Angelo State University Women’s Soccer – Coach Travis McCorkle
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Travis McCorkle from the Angelo State University Women’s Program in Texas. We talk about what main items he looks for when scouting players. He describes their school’s wide breadth of academic options. Lastly, we discuss his quality coaching staff. Learn more about Angelo State.
[00:00:00] Matt: Hi, everybody. Welcome to discover college soccer. I’m lucky enough today to be joined by coach Travis from Angelo State in Texas.
[00:00:07] Coach: Welcome coach. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:10] Matt: Thanks for being here. So let’s jump right into it. Talk a little about recruiting. Um, you know, when do you start usually hearing from players?
[00:00:18] When do you like to start looking at players? What year are they in high school?
[00:00:21] Coach: When you’re doing all that? Well, recruiting number ends it’s constant. Um, you know, as far as the timeline, the timeline. We have pre COVID and I think we have now post COVID. Um, so one of the things is, is, you know, right now I feel like we should be about halfway through our 20, 23 class and we’re not any way through it.
[00:00:42] So we, we have kind of this trickle down effect that I think starts with, with . Um, in that once the D one schools have kind of made some of their decisions, then some kids kind of figure out whether the. Within that scheme of and then someone will say, okay, well, if I’m not at. You know, do you one kid then, you know, maybe if I’m a middle tier D one, then maybe now I look at, at Angelo state.
[00:01:05] Um, you know, and so I’m not saying that that’s exactly how it works all the time, but that, that kind of can be what happens. And right now do you want is definitely, I think on a hardcore. Um, they’re waiting to see which of their kids. So they’ve got their 20 twos and 20 threes that they’re waiting to see, are those kids going to stay?
[00:01:24] Which ones do we want to stay? Which ones are kind of neutral and which ones do we, you know, maybe we don’t want to keep them around a fifth year. And so while they’re waiting to get that decision, they’re waiting at the, at the back end to see where they want to move with, with their other. Yeah.
[00:01:39] Matt: Yeah.
[00:01:39] I’ve, I’ve, I’ve heard similar things from other coaches, but a about the, the quote unquote trickle-down right. And then the COVID year kind of just throwing a monkey wrench into things. Well, how many inbound contacts do you think you get in a typical, in a typical week?
[00:01:55] Coach: Um, all total new and returning. Um, well, right now I’m getting heavy on the men’s side, which is a whole nother thing.
[00:02:03] Uh, people that are paying attention to where they’re even sending their emails to. Um, but I would say on average, I probably get contacts from around 20 to 30 kids. Wow. Now, obviously some of those are our return, you know, emails letting me give me an update, something like that. But yeah, probably 25 to 30 is kind of a, I would think that that’s somewhat normal.
[00:02:26] Okay.
[00:02:27] Matt: Now what if it’s a new kid reaching out? What’s something that you like to see in that first contact from a, from a prospect.
[00:02:34] Coach: Um, you know, it’s always nice for them to, to know that they’ve looked through our website. Uh, they might talk about, you know, how we did last season, maybe a team where they, uh, they saw us play against that team.
[00:02:46] Uh, a link to video would be good. Just highlight. Um, if we want to pursue that player, I would think that a lot of times it comes down to a few highlights, maybe three minutes, and then we say, okay, send us 15 minutes on edited from the best half against the best team that you played against in conference.
[00:03:04] So there’s nothing worse than you watch video. And, you know, you see the same player and they score a goal and then you look back and you see them score another goal and you go, okay, great. And then you see the third goal. And you go wait a second. The first two teams that they were playing against wearing these bright orange jerseys, they’re still playing into that same team.
[00:03:22] And then I see a glance of the scoreboard and it says like eight zero. You know, like some of those they’re difficult to evaluate. It’s not that the player doesn’t deserve credit for scoring that goal. But when you’re playing against bad opposition, you know, that’s not going to necessarily tell me that much.
[00:03:38] If you know, you’re playing against a team that’s not very good. They play the high line and you see this player getting breakthrough after breakthrough. And you’re like, well, is this player fast? Or are they just playing against a bad team? And so, um, really to have a good mix in those videos of goals, against good competition or just a good performance against good competition, whether it’s, you know, maybe the players of midfield or defender.
[00:03:58] I mean, I want to see them play against good teams. I don’t want to see, uh, a goalkeeper, you know, Taking a shot off their chest and, you know, juggling it for a second, you know, so we, we want to see the good competition and how they’re doing against them. That
[00:04:12] Matt: makes sense. Well,
[00:04:15] Coach: If you’re,
[00:04:16] Matt: you know, you get the highlights, you decide, maybe you’re going to go see a player in person, you know, what, what are some of those main tournaments that, that you like to make sure that you get to, um, tend to evaluate, to
[00:04:27] Coach: evaluate players?
[00:04:29] Well, a lot of them are going to be within the state of Texas. I mean, Texas is so massive in size that for us to go outside of Texas, usually as a, is a plane. Right. Um, and so. Uh, some other coaches or some other colleges, I think we’re somewhat restricted in, in how much we can spend, uh, recruiting. So, um, there are some tournaments we go to that we’d been to out of state.
[00:04:50] We’ve been to the, the players showcase that’s in Vegas this week. Um, I’m actually going to be there just on vacation. Uh, get a taxi over and catch a couple of games, but, um, I haven’t registered to attend that tournament. We’ve been to that in the past. We’ve been to some up in Colorado. Um, you know, my assistant has been pushing to, maybe we should look at the international ones a bit more and maybe going there would be a way to, to increase that we have had internationals here, but that’s just been through video, um, through a lot of video usually because it’s a bit more of a guest, you know, when you’re watching these, these international kids play, um, But yeah, it, I wouldn’t say that there are certain terms that we go to.
[00:05:30] We’ve been to the Juco, they have a Juco event out in California. Um, that happens right around the Juco world. Um, the Juco championships for California. So it just depends, um, where we can see a lot of kids that are in the age group that we’re looking at, where we feel like a lot of those players will match what we’re looking for.
[00:05:50] Athletically, tactically, you know, those kids are willing to consider out of state and that’s another big factor is. You get a lot of kids that, you know, say that they’re willing to consider anywhere, but when it comes down to it, you know, they, a lot of them want to be within a car right away. Uh, not as many want to be a plane right away.
[00:06:09] Matt: We, you, you mentioned, uh, you know, being in your system, tactically, things like that. So when you’re, when you’re watching players play, what is that hierarchy of, of things you’re looking for? Whether that’s on the field, off the field, what, what checks the boxes for you when
[00:06:24] Coach: you’re, when you’re recruiting?
[00:06:26] Uh, so, I mean, just in, going from most general to most specific, most general is we need to see that there are athletically that we feel like they can compete. Does that mean that they need to run a 40 yard dash in a certain amount of time or a two minute or a two mile run in a short amount of time? No.
[00:06:42] Um, I’ve never really looked at any of those and that’s just because the data’s not always. Um, and, and so, but I’m looking for kids that athletically look like they have good agility. If I’m looking for a wide attacking player, we want players that can attack the speed players that have a couple of moves in the bag to get by players, uh, is always a plus.
[00:07:03] Uh, we’re looking for players that can cross the ball and not just into the goal mouth, but they’re picking out players. Uh, I spent a lot of time looking at the players first touch when they’re under pressure and when they’re not under pressure, how clean is that first touch? Because. It’s not to say that it can’t be improved, but it makes it a little bit easier if the players comfortable under pressure and come from the pressure from the front and comfortable under pressure from behind.
[00:07:27] You know, if, if you’re going to talk about a forward and at the college level, there’s not going to be too many, that don’t have to receive the ball with their back to goal. And so if you’re looking at forwards and they’re constantly in a high school game, for example, they’re in the starting blocks, looking at, get the space behind bad defending in, in my opinion, uh, Then that’s, you know, that’s okay.
[00:07:48] But when they have to put it back to goal, what can they do if they’re in midfield? You know, are they looking to play with fewer touches or are they the ones that always love to, you know, get the ball, keep it for 6, 7, 8, 9 touches where they. I feel like they always have to beat somebody for, they can pass it.
[00:08:04] Um, can they change the point accurately? Do they have the vision to see that in a lot of video that you look at? You know, it’s very condensed and it’s on one player, which that I can’t see what’s around. So now I can’t really evaluate their judges. I mean, excuse me, I can’t evaluate their, their, um, decisions.
[00:08:20] And so sometimes. Getting the video that’s real nice and tight is great for technique, but it’s really bad for me to evaluate tactics. So if I’m looking at a defender, then obviously I’m looking for players to have courage players. That judge, when the right time is to go in to pressure a ball, can they change their mind partway in sprinting?
[00:08:38] If they realize that our players going to get to them, get to the ball before them, while they slow down and, you know, react accordingly. So lots of those little things, goalkeepers, obviously a whole nother thing
[00:08:48] Matt: makes sense. What about besides tournaments and seeing players there, how to camps fit into your overall recruiting scheme?
[00:08:58] Coach: The amps are, are important. I think they’re more important. They used to be the way that I S the, the, the reasoning, why I say that is number one. If they’re willing to come to your camp, they probably are not just sending out an email blast and saying, well, wherever my shotgun hits is where I think I might be interested in looking at.
[00:09:16] So hopefully they’ve done some research or they want to know more about us. They want to know what our campus is like, because a lot of people, our campus Angelo state, uh, is geographically. We don’t have a lot of stuff around us. So if you didn’t have a reason to drive to San Angela, you probably don’t know about San Angelo, but people that come to our campus, see how nice that our campus is.
[00:09:36] Um, they’ll see how nice our facilities are. Uh, and then plus too, we can evaluate them amongst 30 plus. In a single day or in a two day event, rather than in a single data tournament, we might look at, you know, 160 players, you know, depending on how many fields are going to and all that. So now we get more opportunities.
[00:09:57] So we get to see more. Um, which shows us the good and the bad. We don’t just see, you know, if I happen to go to a game and you show me your best, you know, 20 minutes, that’s great, but I need to see more than 20 minutes. You know, maybe the opposition that you played against was a big rival game or. You know, sometimes maybe a player tries to play up because it’s a tournament where I’m at or a school that they’re interested that.
[00:10:21] So maybe they give me a better performance where when they come to a camp, um, it’s, like I said, we get to see more and more is always good. Uh, and like I said, because of the value that we put behind them coming to us and putting a little effort in that, that’s always a benefit to those.
[00:10:38] Matt: Yeah, that’s good.
[00:10:39] Um, you guys are division two. Um, so obviously there’s some potential athletic money there. Um, can you kind of just give me an overall snapshot of the scholarship picture there from an athletic and academic standpoint, how does it all combined to create packages? What is what’s available generally speaking for players to come
[00:11:00] Coach: in?
[00:11:00] Yeah, we look for every dollar that the, that the student athlete can get. Uh, sometimes that requires a student athlete to put a little effort in, especially on the academic side, they need to do that. But we have the car endowment, which provides our car academic scholarship, which is a great benefit for us.
[00:11:16] Um, for kids that come from out of state now, instead of our scholarship, having to cover an out-of-state tuition and fees and all that, if they get the academic scholarship of a thousand dollars or more, that kid is automatically considered in-state for us. And then my. You know, percentage-wise equivalency is, is different.
[00:11:35] Um, that player’s more affordable. Um, you know, as far as the kids on our team, we are like everybody else. Um, it’s a big piece, it’s a big pie and we’ve got to chop that pie into different pieces. Um, the NCA would say that the pie size is max at nine points. Um, you know, but it depends. Each school is a little bit different.
[00:11:55] Some are looking at 9.9 is what the max for the NCA. Um, for us, we look at it a little bit, you know, we don’t have like a full 9.9. We have probably closer to nine and that’s because. We’re not looking at paying kids extra money beyond what they’re going to pay for their tuition fees, housing meal, and, uh, moving room and board.
[00:12:15] Um, but ours are, are kind of all over the place. The kids that kind of, I would say, tend to start for us or have most minutes. Uh, those players are probably somewhere between five and seven, maybe five and eight, somewhere in there. We have a few that are above that and we have many that are below that. Um, we have kids that come in as walk on.
[00:12:34] Uh, and then they’ll earn money. We have a player, the very first player that we ever had, that was our first All-American player. Um, not the first player we ever had, but our first All-American player, she came in and was basically getting a little bit more than books her freshman year, and then really progressed and progressed and progressed and then left.
[00:12:50] Um, you know, her scholarship had grown tremendously or exponentially because of her success. And that’s how we try and put our, our scholarships together so that hopefully they can grow. Um, We don’t feel like if we have a player and we need to take out. Um, they’re not playing quite up to the potential.
[00:13:08] We want it. We don’t want to go and take a thousand dollars away or $2,000 away. Nobody’s ever excited about that, but nobody’s ever going to complain or nobody’s complained yet when we’ve given them an extra thousand dollars, $2,000, whatever the case might be. So. Um, but yeah, we don’t have any kids that we give full scholarships to.
[00:13:25] It just doesn’t work for us. I think that sometimes with an international and maybe it gets close to that we’ve had, we’ve had a few get close, but, um, just in general, we’re not looking for full scholarships just because roster size have increased because more kids are coming in and then if they don’t have immediate success, a lot of them don’t stay.
[00:13:44] They don’t have that perseverance to keep going. Not. All of them. We have some that do, and those ones obviously work out well for us. Okay. Well,
[00:13:53] Matt: let’s talk more about the school. Uh,
[00:13:56] Coach: so
[00:13:57] Matt: I, you know, I’ve been clicking around the website. Um, you know, I can learn a lot of different things, but, uh, give me, give me the cool fun stuff, the awesome things about the school that I’m not going to find out on the website.
[00:14:09] Coach: Well, we’re still looking at things. We’re still looking at programs. One of the programs that we’re looking at right now is aviation. And, uh, so I’m not clear on that yet. We haven’t had anybody come in that that wants to go on that program. I think it’s supposed to start this next year. Um, but basically it’s a path to becoming a pilot.
[00:14:28] Um, you know what they’ll leave with us, I think is 200 hours. Of a flight time. I think they need 400 hours to be a commercial pilot, but I think at 200 they can be a private pilot for a charter company or for a private, you know, a farmer that wants his fields, you know, flown over with we’d propose a weed stuff or whatever.
[00:14:47] Um, we do a lot of science. So a lot of people that come in, a lot of girls that come into us, they say, well, I’m not sure if I want to be pre-med. If I want to go into nursing, if I want to go into physical therapy, all those kinds of things are all great programs. And what I say is that if they’re looking to anything like that, science is sort of the core of the tree.
[00:15:07] And then the branches that we have that go out and offer all different kinds of things are great within the sciences. Um, we also, for awhile, I know that we were producing. Uh, the most teachers in the state of Texas in, uh, I dunno if it was D two institutions or institutions overall, but that was a big thing for us was teaching.
[00:15:26] Um, we have some agricultural stuff. I think a lot of people, they look at Angelo state and they think that it’s probably all agricultural, but it’s not, I don’t drive. I don’t ride a horse to work and pitch it up out back. Um, so we, we also added engineering. Uh, a few years back and that’s been a program that’s definitely been growing considerably.
[00:15:45] So hopefully we can use that to our advantage, to, to compete with like, uh, Colorado school of mines or, you know, any of the, the science and technology, um, universities. Um, nursing is a big one for us. We have a lot of girls that go into psychology, a lot in, um, education, trying to think of what else our girls are in.
[00:16:03] We do have some that have done ag, um, We have grown now in geology. I think first girl that we’ve had that, um, she was an all American this year or all region this year. And then, uh, Maybe she’s all American, I’m forgetting, hopefully as she watches this, I got it. Right. Um, but yeah, that’s sort of a snapshot of it.
[00:16:23] I mean, we have a, we have a wide open campus when we have recruits in, they always talk about how our housing compares to other universities that they go to and how nice ours is. We have a lot of apartment style living here on campus. We have a few of the old school, which is like when I went to school, I had my dorm room with my roommate and we shared a bathroom with 30 of our closest friends on the floor.
[00:16:43] Where we had one big, massive bathroom with showers and toilets and all that. Um, the girls don’t have that now. Uh, pretty much they all got their own little that they share with their roommate or their suite mate. Um, but I’m trying to think, I think the third floor. No,
[00:16:59] Matt: so well not to shift gears away from the, the dorms and stuff.
[00:17:03] But one of the things I saw that I was more curious about than anything is, you know, on the fast facts in the website, it says you’re affiliated with Texas tech university system. So what, what does that mean for students? The school doesn’t mean anything at all for the sports. So like, how does that all kind of
[00:17:18] Coach: work together?
[00:17:20] I think it means we have more support. We talk about things like legislation and those kinds of things. Um, Angela state wants to try and get a certain, um, grant or something of that nature. Having Texas tech, uh, adds a little bit more firepower to us in, in what we can get. Um, as far as academics go, I mean, we get twice the publicity because anytime we accomplish something, it goes through the Texas tech system as well.
[00:17:46] Um, our girls that maybe want to go are pre. Uh, I believe we have a 100% acceptance rate, um, in a cooperative agreement with Texas tech. And I think our law school, uh, our Texas Tex law school, I think that we can feed into that as well. And so those are some things that even though we don’t have, um, how, you know, you can’t become a doctor here at ASU, but we have put forth many doctors.
[00:18:09] Um, they’ve, we’ve been their first step in their path to go through. So, um, And then I’m sure there’s some other things, but as far as athletics go, um, I mean, maybe we’ve had some transfers or something, not for us in soccer, but maybe in some other sports we’ve gotten some transfers or something like that because of that connection.
[00:18:28] Um, but I think mostly it’s in, uh, kind of the, I don’t want to say buying power, but that’s still the term that’s coming to my mind here with having somebody else kind of helping us with that. That’s kind of what Texas tech, one of the ways or a couple of the ways that they help us.
[00:18:41] Matt: No, that makes sense.
[00:18:42] So you, you mentioned support. So as. Student athletes. How are your players managing the balance between sport and academics and what kind of support structures are in place for them? Uh, as they,
[00:18:54] Coach: as they go through their journey? Well, we have a lot of good things. I mean, here, just a little plug about us. I mean, since, since the, um, United soccer coaches association has been giving out the team academic award, um, we’ve gotten that.
[00:19:08] Did you just hear that in the background? That sound, yeah, I have a reminder. That’s a rooster. So sorry about that. Um, but we have the team academic award and we’ve gotten that every year. So we’ve had a GPA as high as like a 3.67, but it’s always been above a 3.0, we also have a full time athletic academic coordinator.
[00:19:26] So she works just in our department, helping kids with everything, from getting a tutoring, help to setting up their schedule, to working with professors when they’re gonna be gone with classes and sometimes just helping them out, try and figure out what. Uh, I talked about the all American, the first all American they ever had.
[00:19:43] She came in, she was going to be a neonatal nurse. And she didn’t pass chemistry the first semester. And I said, you may want to adjust this. And so we had a conversation with her and that’s one of the things that the athletic academic coordinator can do is spend time with them in some career counseling and help them find a path for them, with their academics, that they’re not just left, you know?
[00:20:04] Yes. What you do on the field is important, but that’s not all of it. And I think that the other thing that we provide as a D two is that we have that. So D to life and the balance is their motto. Um, and that’s something that. Uh, we do have, in our off season, we have some off time. It’s not going to be soccer 24 7, and they can, we have some girls that get jobs.
[00:20:26] Um, we have some girls that, you know, are heavy involved in their honors program and some of those things, so. Um, but academically there are, we have supplemental instruction. So with all of our classes, basically it’s like a review of the week. So if you go to a class and you know, you’re not a good note taker, or you were sick one day or something, you go to supplemental instruction at the end of the week.
[00:20:47] And it’s with a teaching assistant or graduate assistant, they basically review the week for you. So, uh, academic success is a, is a big part. I know people don’t necessarily think of Angelo state is that because we’re not a private institution, um, you know, Uh, it is something that is, we are a good academic institution as well as we’re successful in athletics.
[00:21:08] That’s great.
[00:21:09] Matt: Um, well you’re in the lone star conference if I’m not mistaken. So you’re mostly playing those Texas teams, but like you said, Texas is a big state. So w what does
[00:21:19] Coach: a typical, uh,
[00:21:22] Matt: Radius look like in terms of your season, how far you’re traveling and how does that kind of affect, um, you know, class time and planning that for
[00:21:29] Coach: that stuff.
[00:21:30] So we just added the Heartland a few years back and so that expanded the conference, uh, into, uh, Uh, mega conference. Um, so yeah, you’re right. Our schools are everywhere. So we have to like this last year, we went down to tech, Sam international and played, uh, you know, we’ll be going to UT Tyler. Um, this next fall, uh, we go up to play west Texas and love it Christian up in the panhandle.
[00:21:55] We play Eastern New Mexico. Uh, but also we have our non-conference games and in that time, Um, we haven’t soccer hasn’t flown any, uh, well, we haven’t flown like to Florida or California or anything, but we tend to go up to Colorado, um, get those in region games and help us out there. But as far as the conference stuff, I mean we’re anywhere and everywhere we just lost commerce going um, but we still go and play Dallas Baptist, um, Texas women’s, uh, you know, we’re kind of all over the place.
[00:22:22] We’re, we’re talking about Western Mexico coming in, which would be a whole nother thing if we get them. I mean, I don’t even have. We’ll go through like multiple times zones, um, you know, going out to them. Uh, so, but our schedule now we plan Wednesday and Saturday. So Wednesday games are always the closer games.
[00:22:39] And so it’s basically it’s there and back we miss some class, but we don’t, you know, we get back here at night and go to class the next day. And then we also have Saturday games and so on Saturday games, um, those are games that are farther away. So typically we’ll leave Friday afternoon. The girls don’t miss any class because most of them are done by one o’clock.
[00:22:58] We’ll play that game Saturday, then come back Saturday night. So
[00:23:02] Matt: what does a typical day look like? Uh, then you mentioned, you know, leaving at one. So, so what does a typical day look like with regards to classes and practice and how that
[00:23:10] Coach: schedule works out? Yeah. So I’ll go through kind of a typical week, um, with our girls.
[00:23:17] So, um, Monday right now, Sunday is our day off. Um, so if they need treatment or something like that, the trainers that we’ll do that, uh, Mondays we’re we’re training, it’s a full day. Um, I think we have weightlifting on Monday. And then we have weightlifting weightlifting on Thursdays. Um, so that’s done after our practice that’s during the season, uh, girls coming to practice generally run a practice around three 30 to five 30 or reminders.
[00:23:43] Um, we have, uh, So the girls go three 30 to four to five 30. Our goalkeepers will go out basically half an hour before and get some of their work on, uh, depending on what we have scheduled for that day. So sometimes we’ll just put them into the team practice. We’re going to start with them right away. Um, but yeah, the girls are at practice, uh, classes from eight in the morning.
[00:24:04] They’ll have lunch sometime in there probably, and then they might have one or two classes in the afternoon as they get older, it does become a little bit more compact because their classes aren’t, you know, there’s. Let’s say there’s 15 freshmen, uh, English classes. Well, there might only be two or one or two senior level classes of business management or something.
[00:24:25] And so we do have some conflicts. Occasionally we work around that as a team best we can. We try to tell the girls to avoid those if they’re all possible in the fall, but in the spring, I would guess that we probably have. Six or seven girls that are, uh, maybe 30 minutes late to practice, or they have to leave maybe 30 minutes early to go to a night class or something like that.
[00:24:45] But that’s kind of the, the thing. So I went through Monday. So Tuesday light practice, because we’ve got a game on Wednesday game, Wednesday, Thursday, light practice, because we just played Wednesday. The girls that didn’t play we’ll do maybe a five, B five or something to get a little bit of extra work out of them.
[00:25:01] And then Friday’s pre-game day. Uh, and then Saturday we play. So the new schedule is great for recovery. Um, but I’ve found that it’s not, it hasn’t been as ideal as we had hoped for teaching. So in the ideal world, we would follow the division one, um, program that they’re trying to put in place, which is the 21st model, which is split the year, played one game per week in the fall and one game per week in the spring.
[00:25:29] So yeah, that would be.
[00:25:34] Matt: I feel like as a, yeah, as a former coach, I’d much rather have that schedule, but, uh, it’s just not there yet.
[00:25:39] Coach: So hopefully the installation, right. Downside is I was talking with one of my friends. How do you recruit though? Right now we have the spring off. We can spend all this time going to all these different tournaments and recruiting.
[00:25:49] When are we going to recruit, but we have to figure it out, but the quality of the games would be better. The injury rate would drop down. Um, and basically we’d spend the exact same amount of time if you take our whole year of Kara, um, the way it currently is, And then you split the year into half the fall and half the spring.
[00:26:07] People think that you’d miss, uh, we’d spend a ton more time with soccer, but the difference with figuring it out, I believe was seven hours, seven hours difference over the course of a year. So it’s minimal. Well,
[00:26:19] Matt: let’s, let’s talk more about the soccer side of things. Um, the team, everything, uh, you know, do you have, uh, a roster size you’re trying to hit every year?
[00:26:28] Um, and, and what does that look like for your team? Do you have a JV or
[00:26:32] Coach: development team or any of that kind of thing? Yeah, that’s, that’s kinda changed a little bit. It used to be that I would think like 26. If we had two goalkeepers and 24, if we had three or more goalkeepers, but basically things have changed involved for me.
[00:26:49] Um, since I started, uh, in college coaching, um, now our roster is up to like, And there’s a reason for that. There’s a few things. One is I like it. Some portion of our practice to be Olympia 11. So you gotta have more than 22 because you’re gonna have injuries. You gonna have things come up. So that’s one reason.
[00:27:10] The other reason is that, um, kids have different priorities. And, you know, I told you before about kids that come in and, you know, one year, two year their position on the team they’re playing mints or something like that might not be ideal for them. And some of them decide I don’t want to play anymore, or they struggle in their academics or they’re homesick, or, you know, they’re in a relationship long distance relationship.
[00:27:36] It doesn’t work for them or something. All these different things and we don’t have a way to pull up kids. And so you better have him on your roster. So our roster size has grown. Um, and right now I want to get it back down to, well, we have 29 lockers downstairs, so I want to get it to 29. That would be an easy number.
[00:27:54] Um, but it just depends this year. We added a couple of kids really late because we got a, uh, Juco kid that was a stud, um, from Brookhaven. And so we’re like, well, if we can get her, then we’ll make it work. And then we had another, um, another recruit and she was just scoring a ton of goals. And last year our team did well, did really well, but our forwards had a lot of chances and we didn’t, we weren’t as proficient in the, in the penalty areas.
[00:28:23] I want us to be. And so you hope that the kids coming back will improve, but sometimes too, you pick up these other two kids and you say, well, if we don’t have what we need, my job is based on results, you know? And even though I like the kids doesn’t mean that I’m going to cut them, but we need to win games.
[00:28:38] So that’s kind of how our roster size has evolved.
[00:28:46] Matt: That makes sense. Um, so what about your staff? How big is your staff? What role does everybody
[00:28:51] Coach: play? Yeah, so have myself and I have Harold Munoz is my assistant. We also have, uh, Avery, uh, NME or McNamee. So I say her name wrong all the time. Um, I started out as teasing her and then it just, I couldn’t stop calling her the wrong name.
[00:29:08] Um, but she’s a graduate assistant. Uh, she actually just finished, she played a fifth year this last year because of COVID. Um, and then we have, we’ve had different volunteers that have helped us in the past as well. Um, we have a women in coaching, a master’s program that our school is trying to push where basically that program is going to give us an extra GA.
[00:29:29] Um, in all of our female sports, because we’re trying to promote the idea of getting more women into sports. And so we haven’t had one yet, but we will. A year from now, we’ll have an actual, be one of my ex goalkeepers is going to be in that. That’s awesome. Yeah. And so Harold has been a huge help. I mean, I knew Harold, I hired Harold as a graduate assistant back in 2004, when I was at Eastern New Mexico, I started the women’s team there and in 2004 we started the.
[00:29:58] And so I hired Harold as a men’s GA and then he went off from there. He went back to Eastern. Was the head coach there for the men’s team for five years, I think, uh, six years maybe. And then he went to, uh, George Mason, not George Mason. He went to, he went to a D one was an assistant there, and then he was.
[00:30:18] Uh, Georgia Southern as a head coach for the D one there. So we’re very fortunate. We have somebody that has a lot of really high level experience. It’s not someone coming in that, you know, just finished being a GA. Um, and so that works out. That’s an advantage. So all the other coaches are constantly asking Harold, when is he going to leave and go find a head coaching job.
[00:30:37] So, uh, I’m trying to keep him here as long as I can. Cause he, he helps me out tremendously. Oh, that’s great.
[00:30:45] Matt: So, how would you describe your, your style of coaching and your team’s style of play?
[00:30:51] Coach: Oh, man. I get asked this all the time and, uh, you know, with recruits, we always tell them, talk to the players that are here, here.
[00:30:58] Cause they will tell you what, what I’m like. And it’s not me just sort of giving my ideal version of myself what I think. But I think that we mold. Our team around the players when possible. I think like this next year, we have an idea of what kind of system we’re going to play, but sometimes the kids come in and we need to change it.
[00:31:18] And so we try and find the best players that we can. And then we morph our system to, to get the biggest positive. And minimize any weaknesses that the team has based on those players that we have. So, um, I’m very much a technical coach. I want, you know, I want the girls to pass the ball to the correct foot with the right amount of weight as early as they can.
[00:31:40] Um, you know, we want to try and press other teams. And so that’s something that the new rule could change a little bit because they’re talking about removing the re-entry rule in the second year. Uh, of college games. So right now, I don’t know if you’re, you probably know all this already, but in the first half they can’t reenter in the first half.
[00:31:58] They can rancher one time. They’re talking about changing that taken out away, um, which I understand why they want to do it, but you know, our players are not going on to play professionally. Not, not many of them. Um, and so trying to get them ready for the professional game, like or trying to do. It’s kind of, not the same thing in D three is for sure.
[00:32:18] Probably their numbers are down from us. Um, but so anyways, right now we, we like to press. Um, we do like to keep the ball. Um, we’re not going to be straight up counter attacking, but I do like to, when we’re going to attack, like to attack the purpose, um, I don’t like to just knock it around the back, um, the whole time, uh, I like players that, that take chances players that, that know how to take players on one V1 and keep it fairly simple.
[00:32:46] You don’t need to have a Rolodex of, you know, 65 moves that you can do because most people can do 63. You know what practice and there’s only one or two that are their go-to moves, uh, in the game, the ones that are most effective, um, We be like speed. Um, I know that other people, when they talk about when they play against us, they think that we’re big.
[00:33:08] Um, and so I don’t know, I’m six, four, so none of them are that big compared to me. Uh, but you know, we have some girls on our team too that are five foot, five foot, zero, and some of them are stretching. We might be fibbing a little bit on their, on their roster, height online. They might be four 11. So, but as long as they contribute and that’s the great part, the great part about our sport, right?
[00:33:28] Is that. Size and speed is not always the key determining factor to somebody to be able to contribute a lot to the team. So, I mean, I grew up watching Carlos valley Rama that never ran more than six yards. And every, every team in the world cup would have loved to have had him on their team.
[00:33:44] Matt: That’s funny.
[00:33:44] It’s funny you brought him. I always use him. This is example like that never left the center circle.
[00:33:48] Coach: Didn’t need to, that was. Yep. Everybody found everybody worked for him. So it works. You can’t have 11 players that seem like that though. That’s for sure. You know, but, uh, but yeah, so that’s a little bit, I don’t know if that greatly, but we, we want to play.
[00:34:05] Yeah. So,
[00:34:07] Matt: well, you know, we’re, we’re talking in March. Uh, we talked a little bit about it before, but what does your, what is your off season program
[00:34:14] Coach: typically look like? So the first part of off season, basically January through spring, Um, we’re restricted to only be able to work with a ball for four hours with them.
[00:34:23] And then we can do four hours of other stuff. The one thing that we try to emphasize in that first period is their strength gain. Basically, this is a huge benefit for the freshmen because there’s not too many of them that have, you know, a strength coach in their high school or somebody that kind of tries to gear it for soccer, which is obviously very different.
[00:34:43] You know, we’ve had people before that. You know, you work with a strength coach and they’re all about football. Well, that’s great for football, but it doesn’t necessarily help a soccer player, stay injury free to be, you know, big, massive burly, strong, um, you know, thing. But the other part is in the spring is that we’re trying to emphasize the individual, you know, we’re, we’re trying to help the individual more improving in pointing out things more so than during the season and this season, quite honestly, it’s.
[00:35:11] So, you know, you want to help the players improve, but, uh, you can’t balance that between everybody it’s unrealistic and coaches that said they do. I don’t know if they get the most out of their team during the season, you try to help everybody as best you can, but still you’re working on what parts are going to impact your wins and losses and ties.
[00:35:32] Um, so in the spring, um, you know, we try to give everybody, um, A decent number of minutes. Some of our core players probably are still going to be, you know, getting a little bit more, but we definitely want to give a chance to those kids that maybe last year didn’t get as much of an opportunity, but now the seniors are gone.
[00:35:50] And so, you know, now here’s your chance to, to build some, um, uh, I was aware. I’m looking for, to build some trust in the staff that you can show us what you can do on a consistent basis when you’re getting more minutes and you have a headstart on the new players, which might be freshmen, or it might be transfers coming in because now I’ve seen you more.
[00:36:12] Um, and so it helps them out. Okay, that’s great. We try to play good competition in the spring again, because we’re geographically isolated. Sometimes that, that barrier. Sometimes we play club teams. Um, we try to get, uh, college students. We can, um, you know, but when we want to play good college teams, if we can, but again, So the budget is limiting you a little bit, so we can’t just go everywhere.
[00:36:36] But like this year we’ll play, uh, Abilene Christian, cause they’re close by, um, always a good game and then we play Midwestern. Um, Midwesterns a good quality team as well. And then, but also we’ll play like we’ll play hard Simmons. Who’s always been a great team, um, nationally competitive in the D three area and they’ve always provided us with great.
[00:36:58] Yeah, for sure. For sure.
[00:36:59] Matt: Well, you’ve told us a lot. I really appreciate your time. I just got one last question and it’s kind of the catchall. What, what did we miss? What didn’t we talk about that you want to make sure, uh, you know, folks know, or, or as if there’s something you’ve already said that you want to emphasize no matter what, this kind of the last, uh, last,
[00:37:18] Coach: last chance, if you will.
[00:37:19] So w what do you got? Okay, I’ll grab, let me grab a visual. So just because I’m assuming that, uh, recruits will get to see this, so let’s see if I can put that where you can see it. Yeah.
[00:37:30] Matt: How’s it. This penny get me where I am today. Yeah.
[00:37:33] Coach: So this is the, sometimes you have quiet recruits and it helps get the conversation going, um, because they can’t help but ask.
[00:37:41] Uh, but basically the very quick version of it is that I found that when I went to go interview for my very first full-time job as a director of coaching Colorado, and I kept, and I thought, oh, this will be a great, you know, lucky charm. Everybody always has a lucky charm. And so I kept it. And then, but as things progressed, progressed, I had this penny in my drawer and I’m like, yeah, this is my lucky penny.
[00:37:59] And then I’m looking up and I, you know, I’m thinking about the different coaching courses that I’ve been to. I think about the hours that I put, you know, kicking the ball into, we had this wall where, when I grew up in high school and it was exact size of a goal at our soccer field, we’d go down and practice on our own for hours.
[00:38:16] Um, and I think about the, you know, getting my masters and all this, and basically. It’s the tele players, that your success is not going to be based on luck. It’s going to be based on hard work. And if you want to be successful, then you need to put in the work. And sometimes it’s not going to be easy. You know, sometimes you’re going to make mistakes and we’re going to let you know that this is a mistake and it needs to be improved.
[00:38:37] And then it’s, again, it’s up to that player to decide what they want to do with that. And we’ve had players that embrace that and develop. And we’ve had great athletes that just hold on to their athleticism and that’s how they’re successful. And it, it works for them, but I still think they could be even better.
[00:38:54] Um, you know, if they’d want it to work a little bit more on their own on making a weakness, you know, a strength or, you know, getting better at something that they’re kind of averaging. And so it’s a big part of what we do with our team is that we tell them that you have to work and you’ve got to work.
[00:39:08] It’s not just about, well, somebody. You know, working, you know, more and you don’t, it’s just about the pride in yourself. And hopefully that carries over into other areas of their life. When they leave, when they leave the program, whether it’s academics, their job, their friends, having a family, taking care of their kids.
[00:39:24] And we just want good kids, um, that, that want to do what they can in soccer to make it the best memory and the best part of their life that they can have. So, um, but yeah, as far as anything else, um, I already talked about, you know, I don’t ride a horse to work. Um, you know, we have a lot of good things here.
[00:39:43] We’re, we’re getting ready to spend a bunch of money to improve our facility. Um, and so that’s something that I think is different about us is that we’re always trying to find ways to grow and develop talking about our system. You know, we’re not just going to look for players that fit our system. We’re going to find the best players that we can and, and make our system work for them.
[00:40:01] Um, you know, provide, they put in the work as well. So, but, um, Yeah, I think that’s probably it. Um, you covered a lot.
[00:40:08] Matt: Yeah, no, I, Hey coach, I appreciate the time. Uh, look forward to, to fall on you this fall. See how you guys do the season and, uh, and wish you nothing but the best.
[00:40:18] Coach: I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
[00:40:19] Thank you.
