Frostburg State University Women’s Soccer – Coach Brian Parker
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Parker from the Frostburg State Women’s Program in Maryland. We talk about how recruiting has changed for them since moving from D3 to D2. He describes the amazing college town atmosphere that Frostburg has. Lastly, we discuss how he makes sure every player on the roster travels and trains. Learn more about Frostburg State University.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Brian Parker up at Frostburg State. Welcome coach. Good to see you.
Coach: Good to see you too.
Matt: Um, Uh, we were just chatting and, and I’m familiar with Frostburg having driven, uh, 68 east and west many times between home and college and, uh, but I’m sure we’ll, we’ll introduce the school to some folks here today, which will be great.
Um, but first, let’s, let’s start talking a little about recruiting. You guys had a phenomenal season, NCAA tournament appearance, but now that the season’s over. I’m guessing you’re hitting the, hitting the recruiting trail hard. So when it comes to recruiting are, when do you really start talking to players?
Are you predominantly talking to seniors right now or, or is this class close to Donna and you’re focused on the juniors? What does that look like for you guys?
Coach: So thanks for having me and um, the move to division two has been awesome. You know, I’d be happy to talk to you about that. But what that has done now that we have a scholarship budget is accelerated things a little bit for us, you know?
We were normally in division three kind of finishing honestly, when we left division three, we were finishing the recruiting cycle around Memorial Day, around the end of the school year. And we’re usually not recruiting many seniors. We’re usually securing verbal commitments, you know, before the summer at the end of the junior year.
And so now we’ve just kind of backed up a bit. So obviously the magic day for everybody in, you know, when division one and two is June 15th, and so we are tracking sophomores and developing sort of a hot list for June 15th. And so we make those phone calls and [00:01:30] emails and we get on their list, you know, on uh, right after June 15th, and we start really tracking what we would call, you know, I don’t wanna say short thing, but obvious recruits that are clearly gonna be, be, be good here and, um, we’ll, you know, we’ll get visits as early as, you know, June and July and, and start making offers before those players even start their, their junior year.
So we’re recruiting really from that point over, you know, summer at the end of the sophomore year through. Um, you know, middle of the junior year, we finished around Easter last year, which was, seems like it was a little late. I think that’s kind of a pandemic effect that’s still kind of lingering. Um, but we’re generally recruiting juniors, um, you know, from the summer until, you know, spring break for us as March for them.
It’s usually around Easter and April. That’s the latest we typically go. Um, so we’re a little ahead of the game, probably for a lot of twos and threes, but. I like it that way. I mean, you know, we want to really recruit one player at a time and be as accurate in our evaluation as we can be. Um, and now that we have scholarship money, um, we have to be a lot more careful, you know, and, and frankly, the pressure on coaches with scholarships, I would argue is to be much more accurate.
You know, I could tell 30 players, I love them in division three and you just tell me when you’re ready. Um, but you can’t really do that with scholarships. You have to be a little bit more careful and, uh, make sure you stay on budget and that. You can’t have offers out there for months and months, you know, so there’s a lot of different parameters that go into it, but you know, we’re right now getting ready to [00:03:00] go to Raleigh for the North Carolina event that’s there, and I’ve got, literally, I appreciate this break because my inbox, I’ll have 20 more emails when I get off this call with you.
It’s insane. The number of I, I, wait, honestly, this is a kind of a tip for recruits. I wait to put my name on the list for these tournaments. So then I don’t, you know, get a lot of re you know, emails a month ahead of time. I wait three or four days in advance to put my name in there. And, um, and that’s what I did this time and my emails just blown up.
Matt: So let’s, let’s talk about that on the email front. So we’re gonna get off this call, you’re gonna go check your email or, or maybe you’ll wait till halftime of the next World Cup game to check your, uh, email. But when you do, what is something that is. Make you read that email or make you follow up with that, that player versus an email you’re gonna read that’s just gonna kind of get pushed to the side.
Coach: Well, obviously now in division two, the first thing is their, their graduation year. Right? We need to make sure what, that we can respond. So the, um, you know, students younger than, you know, 15, what we would say, 20 fives and below, right? The current sophomores and. We’ll get a particular kind of email that’s been approved that is, it basically says, here are the rules and here’s the standard reply.
And um, you know, we can watch players and obviously track them and we like their schedule updates, you know, when they send them out. But of course, we can’t really interact with them. Um, in terms of obviously the 20 fours where we’re focused, it’s personal, you [00:04:30] know, you wanna get a personal email, you want to get a a, a.
Coach Parker email, you know that it’s not generic. It’s so silly if there’s multiple people in the toolbox, I mean, I still get some of those now and then, so at least, you know, most people are at least hiding that it’s a mass email. But the more personalized email, you can, you can write the better know something about our school, about our program, about our staff.
Um, are you, you know, o obviously everyone’s trying to gauge what is the real level of your interest. And so if the level of interest is high enough to know some things about. Mentioned some connection to our school, uh, friends and family alumni, whatever that is obviously super, super helpful. Um, you always, you know, I’m sure you’ve covered the basics many times.
Gotta have the, the, the team name in there. Correct. Gotta have the jury. They should sign the email with their club team and uniform number every time. You know, I just, I just read an email today. Great. No Jersey number. So now I gotta go find the right jersey number, make sure I have it right. It just takes extra time to confirm all that.
So in some ways, uh, you know, the, the recruit can do some homework, but, you know, it gets my attention if they know who they’re talking to. Absolutely.
Matt: Well, and, and you mentioned going to Raleigh. Are there other tournaments that are kind of, must see tv, you know, things you, you set appointments to make sure you visit those?
Coach: So I think everyone knows probably who’s cares enough to watch these videos that there’s a ver a kind of a stratification in club [00:06:00] soccer that has evolved over the years. And I think everybody knows that. Um, the best club soccer in the country probably is played at the E C N L events. Um, the GA is, is fighting, you know, to keep their clubs competitive and keep their events organized.
They’re doing a great job. Um, it is sort of. Checker board pattern across the country where certain clubs cer, you know, certain leagues are wor, are working better than others. But we will watch, we will watch a player in any part of the country, in, you know, on any level team. You know, I think the interesting thing about smaller clubs, That don’t have multiple teams is that they’re gonna have those elite players that end up on a top team cuz there is no second team or maybe there is no elite club that’s playing in a high level league in their area.
So I think, um, you know, we go to the c and l events to rub elbows with people, but we get the local ones. You know, we’re not going to Texas or California to recruit nationwide, frankly, as a regional state school. Um, but we get emails from all over the place, to be honest with you. The biggest difference for us, As a Division two school of scholarships.
Now, in terms of recruiting volume has been international players. I mean, I’m getting inter emails from internationals every day. The, the services that are promoting these players, our email has ballooned and we don’t really have special programs for international players here, so we’re not really actively recruiting them very.
Matt: Well, and, and, and that was gonna be a question I had later was on the international front. What about the transfer portal, [00:07:30] especially now that you’re division two, is that coming into play at all with what you’re looking at recruiting?
Coach: So we, we do not like surf the portal, you know, and look for kids. Um, you know, we would, we would like to be as a four year school, have players in a four year developmental process here, you know, We’re, you know, I’ve been here 20 years.
There’s no reason for us to sort of jumpstart our program and try to get kids out of the portal necessarily. What I am looking for in the portal are players we know, you know, players that maybe we knew the first time around, um, maybe the fit wasn’t right for them at a different level, and so we might reach out to them.
Honestly, in some cases we’re just providing advice and guidance and kind of seeing how they’re doing. And just in case things aren’t working out for you, let us know if we can help you in any way. But I, I am, we’re not allocating roster space or, or budget to transfer is really it. We haven’t had to do that.
Uh, and uh, that’s not really our plan.
Matt: Okay. Well, what what about camps? Do you guys run your own camps there at the school or do you or your staff work other people’s camp?
Coach: So that’s a, a little bit of a, a sticking point for me. W w we did an ID camp years ago when it first became a thing, you know, going back maybe 10 years.
And we had a nice idea to combine with some other schools and run one at each campus. And we had 45 kids show up and we liked about five of them. And so we cashed the checks for the other 40 kids and I felt terrible about it, frankly. Like, you’re gonna spend money to find out you’re not being recruited, um, by the, [00:09:00] by a regional D three back then.
Um, I just don’t like the way it’s set up. I don’t like the process. You know, I don’t think players should pay to visit campuses. They should not pay for an evaluation. I think it’s our job to go out and watch players play with their club teams. They’re already spending a fortune to play club soccer and go to events like the one in Raleigh.
So shouldn’t we go to those events and evaluate as many players as we can and give them accurate feedback? Now, when the clubs host events, like when the clubs themselves host events and invite coaches, We do like to participate in those because they’re done on their schedule, you know, when the club can actually organize it and get a high level of participation.
So we will go visit clubs and train teams and do, um, what I would call club-based, you know, prospector ID events and, and we’ll continue to do those in, you know, for clubs in our region that are often the ones that provide players to us.
Matt: Okay. No, that makes sense. Well, whether it’s it’s at a, uh, a tournament or, or other games you’re watching or, or anything, highlight, film, whatever, what’s kind of your hierarchy of things that you’re looking for in a player, whether that’s on the field attributes or off the field stuff.
Coach: So technical competence, I think everyone knows you gotta have players that can keep the ball and can strike a ball, use both feet, escape pressure, um, all the sort of, uh, you know, checkbox things that are necessary. There’s obviously also an athleticism that is a requirement. You know, um, I, I don’t really recruit size and strength necessarily.
I’d, you know, be happy to have a team full. [00:10:30] Um, little messy type players who are buzzing around with the ball, but it is hard to win games that way sometimes because you’re gonna run into big strong teams that win highballs. So obviously you need to have a mix and had need to have some ball winners in there.
Um, I think it’s, um, so unusual and just a curiosity. How unwilling female players are to become good winning high balls. I mean, it’s a stunning thing when you go to a club game. If I go to Raleigh this weekend and I see even a smallish player just tracking and flying around and snapping headers into the goal.
She’s gonna get my attention. You know, it’s amazing that that is a trait that is highly valued, um, and under-taught. And of course we all understand the safety concerns and learning it the right way is essential of course. But it, you know, striking long balls and receiving long balls is a massive thing I think that a lot of coaches are looking for.
In addition to all the requisites, of course I just mentioned, in terms of skill and athletic.
Matt: Man, you, you just, you just hit me right there in the feels. It’s, uh, with my daughter’s team and I’m gonna go see a high school varsity girls game tonight, and it’s gonna be, Interesting to see how many of those aerial balls actually get won. So I’m, I’m hundred percent,
Coach: Well, I had a five, I was a high school coach for, for seven years and my best player was five two, but she had a 30 inch vertical and she, her, she, her head would just pop up above all the other heads and she would snap a corner in with her head and she was the best player we had on the ground with the ball on the ground.
But she [00:12:00] would change the game with aerial balls and it was, uh, significant. She was a con, a conference player of the year in. Wow, that’s awesome.
Matt: Well, you know, the good thing about, uh, Frostburg State is probably that word state in terms of how much it costs to attend, uh, versus some of those, uh, private school price tags.
You know, us parents, we, we, we tend to look at that. First thing is, okay, coach, how much is this gonna cost me? So I’m not, I’m not holding you to any hard numbers here, but if you can just give me a, a brief overview. What is kind of the cost of, of, of attending Frostburg look like? How do academic scholarships fit in?
What is the athletic scholarship piece now that you guys are in division two, just kind of gimme an average of what somebody might be looking at if they come there.
Coach: Sure. I, I don’t mind Sharon. So we’re, you know, it’s, we go right to the website if you wanna check it out, right? We’re 20 k total for a Maryland student.
Um, that’s room board tuition fees, that’s your school bill. 20 to 22, depending on housing choices. Our out-of-state students can pay a maximum of, they start at 34 if they live far away, but we have, what a lot of schools have is sort of a regional tuition discount. So the Northern Virginia players and um, Pennsylvania players that we might recruit are in the 28 range to start.
And then of course we, we are able to combine an athletic award with an academic award and we try to get that left to pay number down to around 10 for Maryland kids and under 20 for out-of-state kids, so we can get ’em down to 1518. If they’re outta state using a combination of athletic and [00:13:30] academic, uh, awards.
Um, so we, we choose to sort of spread our scholarship budget around a bit. Honestly, we’re not going for the six foot Germans like some people are. And, and, um, on full rides, you know, we don’t have that quite, that kind of a budget or ambition, frankly, with internationals. Um, but everyone on our team has a similar kind of scholarship, which honestly makes it kind of a non-issue.
You know, everyone has. A little piece of the pie. And so, um, once they’re here and they have that, it doesn’t really change much. And there’s, unless there’s a change in family circumstances or some emergency, um, we don’t evaluate and change numbers every year. You know, like some schools might use incremental scholarships or whatever.
Um, we’re not into that really. We, uh, we want to be able to plan our budget over a four year cycle and, um, generally don’t change those numbers too much, but everyone has kind of a. Scholarship here. That’s, that’s the model we’re using now. You might call me in three years and we have a six foot German on the , but right now we do not.
And uh, we get great kids in Maryland and Northern Virginia and our sort of recruiting footprint in the mid-Atlantic is loaded with good players.
Matt: Oh, absolutely. Well, Talking about the Mid-Atlantic, you guys are kind of up there in, in the western part of Maryland and there’s, like I said, folks probably not familiar with Frostburg.
So let’s learn a little bit more about the school and like you say, you’re an alum, so you, and you’ve been there for a number of years, so you can give us probably some, some great insights. What are some really nice things about Frostburg that we may not know just by going through the website.
Coach: So, you know, we’re a regional state school, a small, small college [00:15:00] town environment.
You know, one of those college towns that doubles in size when the students arrive, you know, e every fall. Um, it’s, we’re, we’re in the el we’re in the mountains of western Maryland, but that’s such a relative term. We’re, as I sit here, 2000 feet elevation on campus. The mountains around us are not even 3000.
So we have a ski resort nearby that has about 800 feet of skiable terrain and people out west will will laugh at that, of course. You know, with the 14,000, 12,000 foot peaks they have out west, but it definitely is a, uh, it definitely feels like the mountains when you’re here. You know, we got hills around here and ski resorts and the change of seasons is very noticeable here.
The fall colors are awesome. We have a terrific, uh, turf stadium that at, at a lot of schools our size of courses used by most sports. That use the, the, the rectangular field. So we share with men’s soccer, of course, in field hockey and football. We just upgraded it with a fantastic stadium structure, you know, v i p seating, and we have l e d lights in there and we have upgraded our turf.
And we have a fantastic state of the art locker room here. So moving to division two has been awesome because we’ve cranked up the, uh, the commitment to. You know, both in terms of resources, physical resources, and scholarship resources. And so, um, you know, we’re in kind of a high growth mode right now in athletics and that, that, that change has been really fun.
Matt: Oh, that’s awesome. Well, the other side of the coin is the academics, right? So, um, how do your student athletes really balance their, their studies with their sport activities, and what kind of support [00:16:30] systems does the school have in place to help?
Coach: So one of the interesting things about moving up to de uh, to division two is that we are actually allowed to now fund and have, um, student support personnel in the athletic department working directly with students, which has been awesome.
Now, I’m not. It’s no surprise to probably people that will listen to this, that women’s soccer players are awesome. They’re great students. We had a recruiting class last year. Eight of the nine girls had four Os. You know, the one girl had a three nine high school, three nine. And we joked how she had to get her act together, you know?
Um, so. It’s a chicken and egg thing with soccer, I’m sure we could discuss at length, but we, we, most of our players, the light is on, so to speak, in terms of their commitment and motivation to do well in school. So our main thing, obviously, when they change to a college environment is to just make sure they have good habits, right?
They, we wanna make sure they’re, we make ’em attend every class here. We, we, we make sure that they, uh, obviously are putting in study hours and we, we require that of the first year players once they’ve sort of proven themselves as, as student athletes, as students. Then we kind of lay off the sort of higher maintenance program in the, in the spring semester.
And by year two, they’re gonna be mentors to, you know, incoming freshmen the, the following year. One of the things I’m probably most proud of in 21 years, we’ve lost three players here for academic reasons in 21 years. And I’m still not happy about those three frankly. So, um, we had like a three 17 GPA last year, which was, frankly, really high.
Even for us, we, we usually shoot for 3, 4, 3 5. So I’m, I’m happy to work with Fantastic. [00:18:00] Committed student athletes and, um, they do very well here. We were founded as a, as a teacher’s college. We still, training teachers are still the best thing we do. We have a fantastic new nursing program and a state-of-the-art, uh, health sciences building that’s coming online literally in like five weeks from now.
So that nursing enrollment will really grow. Um, a lot of our students are involved in human physiology biology, but then the other third of our team could be doing almost anything. We’ve had art business communications, philosophy. English. We’ve had some lawyers, um, you know, who did like, uh, political science and pre-law.
Um, so there’s really nothing you can’t do here and still play soccer. Um, they, the girls know I live some distance from campus, so we never wake ’em up before classes . So we don’t do a lot in the morning. We, we like to train in the early afternoon. We always like to train before dinner and get that, get our session in before, uh, night fall, which is nice.
But we do have lights. We have night practices sometimes in preparation for night games. But I think it’s a perfect environment where we can train in that Division One model, we have those eight hour weeks where we can train the players in the off season. We can play real games in the spring, which is an awesome change.
Probably the best change from division three to division two is being able to train the players much more and have those spring games. The girls wanna play in the spring. We’re all recruiting players who are playing 30 games in the spring and training twice a week, and they get to college. That’s what they want to keep doing.
So it’s really nice that in the D two model, we’ve been able to train the players more and just get more growth and more value for them out of that spring experience, which has been awesome. [00:19:30] Of course, in the summer, everyone’s on their own. When we encourage ’em to play on local teams, a lot of adult teams have popped up all over the country, so that’s been.
Matt: Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s all. That’s great. Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the team itself. Is there a roster size that you find as ideal that you’re trying to hit every year?
Coach: So my, my, you know, we say 25 to 28, you know, we, you know, 32 is our absolute max. We have 32 lockers and we can train 32 players and equip and travel 32 players.
We do not do a travel roster. Everyone’s on one team. We don’t do developmental teams or JV teams, whatever you call ’em. So the last year we did start at 32 this year because we had a small senior class. We started around 20. I think we had 26, 25. So, um, that was a perfect number with just two goalkeepers.
So I think next year our projection is 29 30. I, I really don’t want to go much higher than that. I’m glad I’m at a school that isn’t requiring me to, to really, you know, do more than that. Um, We don’t wanna do a travel roster, we don’t wanna run a JV team here. Um, I’m hoping that doesn’t ever happen to us, but, um, it is nice that everyone on our team does everything every day and travels to every game.
And, uh, I like it that way a lot.
Matt: No, that’s, that’s tremendous. Well, what about, uh, staff? How big is your staff? What role does everybody play?
Coach: So I’m fortunate enough to have a full-time assistant position, and I have a, and then I have a, a third coach as a GA position. So right now our full-time assistant is our goalkeeper coach, Erica Keel, and she’s got great experience and, and has been awesome.
Um, the GA um, right now [00:21:00] is also helping out with facilities, but she’s, uh, she’s a recent player, you know, who’s also been awesome. Sort of that liaison role, you know, with the players and really kind of helping the players. She helps with our study hall and we all do scouting together and, and do a lot of recruiting together.
So, um, that’s been helpful. But having the full-time assistant position has been awesome. You know, sometimes we fill it with two GA’s, depending on how the applicant pool goes, but we, we do have a full-time position and I have it full. Uh, you know, it is filled now and, uh, I’ve enjoyed that obviously very.
Matt: That’s great. Well, let’s talk about your kind of style of coaching team style of play and, and just that overall culture of the team. What’s that look like?
Coach: So obviously, um, you know, we could talk all day about, about culture. You know, we, we clearly won players that, you know, let, lemme tell you, lemme put it this way.
At the beginning of the year, I put three questions up on the board, or I, sometimes I make a sticker out of it. And the questions are, do you love the game? Are you com a competitive college soccer? And then can you put the team first? Those are the three questions and uh, we don’t always talk about those at that first meeting, but those are the three things that we’re, we’re trying to do.
We, we obviously want our players to be committed to being the, the best student athletes they can be during their four year experience here, if they don’t really love the game and love coming out to train every day. Obviously , they’re gonna have troubling in a college soccer environment where they’re gonna play more than they ever have, you know, in their lives.
Um, and then putting the team first is important. A lot of players. I think the biggest shock [00:22:30] to college soccer athletes is, um, the idea that they may not play much. You know, when they get to college, they’re kind of starting over. You know, earning their way. Um, and if you have a mature team that’s just kind of reloading every year and, and, and, and kind of, you know, progressing with a, an experienced coach or coach that’s at least been there long enough to have some recruiting cycles, it’s gonna be hard to make that starting lineup, you know, as a first year player.
So, um, You know, you’ve gotta be patient and you’ve, you’re, you’re often tested to just, again, your commitment to, uh, your development and your, and, and strengthening and, and becoming a smarter player as well as, you know, being patient, putting the team first and, and, uh, realizing that. You’re gonna have to fight your way up that depth chart, you know, pretty quickly.
So I think it’s important for coaches to be honest about that. Where are you on the depth chart? What do you need to do to get there? Who, you know, who are the players that you’re competing with, and what kinds of things do you need to do better than them? Um, I think just having an open. Honest, you know, communication, you know, process with the players is important.
We make ’em come in for meetings, even when, when they don’t want ’em sometimes to make things very clear to them about what’s happening to them and explain why. And, uh, and, um, and we, we hope that I, I think that’s been very helpful. Of course, over the years.
Matt: No. Well, coach, I could talk to you for hours, but, uh, don’t wanna, don’t wanna keep you here longer than I need to.
So I always like to end these the same way, which is what didn’t we talk about? We covered a lot of ground, but is there any other areas you wanna discuss or things you wanna reiterate? Whether it’s recruiting the, about [00:24:00] Frostburg, about the team or anything else? I’m, I’m gonna leave you with the last word here.
Coach: I would just, you know, encourage folks watching this video that are in, interested in recruiting to just ask the, the, the smart questions, you know. How do you expect me to do here if I decide to come play for you? You know what, what do you really want? You want a prediction about your, what your competitive experience is gonna be like.
It’s amazing to me how many recruiting visits I end and they don’t ask that question. I said, w are you curious about the recruiting class and our roster and how you might fit in? And what do you expect to happen to me when I come here? You gotta ask those direct questions if you want, if you want answers.
So be, be prepared when you talk to coaches and visit schools and ask for the questions you really want.
Matt: It’s tremendous advice. Coach. Really appreciate it. Wish you the best of luck, uh, in this recruiting cycle and getting ready to reload next season. And if you’re at the Coach’s Convention in Philly here in January, be sure to swing by and say hello.
Would love to meet you in person.
Coach: I will. And hopefully we have a good World Cup story to tell then.
Matt: Uh, let’s hope. Let’s hope. All right. Take care, coach. Thank you.
