Bridgewater College Women’s Soccer – Coach Mike Van Horn
In today’s episode, I speak with Coach Cristin from the DePauw Women’s Program in Indiana. We talk about how he focuses a lot on academics when recruiting. Coach also shares about their big campus for a small school with a friendly community. Plus, we discuss how his playing style has evolved over 18 years. Learn more about Bridgewater College Women’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today I am lucky enough to be joined by Coach Van Horn at Bridgewater in Virginia. Welcome coach.
Coach: Thank you. Thanks for having us.
Matt: Yeah, thanks for being here. I love that. You know, it was good. We were just catching up here for, for a minute. I, I, I saw your roster.
So looking at your schedule this year, I saw. Two things I didn’t like. You beat my alma mater Catholic University and then you beat my, my, one of my girls who was goalkeeper for Guilford. So I You are rough. But the one thing that blew my mind is I think you are the only school in America who didn’t have a tie last year.
Coach: Yeah. Surprisingly, I think you looked at this the year before. I think we had five.
Matt: I mean, yeah,
Coach: the girls mentioned it toward the end of the year, like coach, you know, we didn’t have any ties this year because we, I mean we had five previous years, so yes, with not having the overtime ties are definitely occurring way more often now.
But yeah, we did not have a tie that year, which was nice.
Matt: Yeah. No, that’s it. That’s awesome. [00:01:00] But, uh, that definite anomaly from every, every record schedule sheet I’ve seen over the, over the last year. But, uh, anyway. Well, we’re, we’re, we’re talking here end of February. I’ve got the, uh, in my backyard, E-C-N-L-E-C-N-L-R.
It has their spring, uh, showcase this weekend, next weekend. Farther down the street. You got the GA event at IMG here in Florida. So you coming down to visit me in the next two weeks? Or, or, or where do you like to go recruiting this time of year?
Coach: Yeah, so unfortunately no. Um, we’re, we’re up here. We have a regional tournament up here this weekend that we’re going to, uh, we’ve started our, um, non-traditional practices now.
It’s a little bit harder for us to get that far south, um, for multiple days. We were down there for the ECL event in January. Uh, my assistant just got back from the ECL event in Texas last weekend. Um, I’ve been, we went to Charlotte, uh, this past weekend for the GA ID thing, so we’ve definitely been out.
[00:02:00] But now that we’re getting ready to start with our team. Uh, we stay a little bit more regionally until we’re finished with them about mid-April, and then we start branching back out to get some, coming to the bigger events just because we have a little bit more time that we can travel to get to ’em now.
Matt: Okay. Well, a as a, as a D three women’s program. At this point, are you completely locked and loaded with your, your, your class 26, or you still got a couple you’re looking for? Where, where does that, where do you sit with all that?
Coach: Yeah, no, 20 sixes. We finished, uh, probably first week of June, so we haven’t looked at it 26 since the summer.
Um, we are in the thick of it with 20 sevens. Um, we’ve. Probably have offered half of our class. We’re trying to bring in nine for the 27th. We probably have about four or five offers out right now. Um, we’re gotten pretty far in the. Recruiting process that I think we’ll put out, uh, a couple more offers here in the next two to three weeks, right before Jeff Cup, which is a pretty big tournament up here in Virginia.[00:03:00]
Um, and then we’ll see where that goes for a little bit with the girls that we’ve offered. And then, uh, go to the next round of offers and the girls that are in our recruiting board in hopes that we wrap up again into May, first week of June, something of that nature. But the 27th.
Matt: So a question. You know, that always pops up.
’cause, ’cause I help, uh, our club with all the college recruiting stuff and parents and players are always asking, you know, okay, I get, I get an offer. Like, do they, are they gonna expect me to answer in a week or do they put timelines on it? Or you, you just mentioned you’re gonna put offers out. So how does that, do you give ’em a specific amount of time or are you just saying, Hey, you just gotta let us know, but.
If, but that offer could go away if other, other people accept. Like how, how specific does it? Yeah, I think it’s a,
Coach: it’s a variation. Um, right now, the girls that we’ve offered, there’s no timeline and we haven’t offered that position to anybody else. So we’re trying not to put any pressure on those girls at this moment.
Like we want them to [00:04:00] see other schools. So. What they’ve seen, what they want to see. So then if they decide, hey, Bridgewater’s, where they want to be, they know this is where they want to be and they didn’t have to make hold, you know, what if I gotta see this other school, what have you? Um, as we get further in the recruiting process, particularly after Jeff Cup, ’cause after that there’s not another major tournament in this, uh, region.
Uh, a lot of girls up here will start making decisions after Jeff Cup. So if I have a girl that’s, you know, our second choice maybe, and they’re saying, Hey, I wanna make a decision in here in the next two to three weeks. We’ll call the girl that we’ve offered and said, Hey, I’ve got another girl interested in two to three weeks.
If you haven’t given me an answer in that two to three weeks, I may have to offer that same position to that girl. And then it’s first come, first serve. Um, but we try to be very open in that communication so they’re not being caught off guard. Um, but right now they, there’s no timeline and there’s no pressure.
It’s their spot. We haven’t offered it to anybody else.
Matt: That’s great. Well. What about it camps? Do you guys, uh, have your own, do you your staff work? [00:05:00] Others? Are they a part of your recruiting process at all?
Coach: Yeah, so we worked, um, others and we, we do have our own. Ours is in the summer though. Um, we have ours in either June or July, depending on when the school allows me to have it.
Uh, we don’t do one in the spring just because the weather’s pretty unpredictable. I used to do one and then I was, I canceled it some years and then we try to get it in some years because the weather was okay. Uh, so we just moved it to the summer with the recruiting schedule. The way it is, these kids are so busy with showcases and ID camps for their clubs.
They’re off. They’re putting those on. It’s just harder to get those kids out here. So the summertime when it slows down a little bit, it’s a little bit easier to get those kids out here. So we do ours in the summer, we do work other ID camps. Uh, we just did a session last night for a club about two hours north of us, and we drove up and ran a session, uh, for a pool of kids.
Uh, we did it. They had some, uh, oh seven, but mostly, or oh eight, some, most of it was oh, nines and tens, which is kind of what we’re looking at [00:06:00] in anyway.
Matt: Yeah. Okay. Well, whether it’s an ID camp or a showcase or whatever, what kind of makes up the hierarchy of things you’re looking for in a player, both on and off the field?
Coach: Well, I think off the field, for us, I mean because we’re division three, we cannot give out athletic scholarships, so the academic piece is pretty important for us, particularly if they’re out of state. Like if you’re an out-of-state kid, you’ve gotta have a three, seven or higher for us to consider you.
Just so we know financially that this fits. Um, what the finances will fit your situation. ’cause if you’re below that, you’re, we’re probably not going to be able to make the college affordable to what a state school would cost in their home state. Uh, so the academic piece is very important. Um, I think the personalities of the kids, like how they interact with their teammates, how they interact with their coaches, um, how they interact with their parents, or even how their parents interact at a game.
Like we’re paying attention to all those things on the sideline just because we’re trying to recruit the whole player. Um, not just them as a [00:07:00] soccer player, if that makes sense. Um, and then I think as a soccer player, you know, I think every coach has a, some kind of combination of what they’re looking for in the sense of their athleticism, their technical ability, uh, their decision making, those type of things.
So we have a combination that we look for. They, the odacs pretty athletic. So for us to compete at the top of our conference, we’ve gotta have a certain level of athleticism. Um, but we want to keep possession when we play. So there’s also a certain level of technical ability that we have to have. I think one of the things that we look for when we’re working with kids is their ability to make decisions and transition moments, right?
The transition moments speed up, uh, in, at the college game and how, you know, how fast can kids make a decision from going offense to defense or defense to offense? And that’s where we really see the difference in growth. So if we get to work with them, we really try to put ’em in situations where they have to make decisions in transition mode.
Matt: Oh, I, I, I love that. Um, well. We see a big boom in the transfer portal. There’s [00:08:00] junior college students, there’s internationals. Those, I would call those the kind of the non-traditional recruiting paths. Do you guys look at those at all, or are you pretty much in the old school, you know. Seniors, you know, high schoolers that are coming in, uh, for their first experience.
Coach: Yeah, we’re primarily high school kids. Um, you know, we’ve had a couple girls reach out to us. I mean, we do look at it. Um, I wouldn’t say it’s a big part of our recruiting process. Um, I would happy to say in the 18 years I’ve been here, and I know the transfer portal has only been around probably about, I don’t know, six, seven years of that.
Um, we really haven’t dealt with transfer kids, and part of that is I don’t want to try to, I don’t wanna bring that culture. Into our culture where if a kid’s either isn’t happy or something’s not working well, I don’t want that girl to go, oh, I’m gonna transfer to the next school because they transferred here looking for something they didn’t have at the previous school.
And then that influences the girls that I have here. Uh, so we girls have reached out to us. Uh, if we don’t think it’s a [00:09:00] really good fit, which typically we don’t think it’s a good fit, we really don’t pursue, uh, those kids in the transfer portal or even JUCO kids. Uh, so we pretty much recruit. Primarily, uh, juniors in their high schools year, and then bring them through their senior year and then bringing ’em in as freshmen.
That way we have ’em for four years as well.
Matt: All right, awesome. Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the school. Uh, you, you’ve been, you’ve been there, uh, quite a while now, so you can give us the inside scoop. What are some of the awesome things about Bridgewater? Maybe some things we wouldn’t even know about going through the website.
Coach: I think the, the biggest thing that I think almost every recruit tells us when they come for a visit is, you know, we’re a small school, but I think they think because we’re a small school campus is also going to be small. Um, and I think they, they’re surprised about how big campus is. We’re spread out over 33 acres.
Um, a lot of green space on campus. So I think people are surprised about, um, just the size of the schools itself. I think the, the other thing that a lot of people talk about is how close knit the community is [00:10:00] of Bridgewater College. Like you can’t walk around campus without everybody saying hi to you or asking you how your day is, that type of thing.
So it’s a very close knit community. Um, not just within the athletic department, just. In the community itself, uh, on campus, like everybody knows everybody, uh, you know, your professors come out to your games, uh, all those type of things. And then the community of Bridgewater itself is also a very safe, um, very supportive of the college.
So when our kids are going off campus, you know, they’re having a good experience in the local community as well. Um, just because Bridgewater College is in the central part of Bridgewater, Virginia.
Matt: Okay, great. Well, one of the toughest things for student athletes, especially the traditional high school student coming into college, is really balancing the demands of being a collegiate athlete as well as a college student.
So what, what kind of support systems does the school have to make sure that, [00:11:00] that your players are successful in both avenues?
Coach: There’s a lot of them. Um, I, we have those traditional ones where, you know, you have a math lab or you have a writing center that’s on campus that the, the students can go and get help, um, for those particular things.
Um, but the Bridgewater offers a, uh, tutoring service that they can request a tutor at any time for any class. And they can request it for the semester. They can request it for two weeks just to help prepare for an exam coming up or something of that nature. So it’s pretty flexible. There’s no charge to the, to the student athlete at all for that.
Um, so, and it’s pretty flexible that they can schedule around their classes, their athletic events and stuff like that. Um, they also have, um, we have a pretty robust counseling service on campus as well. So we have two certified counselors and then we have about four or five, uh. Master level JMU, um, students that are trying to get their master’s in counseling.
Uh, so this, we have a partnership with JMU. So they, they send [00:12:00] those students over that need certain hours to being supervised by our two counselors. Um, so if they need some kind of counseling service on campus, um, I think we provide a pretty good, um, service for the. Campus for that, the, the community campus.
Um, probably the one thing that we could probably do a little bit better at, we do have a nutritionist on campus and the nutrition is there for students that had, um, challenges with their diet and since they have a lot of allergies or something like that. Uh, so they’re there to help make sure that the dining hall providing adequate, uh, food options for them and stuff like that, uh, that’s not really opened.
To the student athletes. Um, the student athletes make up about 46% of the population and there’s only one, uh, nutrition, dietician on campus. So they don’t have time to meet with, you know, 6 50, 700 student athletes on a daily basis. So that part, like if we have a kid that’s really struggling, we can get them in with that person, but that person’s not [00:13:00] meeting with them on a regular basis.
Matt: No, it’s still a good, uh, a good service to have, uh, for sure. Um. Well, let’s rewind back to October. You’re in the heart of that ODAC conference schedule. Walk me through what’s a typical week look like? Like what’s the game cadence, when are practices, meals, classes, all that kind of stuff.
Coach: Yeah, so, uh, typical week looks like, um, Sunday, we’ll start off with Sunday is their day off.
So we’re not, we’re not contacting the girls. We want them to, um. Get away from soccer. A lot of times they’re focusing on their studies and that type of thing. Uh, Monday they would rate weight train sometime on Monday. Um, that could vary. It varies depending on class, uh, schedules each semester. But they’ll, they’re gonna lift on Monday.
Uh, we’re gonna train, uh, Monday from four to six. Um, and that. Basically it for Monday, Tuesday, they’re gonna have individual film, uh, with me from the Saturday’s game. Um, and then we would train from four to six on Tuesday. Uh, [00:14:00] that training session is probably more of a moderate training session. Monday was probably a hard coming off of a day arrest.
Um, and then Wednesday is a game day. So if we’re traveling, um, now that we’re in conference. We’re probably leaving around 12 30, 1 o’clock in the afternoon. If it’s a home game, we’re probably getting nine o’ class around two o’clock for four o’clock kickoff. So they’re in the locker room, um, probably around two 10.
Uh, we meet with them right around three o’clock, uh, in our media room. We go over our last scouting report. And go over all their roles and responsibilities one last time. Uh, and then we walk out to the field and warm up around three 15, and then obviously play the game at four. Uh, we, we release ’em after the game at six.
A lot of our parents do come up for these games, so a lot of the girls will go out to dinner with their parents and stuff like that. Um, Thursday, uh, they weight train again on Thursday. They’ll do individual film on Thursday from Wednesday’s game, and then we practice four to six. And again, that’s probably more of a moderate [00:15:00] practice.
Um, Friday we have, uh, team film at three and then we have a light team practice, um, Friday from like four to about five 30. So we cut it, uh, about 30 minutes shorter than usual. Um, and then Saturday’s either gonna be a home game or away game. Um, and that varies depending on when we lead. Sometimes we have to leave, um, like.
7, 8, 9 in the morning, depending if we’re playing at one or two o’clock. If it’s 19 at seven, you know, we’re probably leaving sometime after lunch.
Matt: Okay. Well let, let’s talk more about the team. I know we talked about recruiting, but in terms of, uh, your roster, is there a roster size that, that you’re trying to hit each year you find is ideal?
Coach: Uh, yeah. So we don’t exceed 29. Um, that might, might be a little rare. Um, I know at division three they use a lot of Division three teams ads. Try to bring in 35, 40 kids because you’re trying to fill beds at the, at the college. Um, we don’t exceed 29, uh, for a couple reasons. [00:16:00] One, we have a great locker room.
We only have 29 lockers. So I’m really conscious about the girls having a good experience and I don’t want girls sharing lockers in the locker room because that diminishes their experience. Right? Uh, so we try not to exceed 29. I think from, also from a player standpoint, you know, when you’re talking about practice and games, it’s hard to get a lot of meaningful reps in practice if you start exceeding over 29 players.
Um, and then same thing with games. We probably average about 16 to 18 players. You start getting into the thirties and forties. There’s not, there’s not enough minutes for a lot of those girls to get in, but then it goes back to what type of experience are they having in their college experience. So we’re very conscious of that and trying to make sure that we are, we have the number that we need to be competitive and successful and we’re not trying to exceed that.
Um, just to have numbers around.
Matt: Okay, well besides players on the rosters there, staff, so talk to me about your staff. Who do you have there, what roles does everybody play? What kind of support staff may be in the athletic department? Help out [00:17:00] with the team?
Coach: Yeah, so, uh, I have a full-time assistant, Tommy Haney.
He just joined us this past summer. Uh, so he’s in his first year. He’s been a huge help this year. Uh, he came from division three men’s, uh, from Texas. Came out of the region. Um, but he’s been excellent. So he’s really helped us a lot. Uh, I have my volunteer assistant, hap, he’s been with me, um, I think he just finished his 16th year, so he’s been here almost as long as I have.
Uh, he’s more of our comic relief. The girls love him. Um, he doesn’t do a whole lot of coaching. He’s probably more there for, um. To make sure the girls are having a good time. He bounces me out quite a bit. ’cause I mean, I can walk onto the field and flip a, flip a switch and go, okay, it’s, let’s get after it in business.
So he evens me out a little bit. Um, the girls, well he’s, I mean, he’s older, he’s close to retirement, so he’s kind of like the grandpa, uh, for the girls and stuff like that on the fields. He jokes around with them, that kind of thing. Um. We have our, we [00:18:00] have five certified athletic trainers here, so we have our own athletic trainer that’s at all of our practices and then at all of our home games.
He or she will travel with us, uh, for certain weights, but not all of them. Um, but the girls really get to trust that person that’s the only athletic trainer they’re dealing with on a day-to-day basis. So that trainer gets to know them very well. Uh, we also are lucky here that we have two full-time strength conditioning coaches for division three.
Um, there’s not a lot of institutions that have that, but we have our own strength conditioning coach that runs all of our, uh, weightlifting in season and then out of season they run all of our weightlifting and conditioning. And it’s the same strength conditioning coach every time they meet with him.
Uh, so it’s, it’s not TAG team he’s assigned to us. He knows the players really well as well. We meet with him probably once a week in season, um, and out of season just to keep an eye on what’s going on, what he’s doing, what’s he seeing, is it matching what we’re seeing on the field, that type of thing. So that’s been really helpful.[00:19:00]
Um, and then outside of that, you know, we have three sids. Um, so I think we’re also, um. That’s probably higher than most Division Threes most probably have one, maybe two, but we have three. So we have one assigned to us, but we have a point person. He, he came in this year, it was his first year as well. He’s done a really good job with the graphics and the, the videos that we can put out on social media.
Uh, our girls love them, um, but it is definitely helped a lot with the things that we’re putting out on our social media right now with him. So that’s been a huge help as well. Um. After, after that, you know, our, it’s our administration that you typically have at most institutions and stuff like that.
Matt: Okay.
Well, what about you? Talk to us about your coaching style and, uh, the style of play you wanna play there.
Coach: Oh, well, I’ve been here 18 years, so that has evolved, uh, over that time. Um, you know, I feel like the first four or five years I was kind of fumbling through it until I started to figure out exactly what I, how I wanted to play and how I wanted the team.
Uh, to perform. So we’re [00:20:00] very much a possession team, but very much an attacking player added to that. Um, sometimes we gotta break the habit. We get a lot of growth from the club system and they think possession is like 99% of the law. Um, and it’s like, yes, we want to keep possession, but at the end of the day, if it’s zero zero and we won 70% of the possession, we still tied the game.
So we’ve gotta teach them that possession’s important, but we’ve also gotta recognize those moments or take risks in the attacking half that we can create opportunities to score goals. So. We try to be dynamic. We really try to create a three V two or two V one or even a one V one in the flank. Um, and we tack down the flank, try to get the ball in the box and then try to get numbers in the box.
Um, so we are in a 4, 3, 3 possession oriented, but when we see an opportunity to to get numbers up or go forward, we go forward. We’re not trying to go negative as much.
Matt: Alright, well. [00:21:00] We are in the off season. You just started talking about how you know you’re getting ready for your non-traditional practices to start.
So what does your off season look like?
Coach: So, uh, we were gonna start last week, but because of the winter storm that we had three weeks ago, um, our field’s been too saturated with the amount of snow that’s been melting. Uh, so today’s gonna be the first day we get out. So we’re gonna get out today. Um, we’re gonna do a little bit of fitness and then we’re gonna let just let the girls play and kind of see where they’re at.
They’ve been playing sall since they got back from Christmas. Uh, so just kind of see where their touches are, where they’re at, fitness wise. They’re gonna go on spring break here tomorrow. Um, so they’ll be gone all next week. Most of them are coming down to see you, uh, either a couple places in Florida, they’re going down there for spring break.
Uh, they get back on the ninth, I believe, of March. And then we will train four times a week, uh, for almost six weeks, Monday through Thursday. Uh, so same thing. So they’ll lift twice a week. We’re gonna train four [00:22:00] to six. Um, we do two days a week that we do team practices, and then the other two days a week we do functional training.
So 24 days of practice without having games. The girls. Their eyes glass over after two or three weeks. So just to try to change it for them. Um, give them something to look forward to, something different. Uh, typically Mondays and Wednesdays will be team practices where everybody’s out there together Tuesdays and Thursdays.
It’s a long day for me and Tommy, but uh, we bring them out by position. So usually there’s about. Six to seven girls per position with the two of us, and we go about an hour, which each position. So we’re out there for four, they’re out there for an hour, so they likely is it shorter, but we’re also working on something that translates to their position within the bigger system of play.
Uh, so we really found that it really helps the girls close the gap on some of the things that they’re deficient in that we saw from the fall.
Matt: Oh, I like that a lot. All right. Well, coach, really appreciate the time. Uh, gonna leave you with one last question, and that is, if you [00:23:00] had one piece of advice for a, a girl going through this college recruiting process, what would that be?
Coach: Ooh, there’s, there’s so much that you could tell a girl, but, uh, something I told the girls last night that I worked with, um, they, they need to be diligent in getting their college visits in, in a timely manner. And the reason why I say that, you know, we have girls that will visit an institution in January and February and that institution may be moving quicker ’cause they’re getting kids on a visit and make an offer.
And if that kid hasn’t done enough visits, it’s gonna be harder for them to go, yeah, this is where I want to be. ’cause they don’t know, they don’t have anything to compare it from. Right. So particularly the, the spring of their sophomore or their junior year. They need to be pretty diligent about, okay, here are the schools I’ve identified.
Can I get these visits in a timely manner? So when it comes time to start making decisions or colleges start making offers, [00:24:00] they can go, okay, I can compare these four or five institutions. Here’s the best fit for me. And then they know this is where they should be versus, oh, I, I still gotta see two more and then.
That that offer may not be there when they’re done with their other visits ’cause they took so long. So just being diligent about trying to get those visits in so they can know Yeah, this is what I’m looking for.
Matt: Yeah. Awesome. Well coach, really appreciate it and uh, hopefully you will get down here to Bradenton another time, uh, for some recruiting and we’ll hang out then.
All right.
Coach: All right. So y’all, we’ll be down there next January for sure. We, we don’t miss it.
Matt: Sounds good. All right. Take care.
Coach: All right. Thanks.
