College of St. Mary Women’s Soccer – Coach Jordan Irsik

On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Jordan Irsik from the College of St. Mary Women’s Program in Nebraska. We talk about the off the field characteristics she looks for in players. She describes the unique small-school atmosphere in a large downtown location. Lastly, we discuss how they fit their style of play around the players that they have on the field. Learn more about the College of St. Mary Women’s Soccer.

Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Jordan Irsik from the College of St. Mary’s. Welcome coach. 

Coach: Thanks for having me. 

Thanks for being here. So, uh, let’s, Well, sorry, I said St. Mary’s. It’s St. Mary. Sorry. I did, I I’m sorry. I, I knew I, as soon as I said it, I’m like, I put the plural one I shouldn’t have.

Coach: Um, they’re weird about that in the St. Mary’s schools. I imagine

Matt: I’ve got, my wife’s name is Mary. My mother-in-law used to be a nun, so I, I get it. Um, and I went to the Catholic University of America, so go figure. But anyway, um, let’s talk a little bit about the College of St. Mary. A lot of folks may not be familiar with it there in Nebraska.

Nice. NAIA Program. So let’s talk about recruiting to, to your program. You know, what, what are some of the. The key tournaments, events, things you, you go to, to make sure you’re, you’re finding, uh, the latest crop of recruits. 

Coach: Yeah. Uh, I do a lot of my recruiting based out of the Midwest. When I came in and took over this program, it was, there had been a lot of turnover, um, since I had been a player.

So we’re talking almost seven, eight years of just new coach every year. And I came in and said, I really wanna focus on the Midwest and keep it local. There’s a big Omaha soccer scene for sure. Um, so I spend a lot of time. In terms of tournaments, things that are close by. [00:01:30] I also love to go to to high school games and high school state tournaments.

I think that’s unusual. Um, I think they’re a really great celebration of, uh, community and, and, uh, teamwork and all those things. Like, there’s nothing like a high school game in a high school state tournament. Um, I also coach in the East l rl, so I’m at those events a lot and, uh, like to find players in those sections.

So I’m kind of all over. I don’t do a lot of traveling out of the Midwest right now. I’m hoping to do that, go to things like Surf Cup and um, going to Phoenix, those kind of things. But I really wanted to build this program close to home first and build out of there from that.

Matt: Okay. Well, do, do camps factor into your recruiting at all?

Do you do camps onsite or work other camps?

Coach: Absolutely. Um, we have actually the exact. Uh, soccer ID camp is on our campus this weekend. Oh, okay. Um, so I do some of those third party camps. I get invited to ID camps from, you know, the bigger schools in the area, and I try to go to those and see local talent.

Um, we have quite a few showcases, um, either outta Kansas City or the Twin Cities that I like to go to as well. 

Matt: Okay, well, whether it’s at, at camps or these local tournaments or high school games even, what would you say is kind of your, your hierarchy of things that you’re looking for in a play, whether that’s on the field stuff or off the field stuff?

Coach: I, [00:03:00] I pride myself in being a small town kid that we just were taught to work. I was a multi-sport athlete and I think that shows in our team, um, I’m always looking for body language. And, um, work ethic off the ball, especially, that’s where I’m watching like a lot of players, the difference between them is not what they can do when they’re on the ball, how they finish, how they first touch, those kind of things.

It’s the little things in those moments where maybe not anybody else is looking. How are you carrying yourself when your team is down? How. Carrying yourself when your team needs a goal, are you that person that’s pushing or are you that person that’s coasting or holding yourself back? Um, the the little things like are you cleaning up your water bottles at the end of the game?

Are you having an argument with your parents? How do you compose yourself with your teammates? Um, are you wearing a captain’s band in a club? Those little things. Um, you know, being in NAI school, we’re looking at small club kids, small town kids a lot more. So, um, so the difference there to me is, is your composure and your personality and, and your maturity, um, that I’m looking for in our program.

Matt: I love it. Love it. In terms of, you know, your, your roster, you know, is there a, is there a roster size you’re looking to hit? How does, how does that kind of factor? 

Coach: In our area, In NAIA, there’s, uh, JV, varsity, so we [00:04:30] generally carry about 40. Um, I, I’d like to tell people, and I, I mean it, that we do it a little bit differently.

Um, our scholarship system isn’t built to be on an average, like a lot of NAIA schools are where our JV is, um, about filling rosters and getting numbers. To me, I run it a little bit more like a high. Where we have freshmen in our program now who will be starters, significant contributors as seniors, but they’re behind seniors now.

And so this year for them, they play jv. They’re playing 90 minutes a game, and now I’m expecting them to step in ready. But when I took over this program, it was so small and it was so. Um, just kind of all, just not what I wanted it to be. And so we had to grow and we had to grow a little bit quickly, but I also had freshmen stepping on the field immediately and now we can do, um, we can give them time to grow and, and learn the game without having to be full send immediately.

And then there are freshmen that they’re ready, right? We have freshmen that do start in that play significant minutes, but they were ready to begin with and they had to get there. 

Matt: Yeah, no, it makes sense. Well, one of the questions that parents always have is, uh, alright, you mentioned scholarships. What’s this, what’s this gonna cost me?

Right? So, Yep. Uh, I’m not holding you to hard numbers here, but can you just give me an overview of what, what kind of the cost of attendance looks like in terms of what scholarships and other financial aid are available there at the school? 

Coach: For, uh, for us, one of the big things we [00:06:00] say is, Well, I say a lot is we are big on giving opportunities to, to young women that normally wouldn’t have them.

So we do have academic and athletic scholarships they stack, which is not common. Um, at our level, A lot of times you have to pick your athletic or your academic money. For us, you get to take both. Um, and if you’re on the roster, you get some sort of money. You don’t do walk ons. Um, but also if you, we have opportunities.

For a lot of people, we have a documented opportunity. Um, if you receive pe we heavily financially aid those students so that it’s very inexpensive. We try to the in so you’re is, than,

um, and to live on campus. Um, in terms of like schools our size, we’re about half the price. So our, our tuition is 20. Two $23,000 and nobody pays that much. But schools around us have similar size in the Midwest are closer to 40. Um, so we took a few years ago, my first year here, the school took an initiative to take a major, um, tuition cut of 33%.

We went down to 20,000 and it goes up a couple hundred dollars every year. But it’s definitely not the way a lot of other schools do, and they take a lot of pride. Um, and like I said, we have a lot of programs. We have, uh, two academic scholarships. [00:07:30] One is for nursing, the other is for stem, so science, technology, engineering, math, your chemistry, biology, math that are essentially full scholarships or completely full scholarships, um, that are targeted towards, uh, minorities, first gen students, um, PE students, undocumented, et cetera.

they’re very much, we as a university are very much looking to give opportunities that, um, they’re not always have, and, and my team is full of that. My team is full of girls who are, are. If I hadn’t gone here, I wouldn’t be going to school cause I was in the same boat. Somebody took a chance on me a long time ago and said, you know, I was the oldest of a lot of kids and my mom was a teacher and, and there wasn’t a lot of money.

So, um, that’s something I’m passionate about in the school, passionate about as well. 

Matt: Oh, that’s fantastic. Well, well let’s talk a little bit more about the school. You know, I can click around the website and learn a lot, but, you know, gimme some, some insights, you know, what are some awesome things about the school maybe I won’t find on, on the website.

Coach: Um, well, I’ll start with just our majors. We’re a health sciences school at our core. Um, we have some of the best nursing program in the country, occupational therapy, physical therapy. Uh, if you start here and physician’s assistant, you start here as a freshman and you can graduate from here in 4, 5, 5 to six years with a masters or a.

Like that’s, it’s [00:09:00] pretty cool. And they take a lot of pride in that. So those programs are really, really good. Um, and I also say that you can play too play and get an athletic scholarship. So bonus all around. Um, I had a lot of friends who, you know, went to PT school or OT school and they did four years of undergrad and then they went to four years of physical therapy school and here you’re done in five and a half.

Um, so those are, those are kind of our core. We’re also. People say, I say like, we started out as an education school, so our education was really good, but the things that aren’t necessarily in those also include like Omaha’s a big city. And so we are almost dead center Omaha. We’re right off the freeway that goes right through 72nd is basically middle of Omaha.

Um, so we’re kind of at the crossroads of a bunch of major, You can find three malls within walking distance kinda thing. But we are. We’re kind of like a little city within it, so we are just off the road enough that you have to get into it. Um, and it’s safe. And I live around the corner, a safe part of town, um, a beautiful campus.

All of those things, um, that make it kind of a good fit. If you want a big city feel. , but also you don’t wanna have classes of a thousand people. Um, I used to teach at the University of Nebraska and I say like, I have classes of 500 students and I never, ever once, I don’t remember any of those [00:10:30] kids, but I taught here and I can tell you all of those kids names and that’s important.

And that’s, that’s a small school feel that you get. But a lot of small schools are in small towns. And this is not a small school in a small town. This is, you’re right in the middle of the metro. Um, other than that, just that kind of like caring all of those things, but they take a lot of pride in the academics here.

And so we have people that walk outta here very prepared for their future. And so if you’re talking like psychology or business, it’s that same thing of you’re gonna do your internship in the middle of a metro, you’re gonna have opportunities off this campus and people will make sure that you have those opportunities.

Matt: No, that’s good stuff. Well, you mentioned academics, um, you know, what kind of support does the school provide to help help students? You know, you mentioned a lot of maybe first generation students, whatever, they’re coming into this tough academic environment, uh, especially in health sciences or STEM or something like that, and their playing sports.

So how, how do we make sure, how do you guys make sure that, that, that they’re successful on both, both things. 

Coach: Yeah,we have a student success center. Um, so they have a swipe system where you can come in and there’s tutors. Uh, I, I talk a lot about my experience at at Nebraska where. People were paying me to get tutoring by the hour.

I was charging 25 bucks an hour of making good money doing that. Um, here there’s tutors. Um, it’s a 24 hour center. There’s [00:12:00] people, we also have like a full staff of people who are there. Checking grades. We have a whole system that I pull up on my computer where I can check a student’s grade at any, which I do a week just go through.

Um, and then we have people in support that care. And they’re, and they’re calling student and they’re calling the, like, Isn’t she going to class? Isn’t she passing? Can we help you? And a lot of times it’s, it’s not that the kid doesn’t want to be successful, right? My, you know, my mom is sick or my car broke down and there’s only one car, or my sister is struggling, or I’m having mental health.

You know, all of those things come into play more so than, Hey, I just don’t do, you don’t just Right. Go school to get an education. And so there’s a lot of people around our team specifically. Because we have such a big team and I have such a great group of upperclassmen, we have required study hall hours.

So we don’t do it all together cuz there’s just no way to get everybody in schedule. So we have little pods and we have um, kind of my best grades upperclassmen. We have three nursing groups and they’re led by a junior or a senior who, who’s already gone through that. And they meet for a couple hours every week, all year.

To make sure everybody’s doing well in classes. And then same thing for, um, our kinesiology [00:13:30] exercise science occupational therapy students. And same with our education. And there’s just their pods and, and they, they have to meet and they have to do it, do it together. And then I, I, like I said a couple times now, like I used to teach, um, chemistry and so I have a math and science background.

So I have kids that come and sit in my office and we do homework together. A few girls who come in and they have hours where they just hang out at my desk right in front of me, and I do work over here and they do homework. And if they have a question, then they ask. You know, that small town feel, small school feel is, um, very alive here.

There’s a lot of people that want them to succeed. 

Matt: No, that’s fantastic. Well let, let’s talk a little bit more about the soccer side of things. Um, you know, In terms of, uh, your roster, you told us what you got. So how many staff do you have to help with that? What role does everybody play there? What’s your staff look like?

Coach: Yeah, so there’s me. I am the only full-time person that makes it tough, but I have a great staff and of assistant coaches that are with me. So I have, um, three assistant coaches, one. Who runs our JV program and is there for everything. He’s been fantastic. His name is. And then I have, um, a second kinda stipend assistant who, uh, Mainly travels with us to games and then gets to practice a few times a week, but is is kinda our second communicator.

I like having three people to bounce ideas off of. And then because I’m a goalkeeper and I value [00:15:00] that position a lot, we have a third assistant who does just the goalkeepers. So, um, she makes time throughout the. Couple times a week to be working with them specifically. And she has roles throughout, but that’s really her main thing.

I think, um, when I was a younger coach, I thought I can coach the team and the goalkeepers and you can’t . So, so she is very specifically there to just make sure that, um, our goal group is, is on top of it and also what’s going on. 

Matt: Oh, that’s great. Well, how, how would you describe kind of your style of coaching and the team style of play?

Coach: Um, I would say that I tell kids when they come and sit in my office that I’m gonna take the best players I can find and we’re gonna fit around what they can do. Um, I like the group that we have now is very big on off the ball movement and how can we. , um, change positioning and move around to use defenses.

We spend a lot of time, Okay, if I move here and you move here, what is that gonna do to them? And how can we disrupt what other people are doing? Um, and so it makes it a challenge for other people to kind of deal with us. Um, we have a range of. Of players that just, um, come, like I said, come in and work really hard.

So we have the fast wingers, the fast outside backs that kinda can be dangerous, but we also love to be able to control the ball in the middle of the field. So, um, I think my style has [00:16:30] always been we’re gonna have kind of a system, but we played different formations. Um, we played different formations in the game of.

You, I’m gonna put you in a situation to be most successful. That’s my job as a coach. Um, and then if you’re gonna come in and work hard, we’re gonna make it happen. 

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Love it. Well, in terms of, you know, the off season, cuz you know, we’re here in the winter and you get look towards the spring.

What, what is your typical off-season program look like, uh, in your non-traditional? Um, 

Coach: I usually do this like in a whole year. So can I start with the right? So, I, I don’t, this is how I like to do it at this point. So we come in, we move in a few weeks before school starts.

Usually the first week of August. Um, preseason is about two and a half weeks of just two a of time, um, in our conference room, watching film, drawing things up, making sure everybody’s on the same page, team bonding, all that stuff. Um, once schools. We’re once a day, like most people, because we’re a health sciences school, I have to work around their schedules.

So we have girls that are in clinicals from 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM Um, luckily we’re the only team that uses the field, so we can be on it whenever we want. Um, which is super, super nice. Um, doesn’t happen most other places. Uh, so. We’re practicing once a [00:18:00] day. Varsity’s generally playing two games a week. Once we’re in conference, it’s Wednesday, Saturday and JV is playing, um, usually Sundays or Thursdays once a week.

Uh, and then lifting three times a week. We have a full time strengthening conditioning coach. So they’re doing all of those things together. Plus they’re study hall hours. Um, plus meetings we do, we’ve done outside speakers, we’ve done team bonding, we watched film, whatever, right? So we we’re together. Our season’s over now.

So right now all they’re doing is just lifting, um, with the conditioning’s. Um, and so we

don’t in the spring and reset yourself. Right. Um, so they’ll do that until we come back for winter break this time of year. It’s just get your grades. Make sure you’re doing the right things. Um, stay healthy, get healthy, et cetera. Uh, once January comes around, cause we only get 24 weeks with them and so we get about 12, 13 weeks in the fall.

We get 11 or 12 in the spring. Um, the first few weeks are just captains practices. So, um, and you name a new set of captains at the beginning of the spring season and they’re doing captains type practices, write drill. Uh, we have a brand new, I didn’t say any of this, uh, fitness center here that we just [00:19:30] built.

It’s a little over a year old, so they play foots all in there. Um, and then once we get, uh, once we get into the weeks that I can start working with them, we also have an indoor turf facility that’s right down the road, uh, that most of the schools or most of the club teams like to use. But since we can go during the day, we have a little bit more freedom of.

So we’re in there a couple times a week. We’re playing foot all a couple times a week and then they’re still lifting and doing study hall. Um, and then once we get outside, cause it’s Nebraska, usually around spring break, we’re up to four times a week. Um, and then we play on the weekends. So we get three spring dates with that as well.

So, and then summer comes, um, I give them basically the month of May off. Um, we usually end right at the end of April with all that may. Do your finals, take a break, you know, get healthy, whatever you need. Um, and then, because like I said, we’re so, um, we’re very Omaha dense probably of our roster is from Omaha and then a lot of girls stay here over the summer.

Um, we are doing open two times a week and yeah, and then you start all over again, and then you 

Matt: get to do it all over 

Coach: again. It’s like ground hugs, stay over and over. 

Matt: But it’s never the same twice somehow. Right. , 

Coach: It’s always just a little bit different.

Matt: That’s right. That’s right. So what keeps it interesting?

Well, coach, we, we covered a lot of ground, talked about a lot of different things, [00:21:00] but, uh, I always end these the same way. And that’s what didn’t we cover? What else did you want to talk about? Whether it’s about the school, about the recruiting, about the program or anything else? Uh, I give you the, the last word.

Coach: Oh gosh, that puts me on the spot. Yeah. . I think, um, you know, things I would love to talk about, uh, about us and our program is definitely that, even though we’re a big team, um, I built. I say that cuz it is, it’s true at this point. Like I, I picked these girls and, and built this program around people that I really trusted and I make the joke, I have two little kids and I say, I can trust you to my kids.

You can be on my team . They don’t, I don’t ask them to. But, um, you know, I have, I have little kids and I want the, the people that are in this program to be people they can look. And then in this, in the same regard, I want to be someone who can show young women like you can do it. All right. I’m 32. I have two little kids.

I have a husband and a life, and. And I didn’t have a lot of role models growing up to show me what that looks like. And so I take that very seriously in that regard too. Um, so this team, our, our program is, feels like a family and it feels like my family at, and I think that they care a lot about each other, um, on and off the field.

Um, the other things is it that, you know, [00:22:30] our, our school would want me to say is, like I said, Uh, all brand new facilities. Um, when I got here, what is now our athletic building, which is in front of me, was a slightly above dirt soccer field that I played on. Um, and I grew up in Wisconsin and there’s not a lot of turf fields in Wisconsin.

At least there weren’t when I grew up. And, um, they were all really ratty. I was a goalkeeper, so there was a big hole in the six mm-hmm. . So now that’s a building and we have a, a brand new tour facility, locker room, so all of that out there. And then in here, a brand new weight room, um, training room, all those things.

Um, so it’s, it’s very nice and, and we like it a lot. Very thankful. Um, it was all donor funded, so people believed in this program and, and made that happen for us, and, and were thankful for that. So I think that’s all I. 

Matt: Awesome. Well, coach, really appreciate the time. Uh, wish you the best of luck here, uh, as you start the next phase of, of, of your season.

Thank you . Uh, and if, uh, if, if you get to the convention in Philly, swing by the, uh, the table cuz we’ll be there and, uh, love to meet you in person. 

Coach: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. Thanks 

Matt: Coach. Have a good one. You too.