Alma College Men’s Soccer – Coach Alister Newby

On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Alister Newby from the Alma College Men’s Soccer program in Michigan. We talk about how he builds a roster through high school recruiting, transfers, and international players while focusing heavily on technical ability and fit within the team’s style of play. Coach Newby also shares what makes Alma unique, from its strong community feel and Scottish heritage to the balance of small-town life with access to larger college experiences nearby. Lastly, we discuss his coaching philosophy, including a possession-with-purpose style, developing technically gifted wide players, and the importance of finding the right college fit beyond just the Division 1 label. Learn more about Alma College Men’s Soccer.

Matt: [00:00:00] Hi, everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today, I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Alistair at Alma College up in Michigan. Welcome, coach. 

Coach: Uh, good aft- good morning, Matt. Nice to speak to you. I’m looking forward to it. So, um, yeah, pleasure. 

Matt: Yeah. Thank you very much for jumping on. We just talked about, very excited, one of, one of the kids from my club down here in Florida is actually coming up to you, uh, in the fall, which is good stuff, so- Mm-hmm

s- so let’s talk about the, how that class of ’26, uh, recruiting went for you. Like, when, when did you close the class, or, or is it, you know, it’s the end of May, are you still trying to pull somebody in? Like, what’s your normal timeline in a, in a recruiting year? 

Coach: Yeah. So we’re still, still looking for 26es, one, one or two, mainly in some of the defensive areas.

Um, the class itself, as it currently sits, is one that we’re really excited about. We’ve got 10 committed, confirmed guys through the door. Still working on one or two international players. Um, so the international guys kind of come late [00:01:00] to the dance, as I like to say, from a recruiting perspective. They’re always, you know, e- early in the year or into this kind of April, May time when they really start connecting and emailing and starting to work through visa processes and things like that.

So, um, still working on one or two. Um, but for the most part, really trying to re- re-energize the attacking side of the team. We lost a lot of attacking players, um, to graduation last year. Um, so bringing in three new forwards, some new wingers, some new attacking midfielders, an eight as well, um, and then kind of brought in a couple of defensive players as well just to bolster the strength that we have down there in the back line.

So we’re still, still looking for one or two, but you know, we’re trying to find the, the right fit at this point in time because we’re… If, if the class closed tomorrow, I’d be really happy with what we have, but if there’s someone that we feel can make this program better or make an impact, we’re always willing to keep the door open for those sorts of players.

Matt: So, I mean, one thing with Division [00:02:00] III that it seems like you got a little bit of that a lot of D-IIIs don’t have is, is internationals and maybe some transfers. Mm-hmm. How, how does that… H- how do you look at recruiting those types of players versus your traditional, you know, high school senior? 

Coach: For sure.

I mean, I’ll start with transfers really. Transfers are players that, you know, the portal is becoming a bigger thing now in college soccer. You know, I’m not the sort of coach that’s gonna go in there and go fishing, as I say, and just try and search every name and see what we can find. Um, I’ll try and target transfers under two, two, two situations.

So one would be, say we recruited a player as a freshman and he decided to go to a different program. If he then enters the portal, we knew about him, we had a good relationship with him, um, you know, and we were maybe the bridesmaid rather than the bride for, for his choice. And so we’ll go back in and say, “You know what?

If you’d consider coming, we’d love to have you.” And we’ve gotten a couple of players like that. Um, the other option is if one of our current players recommends somebody. So maybe they played on the [00:03:00] same club team, maybe they went to the same high school, and they’re like, “Coach, we know what you’re trying to do here.

This young man is a good person to add to the program. This is what he does. This is who he is.” We’ll go and we’ll, we’ll look at that player as well. So really those are kind of the only two reasons we would definitely go into the portal. I have looked at guys who have played in a similar conference to us or conference, conference players that play in our conference as well.

Um, but for the most part, that’s more of a rare occasion. Um, in terms of international students, you know, we, we have some companies that send us players, and I’m sure every college coach in the country has the emails you get on a daily basis from such and such an organization. And, you know, our big thing as a Division III is, you know, first off, can, can they afford to come here, you know?

Um, if they can afford to come, we’ll watch the highlights. If we like the highlights, we’ll watch the full game. And I think the beauty of recruiting international students nowadays is all over the world, games are being recorded, games are being streamed, games are [00:04:00] being fully uploaded to YouTube and, and other, you know, other websites like that.

So we have the ability to go in there, watch a full game, if, if at least the first 45, and say, “You know what? I see the movement. I see what the young man’s doing off the ball. I think he’s a good technical player on it. I think he could add to the program.” And then it’s just about going in there and, and inquiring to see if the young man would be, would be open to coming.

Matt: Okay. I like it. Well, what about when we talk about those traditional high school senior type recruits, um, where do you like to go to look at players? Like, what, what events are you at? What leagues are you looking into? What’s that like for you guys? 

Coach: Uh, you know, the, the big ones are obviously the MLS NEXT and, uh, and ECNL, uh, the two big events that we like to go to.

It’s nice being in a state like Michigan that has a lot of MLS NEXT and MLS NEXT 2 opportunities for players to, to take part in. Um, ECNL is a little bit rarer. Um, we went just recently to the ECNL event in [00:05:00] Indianapolis, um, in April and got, you know, got quite a good, good amount of interest from down there.

So, but for the, for the local kids, you know, we, we take… try not to take into account what club they play for or what level they play at. I think sometimes certain players, you know, don’t wanna drive an hour and a half or two hours to go to a practice every night, and I think sometimes they’re limited by, you know, what they can do.

Maybe they’re a multi-sport kid. Maybe they’re doing athletics or, you know, track and field as well as soccer, so they don’t have the option to do a lot of club stuff. So we’ll, we’ll try and assess the player based on, the first key metric is technicality. You know, are they technical? Are they good with the ball at their feet?

You know, can they move the ball? Can they pass the ball? And then after that, it’s how do we feel the player can impact in our play style? So are they good with a 1v1 situation defensively and attacking-wise, you know? Um, can they control the ball the correct way? You know, I’m not a massive proponent of [00:06:00] looking at things like athleticism and, you know, can the kid run, you know, 100, 100 meters in under 10 seconds?

I mean, Usain Bolt’s the fastest man on the, on the planet, and, you know, you’ve seen him, maybe you’ve seen him on a soccer field in some of these charity games. He’s not the most technical player. So for me, sometimes it’s not about how quick and as fast and how tall you are, it’s about how technically sound you are as a player, and can you play in our belief, in our style of soccer.

And then after that, getting out to games, you know, trying to assess the player in the field. I like to always kind of say, you know, “I’m probably gonna try and come to one of your games in this set period of time. I may tell you I’m coming, I may not, because I don’t wanna tell you I’m coming, then all of a sudden you’ve got your shirt tucked in, your socks are pulled up, and now you’re trying to be, you’re trying to be Lionel Messi on the field.

Like, I don’t need you to play differently than what you would play in a normal day.” Um, you know, we have our ID camp as well, which is a great opportunity for players to obviously come to us, um, get coached by myself and my assistant, kind of [00:07:00] communicate and talk to some of the guys we have on the team who are there on the day, and really just get a good firsthand experience of what it’s like to be a player here at Alma College.

Matt: Okay. Well, when it’s all said and done, do you have a, a roster size that, that you’re trying to hit that you feel is ideal? 

Coach: Yeah, so I always go with the lines of 35 to 37. Um, the philosophy behind that is I want at least four goalkeepers if I can, um, spread across, you know, the, the four age groups. But then also from an outfield perspective, it’s a case of we would like to have at least three players for every position on the field.

So we play a 4-3-3, so I need technically three right backs, three left backs, six center backs, if you think about those two positions there, and then kind of working your way through. So you think 11 times 3, 33. Add the four goalkeepers, you’re looking at that 35 to 37 range. Um, and I always kind of have, to the point I made before about the international players coming [00:08:00] late, um, you know, those two roster spots, the 36 and the 37 may be guys that come late, but we need to have some spots available for maybe those guys coming in who we think could be major contributors to the team in the fall or, you know, during, during the time that they’re here at the college.

Matt: All right. Well, let’s talk more about the college. Uh, I know folks maybe haven’t heard of Alma. I’ve spent a lot of summers in Michigan and, and driving up through the state all the way to the top, so I think a- as everybody says, it’s, it, it’s… Wait. Uh, there, right dead center, right? 

Coach: Yeah. 

Matt: There you go. Right in the middle.

So you’ve been there, you’ve been there a few years. Tell me what are some, some awesome things about Alma, maybe some things we wouldn’t know by going through the website. 

Coach: Um, I think s- for me, you know, first off locale-wise, you know. So I think there’s this big misconception that colleges in the Midwest are two hours drive from any sort of life form or existence.

Um, the nice thing about us is, you know, Alma is a small town. It’s a town that, you know, [00:09:00] very industrial kind of… The college was probably one of the central employment opportunities in the town for a long period of time, and still is. It’s, uh, it’s a place where we’re 25 minutes south of Mount Pleasant, which is where Central Michigan University is, 50 to 55 minutes north of Lansing.

And so I always go with those two locations because it’s a weird thing to say we don’t have a Buffalo Wild Wings in the town. So on Thursday, if you want your buy one get one, you have to drive 25 minutes to Mount Pleasant in order to get that. And so for me, I always think, you know, if you’re in a major city, a Grand Rapids, a Detroit, you know, one of the biggest cities in Michigan, you’re probably gonna have to drive 20 to 25 minutes to get from point A to point B, hitting all the traffic, hitting all the lights.

And for us, jump on the highway, 25 minutes north, bang, there you go, and you get the best of both worlds. Um, you know, Alma itself is, uh, called the Scotland of USA. So recently, in fact this weekend just gone, they’ve had the Highland Games there, which [00:10:00] is kind of a Scottish heritage festival. Um, so they had the, all the old school stuff, the old ham- old school hammer throws, and all the different types of things that, you know, they used to do back in the day in Scotland and whatnot.

So you’ll see a lot of the tartan, um, you know, colors, you’ll see the tartan kind of stitching on our game kits, on a lot of the stuff that the college puts out. Um, and for me, I remember personally when I went up to interview for the position a couple of years ago, um, and I walked on campus and spoke to the president who was the president at the time of the college, and I said, “I know these buildings are not new, but they’re so well-maintained that the buildings look new.

They look like they’ve only been built in the past four or five years.” And so the ground staff and the people around the college do a lot of incredible work to keep the place looking as new and pristine as possible. And I think the cool thing that you’ll find is once a lot of people go there, they tend to get work in related things after that working on campus.

So you’re more than likely to have a tour with a [00:11:00] current student. Um, you maybe talk to a faculty member who graduated, you know, 10, 10 to 12 years ago. Um, you know, so it’s a very community-driven college, and I think there’s a lot of cool things that come from that from a student athlete experience. You know, you can go dow- down to Michigan State and, and kinda hang out with, I’m sure local kids in from Michigan have friends that go to Michigan State, so you’re not far from them.

Have those bigger Division I type college experiences. But in Alma, you can focus on yourself becoming the best version of yourself that you can be and the best athlete you can be, and I think you get the best of both worlds here at Alma. 

Matt: All right. Sounds good. Well, in terms of what happens on the day-to-day, let’s…

Well, I guess we can fast-forward to October, kind of the heart of that conference season. Walk me through what’s gonna be a typical week for a player in terms of winter practices, classes, meals, game cadence, all that kind of thing. 

Coach: Absolutely. So I mean, typical day for any student, you’re gonna have [00:12:00] classes between anywhere between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM.

Um, there is possibility that you have labs and evening classes from 7:00 PM till 10:00. So they’re rare, but I had some of my students and freshmen and, and groups of guys last year have those classes from 7:00 till 10:00. So, um, you may be asking yourself, “Well, Coach, what’s going on between 4:00 and 7:00?”

Well, those are actually kind of dead periods in the college’s academic class timetable, so you’re never gonna have a class between 4:00 and 7:00. Sometimes you have a class that runs till 4:20, but again, it’s, you’re not gonna have a class starting during that time, so that is when we train as a team. Um, so the cool thing is about ourselves is you’ll never miss a class for a training session.

So I always like to think I’m, I’m sitting here with a master’s degree. I’ve done my A license co- coaching-wise the past few, past few months, and I’m a big believer in education. I think the more you can learn, the more you can study, the, you know. And I know for us it’s a really cool thing to be able to not [00:13:00] miss classes for training sessions.

Now, if you have to miss a class for a game, you know, say we’re traveling to Trine, for example, and we have a, a two-hour bus journey and you have to leave and miss a couple of classes, because the student population at Alma is roughly 60 to 65% of those are student athletes, the nice thing is your professors are very How can I put it?

They’re very used to people missing classes, so it’s not something where they’re gonna be like, “Oh my goodness, this has never happened to me before. What do I do?” They’re very used to that situation and they work well with the athletic department to, you know, students to set up meetings to catch up on what they’ve missed and, you know, help with, um, you know, tests and stuff.

A little example of that is we were traveling, um, to a game last year and I had to proxy an exam for one of our student athletes on the bus. He basically had to sit next to me and do the test that he was doing at the same time as his classmates as we’re driving through Ohio and, uh, you know, it was just a conversation me and his professor had to make sure that he was keeping up to [00:14:00] date, um, with his athletics.

And, you know, for us, the conference timetable, we’ve got two games a week. First game’s usually on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Um, second game in that week is on a Saturday. Um, and you always get a Sunday off just because it’s a nice reset into the following week. So, um, you know, the student athletes that we have, the guys on the team are always working incredibly hard to, you know, enhance themselves as students, but also enhance themselves as athletes as well.

Matt: All right. Well, let’s talk more a- about the team. Obviously, we talked roster size, but let’s talk about the other part of the roster. Tell me about your staff. Uh, what role does everybody play? What are maybe some of the other support staff in the athletic department that help out with the team?

Coach: Absolutely. So, um, myself as head coach, I have a part-time assistant called CeeCee. Um, he’s a Egyptian gentleman that actually is someone that when I first moved to the US I met through the club I was working for, and we both went our separate ways and somehow reconvened in the middle of [00:15:00] Michigan. So it was kind of one of those fate things.

Um, you know, we have an athletic trainer, Sammy. She’s fantastic. Works really well with the team. Always helps the guys in terms of, you know, PT and, and all the athletic training stuff that they need to do in order to prepare themselves and also recover from games and practices. Um, we are in the process of looking to bring in a third assistant coach, more of a stipend coach, to be honest with you.

Um, someone to ideally work with the goalkeepers or someone that has a specialty in either defensive positions or attacking positions. So someone that can, you know, lead a 20 to 30 minute session and, you know, we’re, we’re actively in the process of getting that going. So fingers crossed, knock on wood, something will be, uh, announced in the next few months.

Um, but other than that, that’s kind of, that’s kind of ourselves from inside the team. Now, the college as a whole has a full-time strength and conditioning coach called Fletcher. He basically puts together the program for all the student athletes across every sport, but he’s amazing in the work [00:16:00] that he does with making every, I guess, team activity specific to that sport.

So we might have guys that are doing similar activities there to a linebacker on the football team, but they’re not just getting a copy and paste, you know, workout plan from the same team. They’re– it’s always tailored towards soccer and, and I always do a little bit of the soccer specific conditioning stuff during the summer as well, just to keep the boys active and fit.

Um, for the most part, a lot of the guys continue to play. They’ll do some summer leagues and, and bits and pieces like that. But, you know, Fletcher’s a big part of the college just as a whole, but he’s also a big part of the team, um, setting up those strength and conditioning programs for us. 

Matt: Okay. Well, what about you?

How would you describe kind of your coaching style and the style of play you look to play there? 

Coach: Um, so we, how do I describe my coaching style? I think it’s, it’s evolved over the past few years. Um, when I first came in, I wanted to possess the [00:17:00] ball. You know, I wanted to play and do all the more technical things, and that’s, if you remember, we talked about that when we identify players, we look at technical side first.

Um, I think we built the program the last few years to add more technical players where we can build, but I think there’s this big misconception with technical teams that they wanna play like this, you know, just knocking it around the back for 80 minutes and then maybe get two attacks and score. Um, I think we need to evolve that mindset a little bit for us.

We need to sort of possess with purpose. So a lot of the times we’re gonna be talking about playing the ball into an area and looking to get forward, whether it’s with a dribble, whether it’s with a penetrative pass, um, but trying to get the ball into the wide areas. Now, for me, the wingers are key. You know, you mentioned the young man that you know, he’s a winger and, and we want guys that are very technically sound in those one v one situations, because if they can beat the player in front of them, it causes what I call the domino effect, because now does a c- does a center [00:18:00] back have to commit across?

Does a defensive meal- midfielder have to commit across to put pressure on that player? Um, and a lot of the goals that we scored last year were based on these one v ones where our player was able to beat the opposition and then create an opening for maybe a, a cross across the box, maybe a cutback. Um, but everything we do is playing to feet.

The only time we’ll really play more direct is if I get two six foot eight center forwards. Um, but I’m not gonna have those guys just yet. But the only other time is, you know, I think there’s a fault sometimes teams can play possession where they lose then possession in the defensive third because they’re not willing to have an out ball.

So we’ll play an out ball, and then we talk about five seconds of pressure. Can our guys press the ball and put pressure on the guy, whoever it is, to either play negative, or can we win the ball back within five seconds? If we can do that, we reset into our defensive shape, and our defensive shape is not high press.

You know, we, we don’t high press [00:19:00] apart from that five seconds after losing the ball. We operate in a mid-block, and we say to the opposition, “Well, you can play side to side. That’s great.” Um, and so if you look at our stats last year, we probably had less possession than a lot of other teams that we played, but I would like to bet that the possession they had was all in their defensive half, because we defended from the top of the center circle backwards.

Um, so we gave them the time on the ball, and I think I would like to argue that we probably intercepted the ball more last year than we actually won tackles. ‘Cause teams would either try and play over us, challenge for the first ball, win the second. Teams would try and play through us, step to it, counterattack from there, or they go around us and we just press side to side and shift and move from there.

So I think for me, it was our best defensive year last year that we played in that system, and we’ve been developing it throughout the spring into the fall, and I think it really worked. We just struggled to put the ball in the net on the other side last year, which was what a little bit of a, an issue for [00:20:00] us.

But, you know, bringing in that new, fresh, forward attacking talent, you know, we’re excited to see what those guys can contribute to the group. 

Matt: Awesome. All right. Well, you’ve given us a lot of info and, and I don’t wanna keep you too long, but I wanna leave you with one last question, and that is, if you had one piece of advice for, say, a, a current high school, uh, junior or upcoming senior or somebody going through this process, uh, what would that be?

Coach: I think for me, the biggest thing is, you know, be– I think every, every young person out there, m- you know, male or female, you know, there’s, there’s young ladies going into the college process too. They wanna play at the best level that they can. And I think for me This came on my A license and someone said to the group and said, “As a coach, you don’t have a ceiling, right?

Maybe you could go and be the head US Men’s National Team coach one day or Women’s National Team coach.” But I think players have a ceiling. I think there’s only a [00:21:00] certain level that certain players can play at, and I think it’s important for players to be realistic and honest about what they believe they can do.

But I would always ad- have the player advocate and bet, bet on themselves. You know, if you really want to play at the highest level you can, find out what that highest level might be. Yes, go to ID camps. Yes, go and, you know, talk to coaches. But the biggest thing is go and watch the game. You know, you’ve gotta be able to go watch games at different levels, and we do it when we do camps and when I go and do other, other, you know, camps in Michigan for teams like Midwest United and different things like that.

I always ask the players, “Who’s been to a Division I game?” Like, every single hand goes up. “Who’s been to a Division II game?” Like, half the hands go up. “Who’s been to a Division III game?” Like, four hands go up. “Who’s been to a junior college game? Who’s been to a Christian college game? Who’s been to an NAIA game?”

And I think the players just sometimes see Division I as, you know, the holy grail, and [00:22:00] if it’s D1 or bust. And I think there’s, there’s so many good opportunities because one thing I’ll tell freshmen coming in is that coming into my program, you don’t come in as a freshman. You come in as a player in the squad, and so it’s a squad game.

Now, if you’re the best player in your position and you’re better and performing better than a sophomore, a junior, or a senior, then you’re gonna play. And so for me, you know, those sorts of players that maybe go to a Division I, maybe get sat on the bench for two years, and then maybe get some opportunities as a junior and, and a senior, could come to other programs and play for four years.

And again, if the player wants to explore that route, absolutely fine. But I’ll tell you, for me, last year my freshmen played the most minutes out of every class because we believe that those guys in that current time were the best players in their position. And I will say my juniors technically played more, but my two goalkeepers were juniors, so I kind of feel it offsets, offsets the numbers a little bit, [00:23:00] um, because I have to put a goalie in.

But, um, I think my biggest advice would be get out there, watch games, be realistic with your goals and aspirations, and don’t just think about D1. You know, just think about other opportunities that may open up to you, um, and, and be, be open and realistic with, with what you believe you can do because there’s great programs at every level, and Division II can beat Division I.

Division III can beat Division I. II can beat I. Th- everybody can beat anybody on one given day, and that is the beauty of this sport that we all love to play. 

Matt: Yes, absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. Well, Coach, I really appreciate it. Wish you the best of luck, and, uh, ho- I hope, I hope my guy does well for you this coming fall.

Coach: I hope so too. I really appreciate it, Matt. Thank you for your time today. 

Matt: Thank you