Georgia Gwinnett College Women’s Soccer – Coach Mike Giuliano
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Mike from the Georgia Gwinnett Women’s Program. We talk about how they have representation from 17 different countries on their roster. He describes how they are the newest public college in the United States. Lastly, we talk about how he makes sure his players know that he and his staff care about them not just as players, but as people. Learn more about Georgia Gwinnett College Women’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to discover college soccer today. I’m lucky enough to be joined by coach Mike from Georgia Gwinnett college, welcome coach.
Coach: I’m glad to be here. Thanks.
Matt: Thanks so much, Matt. Yeah. Thanks for being on. So we’re, we’re talking here. It’s, uh, early March, kind of the, the peak heights of the college showcase season.
Um, and, and so I’m just curious for you as an NAI program, what kind of, what is your normal recruiting calendar look like? I mean, and, and I understand that, Okay. FAFSA may, may make this not a normal year, but, um, are, are you done with 24 still looking at 24 has moved on to 25? Kind of, what is your standard calendar usually?
Coach: Well, so Matt, this is my, my fifth school in all five divisions that I’ve coached at. So, uh, each one of them has had a different calendar and this is a bit of a different calendar. We, we will this year have 17 countries on our team. We actually have 17 different nations on our team. And so, uh, the, our two primary markets.
Although we have plenty, our best players, uh, you know, just was a traditional high school senior, um, in the States and we have, you know, four or five other key players fit that demographic. Our, our, our, to our main, um, main demographics are international students, especially from Europe and, uh, transfers.
And so, as you know, Matt, probably I’m sure you know that, that those tend to be a little bit later in the process than most. And so we have four, uh, now, now five division one transfers on the team. That’s obviously [00:01:30] in November, December on, um, we have, as I said, 17 countries on the team. I’m just wrapping it up.
I’ve really likened this last couple of weeks. You know, we’ve been campaigning. If it was a political campaign, we’ve been campaigning forever and it was election week and it’s been crazy. And so I’m literally down to, uh, Uh, down to probably one defender for 2024 that I’m, I’m talking to, uh, and then the, the boss always says, if you find that 10 or 20 goal score late, you know, give me a call.
You can go over budget. So, so, uh, so yeah, our calendar tends to be a bit more like, uh, for the following year, a bit about November 1st. To March 1st, that tends to be our recruiting calendar for the next year, just because we don’t get, we don’t, uh, we don’t have a lot of traditional age, uh, freshmen. We have, we definitely have some, and there are some of our best players.
There’s no question. You know, the soccer IQ and the soccer quality is high in the States. And so we certainly want to recruit in Georgia is great for girls soccer. And, and, uh, my, my best player, I think the best defender in the country in our division is, is, uh, was a. DA player from back in the DA days, a DA player from here in Atlanta.
So, yeah, so that’s sort of our calendar. That’s sort of, uh, when we start and when we get wrapped up. Okay.
Matt: So, I mean, obviously with a lot of transfers and, and internationals, that’s a lot of looking at film more than anything else, but, uh, do you get your, do you get out to any of the showcases tournaments, are there places you like to be to see players?
Coach: I do, but, but not as much. And, and, you know, I thought about, you know, coming on here, what to say, I mean, [00:03:00] one of the things I’m most proud of, you know, Matt, I, you, you, you have a reputation for knowing that the college world quite well, you know, that the transfer portal is, is blowing up every year. I mean, this year.
Almost 2, 000. I mean, that’s just a stunning number to me. 2, 000 young ladies saying, not happy where I’m at. A few are graduate students, but many are not happy where I’m at. You know, I’m, I’m, I’m moving on and things like that. Um, and, and so one of the things we find, I think the thing we’re one of those products, we’ve never had a transfer Uh, from our program to another program that we have had Europeans get homesick and goal, but we’ve never had one transfer to another program.
And I think we treat them the right way. And of course, I make that I make that argument quite a bit on the front side, but we’re the newest university, the newest public university in America. We do things very differently, uh, ways that I can explain later. But, um, Many times, uh, what they’re intrigued with at this point as a, as traditional high school, uh, uh, juniors and seniors, they become really excited about once they’ve been in college for a year.
And so I don’t get out to, I probably get out to less events. I was at four last year, I think, uh, three. Three events and, uh, that I’ve got out to personally. So just not out as many times as many of the, uh, other programs I’m sure you’re talking to are getting out to. So, which I’m not complaining. I, it’s nice not to have a few weekends where I don’t, but like you said, my life is spent watching videotape after videotape, after videotape, I was literally doing that while we’re waiting for this call with you, a young lady from [00:04:30] Spain, trying to decide if she’s our, our final center back or not.
So.
Matt: Okay. Well, one of the Things a lot of schools are doing these days, though, is ID camps, but with international kids and and maybe transfer players, it’s not as easy. Do you guys do any ID camps? Is that part of your recruiting process?
Coach: The reason we the reason. Okay. First of all, Matt, if we, if we have a, if we have a sequel to this, we do this a year from now, the answer will be yes.
We literally have just made the very, very firm business decision and decision to actually start doing that on a more regular basis. But here’s one of the reasons we haven’t done that is. Okay. You might know the NAI has something that I think is actually, I don’t understand why everybody, I don’t care what division you’re looking at.
Doesn’t at least take advantage of, you can actually come train with us, uh, for free, you know, and, and it just comes sort of here, you’re playing with and against college players. Um, And there’s no cost and you can, you can find out the level of play, uh, Matt, you can imagine, um, I I’m not, uh, I’m not a bit of a yellow, I’m not much of a yellow and a screamer, but I can get quite worked up when a young lady says, well, coach, I’m a, you know, I’m, I’m a division two or, you know, uh, you know, medium level division one player.
I’m not really, you know, I probably, you can imagine. I very respectfully lose my mind when I hear that given our record against those two divisions. Um, but one of the ways to find out where you fit. Is to come and train with college players and so for literally free if you can sneak away on that day You can come train with us now.
We’re a morning training school. So that can be challenging but [00:06:00] Um, I think it’s a great opportunity. I thought matt. Honestly, this would be something we’d be having 40 40 a day Hasn’t quite worked out that way. So I think that’s why we’re going to the id camp world By this time next year, we’ll have quite a few so the problem is these kids as you know, matt They’re spending more money on id camps than they’re spending than they get back in scholarship money And, and, you know, and, and I, I have a young lady, you know, will tell me all the time.
Oh, I’m so excited. So and so, you know, just gave me a personal invitation to their ID camp. And I think that that’s great. That’s good for you. But you do understand that if you had never played the game in your life, they’re literally not allowed to keep you from their ID camp. So, in other words, I’m glad that they personally invited you, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re You know that you’re on their short list, but, uh, we will buy you for now.
But boy, we, we, uh, every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday morning. Uh, if, if you’re, if you’re a potential in any level of recruit. Um, I tend to, maybe you’re old enough, maybe you’re not, but I tend to use the, the dumb and dumber approach to recruiting, you know, they go, Oh, coach, I’m looking at D one, you know, and I just have one in a million chance.
I’m going to go to your school. I’m going, yes, you’re saying there’s a chance. So that’s all I want. And, uh, so, so we’ve had about, about, about nine out this season so far, but I thought it’d be a much bigger than that. That’s sort of the way we approach the ID camp situation. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt: Well, I mean, division two allows that.
And when I was a D two coach, that was kind of my, my mantra as well. It was well before the, well before ID camps were, were in, uh, were, were trendy, but, uh, but yeah, I understand. Well, whether it’s [00:07:30] at a practice or you’re watching film or, or any of these things, kind of what makes up. The hierarchy of things you’re looking for in a player, both on the field and off the field.
Coach: Yeah. So, so the second one is a big one for, but, but on the field, you know, I’m sure you get the same answers all the time, but we, we, we are, if, if you were, if you were a forward, Matt, and you said you had a daughter, your daughter was a striker and said, you know, Hey, coach, coach, coach, Mike, I’m just a real offensive striker.
I’m really not much into the defensive side of things. I’d have to tell her, thank you, but a wrong school to come to. We, you know. This is my 36th year at the college level as a head coach, and we have been obsessed about being the best high pressure team in our division every year. And so, one of the things we look for is mental involvement.
We look at what they’re doing when they don’t have the ball, what they’re doing right after they play the ball. Uh, man, it’s incredible to me how many players send us highlight tapes. That every time they pass the ball, they are standing there doing nothing after they pass the ball every single time. And that that’s a real concern to us.
And so we have to ask if it is an issue, are they teachable? And are they able to understand that we’re going to move after every time we pass the ball? And so, so, so that’s one of the things I look at. Um, so, so I’ve coached, I’m a bit unique in the fact that I’ve not only coaching every single one of the division, but I’ve also coached men for about half my career and women for half my career.
And I’m, I’m often asked what the differences are, but [00:09:00] there’s, there’s not that many, but one of the ones I say is that I learned that my men’s team could hate each other. And somehow come on the pitch and, and, and really get it done. My women’s team’s not so much, Matt. I mean, if they hate each other, we have a problem.
And so we really do. I just told a young lady the other day, she had seven offers in the first 24 hours of her videotape, getting out there. She’s from Netherlands. And I, she said, you know, you’re going to sort of be the eighth. I said, not until I talked to your coach, I want to know, you know, what kind of person you are as far as getting together, you know, you know, being a good teammate in, in, in that kind of way.
So we are putting increasingly more emphasis on, are you the right kind? Can you fit in a unit? Because we want to be the ultimate no drama team. I used to teach conflict resolution at the college level, and I have no interest in drama, uh, and you being a former college coach, you know, drama and college athletics go to hand in hand, but we’re trying to get that to be as little as possible.
Matt: Yeah, as, as you know, I coached, uh, I’ve coached guys and girls and I think you hit the nail on the head with, uh, with that. Absolutely. Well, let’s, uh, let’s shift gears a little bit, talk a little bit more about the school. I’m sure there’s folks not familiar, uh, with Georgia Gwinnett. So you, you, you’ve been there a few years now.
What do you find are some of the awesome things that maybe we won’t know even just by going to the website?
Coach: So, Matt, I mean, there are people in this town that don’t, you know, when you’re the newest public university in America, you’re going to have some people that don’t know who you are. And so, uh, we are, we are by definition, the newest public university in America.
Um, we went from zero in the last 14 [00:10:30] years, went from zero students to 12, 000 in 14 years. Uh, we’re, we’re, we’re busting at the seams. We’re doing really well. And part of this because we do college differently. In fact, our first president said, America doesn’t need another college and he’s a different kind of college.
So let me just give you 1 little example. Your daughter chooses us and she comes place for us and it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and she, um, she is struggling with calculus for a, for a exam. She actually has given a number here. She can call say I need a math tutor on the phone and for free 24 hours a day seven days a week She gets a tutor on the phone Well, there’s not many schools that are offering that for free and it’s just it’s just a very different kind of structure One of the things though is we’re one of the first schools to not require uh testing and so So so for some parents who who still believe they believe two things and i’m i’m sure some parents are watching your show and I’m just gonna i’m gonna shoot straight straight with you parents believe two lies That the more expensive you are the better you are always And the harder you are to get into the better you are always.
I mean, by that, the best education is going to be reserved for the wealthy. And it’s just not the way it is. And GDC sort of turned that on his head. We’re the most diverse college in the, in the Southeast United States. Four of my children are African Americans. I’m obviously comfortable with a diverse culture.
Um, we are a school that if you don’t have the scores, but you have a good case to make that you can handle it here, uh, you can make that case. And of course in the post COVID era, lots of people abandoned, you know, testing, but we abandoned it early because we thought that’s the case. But, but then again, Matt, [00:12:00] that goes back to, you know, the American, the traditional American, you know, the parent looks up and says that GGC is easier to get into.
They conclude wrongly. I would say, therefore, the education must be inferior in some ways. And so we’re also the least expensive college, a public university in South United States. If you are in one of the, Five Southern states around us. It’s a tuition amount of 5, 000 per year. Which, as you know, is a pretty low amount.
And again, as long as you believe that the more expensive a school was, the better it is. In fact, I was at the most expensive NAI school in the country, and I actually did the opposite. Well, you know, you get what you pay for. And so I actually made the opposite argument. But, uh, I’m all in here. I think this is a this is a really interesting experience.
Twelve thousand students, and yet a class size of twenty one. I mean, that’s just not, Those two don’t go together. And so love where I’m at love, love the sort of the experimental and quite effective nature of what they’re doing, uh, educationally here as well.
Matt: Yeah, it sounds, sounds cool. Well, in terms of the.
Typical day for, for an athlete during the season. So let’s rewind. Maybe, you know, we’re in October in the heart of the season, kind of walk me through what a typical week’s going to look like for the players in terms of when things are meals, classes, practices, games, all that stuff.
Coach: Sure. Well, so, you know, uh, we recruit a lot of skin naming country players.
Um, and, uh, they need to know that we’re looking at a very different weather experience in Georgia than they are what they’re used to. [00:13:30] And so we’re a morning training program, partially because of August. I mean, you take August out and Atlanta weather is fantastic. September, October, November. I, I coached in Chicago, believe me, I know.
Um, um, and so it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a challenge though in August. And so we do go, we do train in the mornings. It’s usually about, uh, right now it’s nine to 11th, uh, nine 30 to 11. Our weights will be an hour before then. And then we have a full time strength and conditioning coach. I don’t do a thing with weights, just like most programs these days.
And that, that is usually before, before all of that happens, Matt, they, um, Each student athlete will fill out a readiness survey. That all goes to one places coaches can see it because we need to know we need to be, you know, how sore are you, how, how tired are you, how homesick are you when you have so many players from so far away that’s going to happen in a decent amount.
And now that we’re to cancel training every day sometimes you just have to suck it up and go through it but that’s sort of our calendar we try, we, we have, you know, just like every other team you know two matches a week on average occasionally three, not very often, every now and then one. And we, we, I probably give a few more days off than many of the coaches you’re talking to.
When I was young, I thought we needed six hour training sessions, six days a week. And then I realized, you know what, you know, they quit listening to me after the first 30 minutes or so. So I, I, uh, uh, we try to keep our training sessions at 90 minutes exactly. And we try to, uh, we give them a few more days off just because they need that mental and physical break.[00:15:00]
College soccer is challenging to talk. College soccer is hard. And, and, uh, You know, we play because we’re unique in the sense that we’re all, we’re, we’re sort of an independent, we’re in a league, but we don’t have to play in the conference, the regular season. Uh, we’re free to play everyone. And so we’re very proud of the fact that, you know, the NAI, like everybody else ranks, their strength of schedule of all their teams, 214 teams, we’ve had the third, second, or first hardest schedule in the country every single year.
And, and so we’d rather lose a one nil game to a great team that, you know, our Semi final last year was, you know, we won 13 to nothing and I played my starters for about a third of the game. Uh, that’s not, it’s not fun to me. It’s not fun to the players. And so we, we try to play some tough teams. Yeah, that’s great.
Matt: Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the team. I know you mentioned, you know, 17 different nations on the roster, which is pretty, pretty unique and neat, but, but is there a roster size that you find is ideal that you’re trying to have?
Coach: So Matt, you’ve been doing this for a while. You know, that there’s basically there’s, there’s two kinds of schools, those that need athletics to.
Fund how many students they have. So those tend to have the forties and the fifties. I have a colleague that’s 50, uh, she’s told she has to have 55 players in the team at any one time, of course, that’s a JV team and a JV, JV team and everything else. We, they don’t need athletics here. We have six sports teams and we’re at 12, 000 students and just busting out.
So they don’t need us, uh, for students. So I’m free to have whatever size roster I want. You know, In my early coaching days, Matt, 11v11 in, in, in, you know, my first licensing and stuff, you don’t play 11v11 back then. That’s, you know, you don’t touch [00:16:30] the ball enough. Well, now we realize it also makes Soccer IQ and her soccer IQ.
And so we do want to do, you know, a few 11, the 11th throughout the week and things like that. And so I want to have, you know, 25 to 28 players is my average. I will be, I’ve been up as high as 30, 32, I think was my highest. Um, I try to be really direct on the recruiting size side so that there’s no surprises when they come in and they’re the fifth, you know, the fifth number nine, you know, um, you know, they need to know that, you know, That loses me some players, but it also keeps the culture here.
I think pretty solid. And so I’ve definitely lost players I really wanted, but I told her, I don’t think you’re going to play a lot your first year and here’s why they don’t want to hear that the recruits want to hear, Oh, you created the universe, the way you play. And so, you know, you will play 90 minutes here every day.
And, uh, I’m not, you know, I don’t think that’s, that’s the best for them or best for me to say those kinds of things. So. Yeah.
Matt: Okay. Besides a roster, you got to have staff to manage it. So tell me about your staff. What role does everybody play? All that good stuff.
Coach: Good stuff. So, uh, I’ll talk about 2024 staff, which is one addition.
We don’t have many people leave, but we have addition. So I have a full time, full time, uh, assistant coach. I consider her associate head coach. I think by I think on line, she’s an assistant coach, but that’s only a state of Georgia. Labeling thing. Um, she’s fantastic. She, she played division one, uh, soccer Cincinnati.
She, uh, Dree is, Dree is, uh, is a goalkeeper. So she’s, she does all our goalkeeper stuff. I know what I want our goalkeepers to do. [00:18:00] I just don’t know how to tell them how to do it, how to train it. So I say, Dree, I need this more. And then she always finds a way. Uh, we also have a club coach from the area that’s been with us for five years and the Trey will be back.
And then we’ve added, uh, Matt. Matt’s an interesting, if you’ve been around college soccer for a while, you might even know Matt, Matt Clark. Is, um, he coached a number of different colleges. He was, he was a big deal in Tony DiCicco’s goalkeeper camp for camps for a while. That’s where I met him. Uh, his daughter transferred here from division one school.
He just wanted her to have a better experience. She wanted to have a better experience. Um, definitely still getting playing time at the other school, but she just wanted a better experience and so she transferred here and then Matt sort of let slip one day, he’s sort of retiring from his regular job.
He’s just going to be working for WPSL and as a scout. And I said, well, that leaves you a lot of time. I said, so. What do you do? Why not come join us? So Matt will be joining us and he’s he has the ear of a lot of professional programs out there around the around the world. And so, you know, not many, not all of my players are going to be obviously of a professional level, but there are a few.
I have a Japanese player. I think, you know, if she can handle the rigors of, The size issue shedding. She’s a professional caliber player and some others, but, um, uh, so that, that would be, that would be my group. And then of course, in conditioning coaches, separate and athletic trainer and all of that as well.
Okay.
Matt: Well, I got to ask about you now, though, you, like you said, you, you’ve been coaching quite a number of years, all the different levels, men’s and women’s. So [00:19:30] when you put all that together, how do you describe kind of your coaching style and the style of play that you look to play?
Coach: Yeah, well, I think, I think the two things, okay, here we go, Matt, on a, on a discover college soccer.
com site. I’m about to use a coaching cliche. I’m so sorry, but I truly believe it’s, it’s true. I think they don’t really care what you know, if they don’t know that, if they don’t know that you care, I think at the end of the day, student athletes believing that I believe in them more than just their abilities as a footballer.
We don’t use the soccer word very often, just because we have so many internationals on the team. They don’t know what soccer is. So we use football a lot. Um, Uh, I think they know I care about them far beyond their ability on the pitch. And I think that really helps. But I think the other thing is this, I was a college professor, sort of a half and half for, for quite a while until I took the San Diego state job.
And, um, at the end of the day, I think that, that good coaching is good teaching. It’s just finding, we all know the game for the most part. How do you teach it in the most efficient and effective and interesting way possible? And sometimes you get a little crazy. We were trying to work on ball watching.
And so I was thinking it through. And so we said, Hey, let’s try this. Let’s let’s put a assistant coach in a pink jersey during our, our, our small sided stuff. And if that coach can sneak up on you from 10 yards behind you and tapping the shoulder, you got two quick pushups, just trying to get them to look off the ball.
And it was a weird thing. We did it for fun. And it worked. I mean, we’re so much a better non ball watching team than we were before. And so finding creative, [00:21:00] interesting, outside the box kind of ways to help the players understand the game, to grow their, to grow their, um, their soccer IQ. Um, I think, I think that’s, you know, if I’ve had any success, I think that’s, that’s part of it is I think, uh, we find creative, compelling ways to teach the game and we do it efficiently.
Because again, my old days, you know, 25, 27 years ago of, you know, the three hour practices, those Those don’t work. Those don’t work. And we’re, we’re well past those now.
Matt: All right. Well, like I said, we’re talking here in March. What does your spring, you know, non-traditional off season, whatever we wanna call it look like for your players?
Coach: Sure. We train Monday through Thursdays in the morning, and we have wait three times a week as well. Uh, just the other day they had the annual, uh, weight training, the annual, uh, CrossFit Murphy. Uh, uh, training. So they’re, they’re all, I think they’re sleeping off spring break right now because they’re so tired from the Murphy.
Um, but, uh, we train four times a week and we have, uh, you know, like everybody else, I, I’m sure you know this, you know, there’s not many playing dates opportunities. So we only have three, three and a half. If you count the, the alumni game chance to play. And so we, um, uh, we’re going to play, we play, we play a deal on seven aside coming up and then we’ve got a D two game coming up, uh, as well.
And, um, And then we play, uh, uh, you, uh, not surprisingly, UGA has a, has a club team that actually is quite good just because there’s a lot of kids these days that say, you know what, I’m good. I’m done with soccer, but I want that big football experience. Well, you know, [00:22:30] UGA is pretty big football experience.
And so I was shocked when I saw their club doing, I thought, wow, okay. Any of you want to transfer and just go on the weekends to go watch your, to watch your, uh, uh, beloved Bulldogs play. Um, so, so that’s sort of our schedule for the spring and we’re about halfway through and, and, uh, on spring break right now and they’ll be back and we’ll be getting after it.
Matt: Okay, well, I appreciate all the time. I got 1 last question for you. And like I say, you got lots of experience to draw from. But if you could boil it down, if you could give me 1 thing that you would want to make sure any college recruiting perspective player. Uh, should know going through this process, what would that be?
Coach: Here’s the thing I would say, and I’ll make it specific, but, um, you know, the, the glory of, so I was, I was a, I was a professor and a coach at a NAI school. When I took the San Diego state job as a full coach. And my, my president called me and said, I’m going to talk you out of it. I said, okay, let’s, let’s go.
And, and he said, well, how can you leave the teaching profession after just becoming a full professor? And I said, I don’t think I’m leaving the teaching profession. I think I’m actually going to one of the most dynamic teaching professions there is. And I said, what athletics gives you is a chance to practice life’s most difficult challenges when the stakes are relatively small, you know, being cheated out of something, you know, uh, being treated unfairly, you know, things like that, all sorts of things, you know, referees that I know they never make that decision, but occasionally make decisions and learning with that.
And so my challenge is, is this, is that the student athletes that I know that have gone on to have [00:24:00] enormous, both soccer careers and, and careers after they, they accepted the good and the bad. My biggest concern about the prevalence of the transfer portal now. Matt is it, you know, I can look at a student athlete funny and they’re going, that’s it, I’m out of here.
I’m going somewhere else. And I don’t think it’s the end of the world to transfer someplace. And there, there are some coaches you shouldn’t probably play for. I think what the successful footballers or any college sport, they, they are, it was okay, that was a rough season, but I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m in, I’m in and let’s, let’s, let’s fix this for next year.
Or that was a rough couple of weeks and, and those that dealt with adversity best on the pitch. Tended to deal with adversity best as they moved on in life. And so that would be my is don’t run the other way. The first that the first sign of opposition, you’re about to come to a place. Every single one of these young ladies was a star in high school, every single one.
And you know, you, you were the star of your, of your club team and the star of your, your high school team, and now you’ve had to come with, you know, 26 others who could say the same thing. And so it may not go well for you first day. Don’t don’t run. Don’t run. Stay and learn about yourself and learn about dealing with adversity.
And that will make you a better footballer and will make you a better person. That’s would be my argument to them.
Matt: Amen. Amen. All right. Well, coach really appreciate it. Uh, wish you the best of luck here, finishing off the spring and getting after it again in the fall. And if you get down to any recruiting events down here in Florida, give me a shout.
All [00:25:30] right. I sure
Coach: will. I sure will, Matt. Thanks so much for the chance to come on. Thank you. Thank you.
