when I began coaching in 1999, um, I mean, our first, one of my first spring games, we played the U S men’s national team in, uh, we used to host, uh, Bruce’s team in in Birmingham all the time. And we have a game that’s supposed to be closed doors, and we had, like, 25 school buses show up, and the place was packed, and Bruce was pissed, but that’s another story for another time.
Um, and we’re competing at that level, right? And, and you’d play spring games every spring, two or three times against MLS teams, and, you know, the games were always close. It’s probably comparable now to what it’s like us playing, you You know, spring games against the U. S. L. Whether it’s U. S. L. One or U. S. L.
Championship. It’s similar. But now, you know, if we play an exhibition, which doesn’t happen often, um, in the spring, but if we play a game against the 1st, 11 guys in MLS against my 1st, 11, the gap is very big. Right? And it’s not that [00:27:00] college has gotten worse. College has gotten better. Um, it’s at the MLS has invested significantly more resources.
And so the people they’re buying in these roles, I mean, like we were watching the other night, uh, while we were traveling, one of our guys from three years ago, he plays at St. Louis and he’s a very good player. Very, very talented young man. And we’re watching them play against Miami. Right. And it’s like, okay, this guy who two years ago, three years ago was playing for us.
Um, he’s not playing against Messi, Suarez, you know, all the lot, I mean, and look, Beckham came. Yeah. And we had former players that I coached that played with David in, in, uh, Los Angeles, but it was not a good level. I mean, it’s still not the same as. You know, the premier league or the Bundesliga or La Liga.
Yeah. No, but the investment is so high. And so the jump is enormous. And the point of that is to say, I can’t say to, you know, some kid in, in Norway or some kid in Germany, Hey, this is a realistic path for you to come here and go to MLS. What I can say is the division one men’s game is very unique. Uh, and at the top end, it’s super unique where the speed of the game, it never slows down, right?
And the substitution rules, although we’ve made some adaptations for this upcoming fall, it’s not going to change it that much. It just guys don’t get fatigued [00:28:30] because you can make subs and bring guys back on later in the game. And so in world football, if you’re in one of these top youth academies, You still have the last 10 minutes or so of the first half and the last 15, 20 minutes of the game where the game starts to stretch and goals come and space is open.
Well, the top end of the division one men’s game, and I’m not talking about some game that somebody watched one time on TV or on, you know, a bad ESPN feed. Um, you know, where two teams just kicked the crap out of each other and it was all set pieces and all the rest. And yeah, there are games like that and there are aspects like that.
And the truth is our people in our country, they don’t watch the championship. They don’t watch the second division of whatever. You don’t choose to watch the bottom funded teams in any of the top leagues because they play exactly the same way. By the way, um, you don’t go to too many pro games in our country because they look exactly the same with just higher level players.
Um, but our game, it never slows. And so what it replicates a lot of times is it replicates a higher level standard and speed of play than what, you know, let’s say you’re you’re use a former players. An example. We had a Spanish guy that came. Um, well, this is like maybe 2012, 2013. Uh, I think it was 2012, [00:30:00] came to us, was finishing high school, really good student.
Uh, dad played for Barcelona for 10, 11 years. So they, they, you know, it wasn’t a dire straits kind of situation. Uh, he was a bright young man, wanted this as a pathway to. The future. And I said, look, Manel, you know, I don’t know that you’re going to make the jump into MLS. He was in the Tricera, which is the fourth tier in Spain at that time.
I said, but what we can do is we can challenge you in ways that are different than what you would get there. And, you know, I don’t think he was quite sure, but he’s like, Hey man, great. I got a scholarship. I’d love to do it. So he comes, um, leaves there in, in a team and try Sarah with not really a great pathway.
Maybe he would max out up a level in to be comes here is not one of our best players, um, plays on and off for three years. Um, graduates, excellent student. The MLS was just having more and more two teams that were starting to pop up. And, uh, you know, he chose to go back, start and try Sarah. He was a striker that I think scored seven goals for us in three years.
He scored 34 goals in the 2nd half of the season that year, got signed by Girona, got promoted, went to La Liga, um, spent 4 years, I think, at Girona, and has now been popping around from one team to another in 2A. [00:31:30] Finishing out his career and I went to watch him Maybe after he’d been there for I think two or three years and he was on loan in a club in 2a And the entire roster is like real madrid barcelona all these guys that were fringe players on their way down Um, and I’m watching him and he’s the starting 9 and he again, he couldn’t create for himself here.
He couldn’t get separation because the game was too fast. Uh, and I’m watching the game and the guy, what he learned here was he learned how hard he had to work for 90 minutes. on both sides of the ball all the time to cope with and deal with the challenges at the top end of the college game. And the guy basically defended the entire front of the team by himself.
The three guys behind them all played at Barcelona and Real Madrid. He basically defended for those three guys. Um, they subbed them in the 90 plus one, the 20, 000 people clap them off for putting into work. And the other guys have the quality to score two, three goals. And so what, what I learned about our game and where it’s different is.
It creates an environment that’s so different and so much higher level in many ways from MLS next pro from whatever these different pathways that these young men can go into because the speed of the game is just faster because you can substitute and you can bring guys back on and so the game it just never [00:33:00] slows down and I think that’s one of the really unique pieces that if you play Football to learn how to play and function in spaces that are realistically 1st division spaces in the majority of the world, not all with 1st division quality or choices or those things, but the time and space demands.
You know, those things, if you play the way we play, you know, it creates habits and you learn lessons and you can really take, like we talked about early, most of our guys are guys that have aspirations to move on and play. And what does that mean? You delay real life for five, six years, right? And of the 140 or 150 guys that I’ve coached that have gone on to play professionally at all the different places I’ve worked, I mean, like four or five guys won’t get a job after they retire.
Right? Like that’s such a rare thing. That’s a rare thing around the world to get to that level. But I do think it’s a really unique. Opportunities still that exists in our country for young players here and young players abroad to have the opportunity to continue to study, but also to continue to develop and grow in ways that quite frankly, they’re not going to grow other places.
Right if our kids go and, you know, they move and they go to Portugal, or they go to Spain, or they go to Germany, or these different places where they. Have access to [00:34:30] passports. Um. Yeah, you’re in the youth team. You’re in the third division. It’s hard to make that jump of improvement If you don’t have that quality to do it m college in the top 30 40 50 places Has pretty consistently been able to help players to bridge that gap.
Um, and I think that’s, uh, that’s an important piece that, you know, I don’t think people talk about enough in the college game and the value that it has in our landscape
Matt: for sure. Well, Coach, you’ve been super generous with your time. Don’t want to keep you too long. Just want to say thank you for, for joining us and talking about VCU and the college game and wish you the best of luck this upcoming fall.
And if you get down to Bradenton or IMG, you know, for any recruiting events, make sure to look me up and we’ll get together. All right. Absolutely. Appreciate it, Matt. Thanks for all you’re doing.
Coach: Thanks, Dave.
