Grand View University Men’s Soccer – Coach Matt DeBoer
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Matt from the Grand View Men’s Program in Iowa. We talk about what their recruiting timeline is versus Division 1 schools. He describes the benefits of being a small school in a major metropolitan area. Lastly, we discuss how they manage a fluid rosters of two teams. Learn more about Grand View University Men’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to discover college soccer today. I’m lucky enough to be joined by coach Matthew DeBoer from Grandview in Iowa. Welcome coach. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Thanks for, thanks for being here. Um, I’m on a, I’m on a Midwest, uh, streak here. I think I had two Kansas, uh, most recently, and now we’re shifting gears to Iowa, um, place for soccer.
That’s right. That’s right. Well, it’s June 14th, you know, uh, as we’re talking. So tomorrow is a big day for, for all the kids hoping to get those, uh, D one D two calls you guys are NAIA. So just out of curiosity, in terms of your recruiting calendar, do you guys look Are you looking at all at the 26s and trying to have those conversations?
Or are you almost, you know, a hundred percent 25s at this point?
Coach: Yeah. So, um, you know, the nice thing or not nice thing about NAIA is that we don’t follow any of those calendars. If there’s a five year old I like, I could offer them. So we have, we have different rules. And, you know, in our office, we talk quite often about how, you know, D1s eat first, right?
D1s eat first, and then we, we go after, you know, the people that we think, you know, were left behind or, or the people that didn’t get the offers that they were hoping for. Right now it’s 2025 and [00:01:30] honestly, we’re still looking at possibly another 2024. Um, we’re always looking, um, NAI is typically have these bigger rosters.
We carry first teams and second teams, you know, smaller schools need their numbers. Um, but 2025s are the primary focus at this time. Um, We’re still looking at 2026 is mostly local kids. Um, we’re not going way out to look for 2026 is around the country. We’re not looking at 2026 is for our international recruiting.
Um, but we are looking locally. Um, you know, I, I handle a lot of the, the local recruiting here, um, going to high schools and clubs and, and seeing those kids and, you know, we have an ID camp next Saturday. Um, um, So eight days from now, um, where we’re going to have hopefully a lot of 2026 is so we can kind of start talking to them and meeting them and getting to know them as people, as well as soccer players.
Matt: Well, you mentioned the internationals and obviously that’s always a big component in, um, in AI, uh, it seems these days and I’d say looking at your roster, maybe it’s 50, 50 ish split or something. So, so how do you do your international recruiting versus domestic? How do you make those decisions? What kind of goes into that whole thought process?
Coach: Yeah. So at the NAI level, um, just because of the way the recruiting The rules are written for recruiting. Um, it’s hard to succeed without bringing in our international players. Um, the biggest reason is because of the age requirement, um, for D ones and D twos. [00:03:00] Um, we don’t have that age requirement. So for instance, we had a 26 year old freshman last year.
Right. So it’s a man’s game in the NAIA. It’s a lot older players. Um, so you kind of need some of those older international players if you want to survive. Um, now with that being said, there’s plenty of good Americans here. And we, we value that. That’s why our roster is about 50 50. Um, whereas you see a lot of NAIA schools are a hundred percent international.
Um, there’s very few NAIA schools that are primarily American. Um, you see, you know, Columbia college and they’re very American and, and they’re doing great things. I mean, they’re consistently ranked in the top 25, but we like our balance. Um, in terms of how we recruit our internationals, it’s a lot of conversations with agents.
Um, almost every single one of those international players has an agent or works with an agency, um, to get. Noticed, uh, to, to spread their information out. Um, something that we’ve shifted towards in this last year is, you know, before we, we looked at. Basically all internationals. And we still do, if it comes across our desk.
Um, but the big thing we’ve shifted towards is going after international transfers. Um, in years past, we’ve grabbed quite a few first time international players. Um, in our experience, it works out sometimes, but a lot of times, um, It takes a while for players to get comfortable with how the game’s played here.
The game’s played differently in every country in the world. And our country is no different, especially at the college level. It’s a little bit more direct, um, at times. And, and, you know, [00:04:30] you grab kids from, I’ll throw out Sweden or wherever, and they come over and it takes them at least a year to get comfortable with that.
And sometimes they can’t understand it. And sometimes they never get it. Some guys transition right away and they’re like, Whatever you need coach, you know, cause yes, we want the technical good players, but we need them to be able to play a certain way at times. Um, yes, we want to play pretty at grand view, but we also recognize that there’s going to be games where we can’t mess around with in the back, everyone’s pressing high because of the subbing rules.
So. You know, these transfers come in, they go to Juco’s or other schools, and we can see how they’ve played in this country, in this style of play, we can see if a coach, you know, wanted to play them. We could see how much success their team had. If they’re a forward or attacking player, we can see the production they had.
So. It’s nice having them in the country, seeing that they can manage the school, um, with the soccer. Um, they’re not getting too homesick, all of these things. And then on the flip side with our local kids, um, most of our domestic recruiting is Iowa kids. Um, I, I truly believe that Iowa is kind of an untapped recruiting area.
Um, since I’ve gotten here, we started grabbing more and more Iowa kids and they’re starting to play more and more for our first team. And there’s a lot of talent here. The big difference is they, a lot of them need a year. Right with our second team, they need a year of development. We red shirt, a lot of them, um, they just need to get used to playing against men, um, cause you know, they’ve been playing high school soccer and I love our high school soccer here in Iowa.
I think it’s [00:06:00] fantastic. Um, and they’ve been playing club and I think that’s fantastic what they’re doing at, you know, sporting Iowa and the VSA club here, but they still need that year of playing against men of, you know, speeding up their play, being a little bit more physical. And then from there, a lot of them really bloom into great players.
Matt: Well, when you’re looking at those domestic players, kind of what events do you like to go to? Where do you like to go to look at players? You even mentioned high school. How important is high school soccer to what you guys are doing?
Coach: So, uh, the first thing is I love going to high school games. Um, there’s something.
Different about high school. There’s a camaraderie amongst the players, right? Because you’re playing for your school, you’re playing for your community. Um, and it’s, it’s different than club. There’s a little bit more of an ownership in, in the playing. So I love going to high school games. I love seeing the passion from the fans and the players and, and seeing how much they love playing for their high schools.
Um, so I go to. I see every team in the Des Moines metro. Most of the teams in Iowa play, um, every spring. ’cause that’s when the high school season is here. Um, we go to showcase events here and there, but we don’t do tons of it, um, unless there’s a player we really want to go see. Right. We don’t make a trip out to, to Vegas or Denver, like a lot of a lot of teams do to go watch some of these showcases.
Um, that’s pretty rare for us. Um, we go to a lot of ID camps. Um, that’s a big thing for us. We, we host our own, right. But like last week I was at Drake’s [00:07:30] ID camp and, um, you know, I’ve gone out to Omaha and I’ve gone, you know, to various places down to Kansas city and I’ve been to Chicago recruiting, but we don’t venture out too far.
Our market really with how the scholarship structure at our school works and with how we’ve found that kids tend to go recruiting wise is. The Iowa kids. I mean, that’s the biggest thing for us. Yes, we will grab other kids if they’re interested and we like them and we can get them in. But the majority of our domestic kids come from Iowa.
Um, there are, you know, a few from Minnesota here and there. There’s a few from Missouri here and there, but most of them come from Iowa. So we, we get them at our ID camps. We get them by watching high school soccer. We go to some of their club events. Um, and that that’s the majority of it.
Matt: Okay. Well, whether it’s at an ID camp or at an event or anything else, high school game, kind of what makes up that hierarchy of things you’re looking for in a player, whether that’s on the field attributes or off the field stuff.
Coach: Yeah. So starting on the field, um, the athleticism is what pops, right? The athleticism of a player is what pops out to you right away. How quick are they? How physical are they? How big are they? Um, You know, high school soccer. I love it. But once you get to the college level, you know, you’re not playing against a six foot center back at the level.
Usually there’s six, five beasts, right? So if you’re a striker, how can you handle, um, that physicality up there? How can you handle getting bumped with some contact? The midfield is very physical. How can you handle, um, controlling the ball while people are putting a shoulder into [00:09:00] you? Um, so that physical ability is first.
Thing that I noticed from there. I can, I can hone in, you know, how, how crafty are you technically? I’m not looking for you to be a superstar dribbler. We don’t want you to do that. We want you to be able to control a ball easily, get out of traffic and move it right. How good are you at playing two touch soccer?
If you can do it very fast and very efficiently, there’s a spot for you on our roster. Um, in terms of personality, there’s a lot of different players out there. Right. And there’s a lot of different personalities that can make a good soccer player. I don’t need the loud player, but I like the loud player at times, right?
Depends on your position. It depends who you are, right? What I’m looking for is someone who’s humble, who’s coachable, and who wants to work hard. That’s the biggest thing when it comes to the mentality and makeup of a player for me. Um, if you’re willing to work hard and you’re coachable. And then you have the ability and athleticism that goes with it.
You’re going to be a good college soccer player. Um, if I come up and have a conversation with you, you know, can you hold a conversation? Can, do you show interest that, that those things are big for me? You know, I’ve talked to kids in the past where, you know, they’re, All they’re thinking is D one, right?
And I get it. You know, kids want, want to go D one and want to play at the highest level they can. I get it. But don’t blow off a coach because he’s not the D one because if you don’t get that D one offer, you know, I’ve talked to seniors and they haven’t got that D one offer yet. And you know, time runs out and [00:10:30] all of a sudden they’re calling.
And you know, usually if it’s a kid we really like, we’re going to, we’re going to open the door anyways. But you know, there are coaches out there that’ll shut that door and be like, the kid wasn’t interested. I’m not, I’m not meeting him halfway. Right.
Matt: Yeah, no, it makes sense. Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the school.
Uh, folks, you know, maybe not be familiar with Grandview. You’ve, you’ve been there a few years now, kind of give me the, the awesome things, uh, about the school, maybe some things we wouldn’t even know by going through the website.
Coach: Yeah. So, uh, my favorite thing about Grandview is where we’re located. It’s Des Moines, Iowa.
Um, a lot of people probably aren’t familiar with Des Moines, uh, smaller city, but it’s, it’s a metropolitan area of just under a million people. Um, and that, that’s a big, you know, pull for us when it comes to recruiting, because if you look around, you know, the landscape of college soccer outside of the really big schools, a lot of the smaller schools are located in really small towns.
You know, and for some people that’s great, you know, for me and a lot of the coaches in this coaching staff, the reason we’re here at first was because we wanted to have a city to live in, um, while we, you know, do what we do and coach this game that we love. Um, it’s nice to be able to balance your, your work life and your personal life a little bit.
And it’s the same for our players, you know, Being able to go to a concert or go to a sporting event. We have a lot of like semi professional teams here. There’s lots of concerts. There’s all the different food options you could ever want. And it’s nice to be able to, you know, leave campus and go somewhere other than the McDonald’s.
So, [00:12:00] um, You know, being in Des Moines was the biggest thing right away for me. And I think it’s, it’s a big attraction for a lot of our recruits is, you know, the life outside of, of campus, um, on, in terms of on campus, you know, it, it’s a great community. Um, the people are great. And I tell people all the time, the most important thing in anything.
Is the people you work with the people you’re around. And I think the people in Des Moines and people at grand view are amazing. Um, our athletic programs across the board in just about every sport are very successful. Our wrestling teams won like 11 national championships. Our football team is consistently a contender.
Um, you know, our men’s volleyball team won a national championship a couple of years back. Men’s and women’s soccer teams are very competitive. Our women’s basketball team does well. Our track and field teams do very well. Um, you know, across the board, athletics are supported. Um, and they are looked at as something that is very important for our university.
So they give us the resources we need to be successful.
Matt: Well, speaking of being successful, you know, for international kids, especially, but also the, the domestic freshmen coming in to start, you know, it can be difficult to be successful both on the field and the classroom. So what, what support systems does the school offer to help?
You know, students really make sure they are successful, both off the field and on the field.
Coach: You know, every sports team has an academic advisor who’s there to kind of support, uh, all the players on that roster. You know, some rosters are really [00:13:30] big. Our roster is large. Uh, footballs is very large. So that can be a lot.
So outside of that academic advisor, who’s there, you know, just to support that one team, um, you know, there’s different, I don’t know, we don’t call them study tables, but there’s different like Tutor options for students that, that need that support. We also have someone who’s constantly monitoring grade checks and sending them out to the coaches all the time.
So, you know, that’s one of my responsibilities is I get those emails and I go have those conversations. And sometimes those conversations are, Hey, what’s going on in this class? Are you, are you just, you’re not going, you, you struggling with the material and, you know, From there, I can, you know, work with them to see what they need.
Sometimes it’s, I just don’t get the material. Sometimes it’s coach, the teacher talks fast. My English isn’t that great. Um, and I’m struggling with, with that material. Um, and in that case, we, we set up a call with that, that professor, we talk through it, we see what they need. And oftentimes it’s just getting a tutor or working with another teammate on the team, who’s in the class and, and getting through it.
Um, because at the end of the day, Most of our kids are not going to go on to play professionally, right? Most of our kids are going to enter the business world or whatever field they’re in and become professionals in this degree is important. And that’s why they’re here is to get that degree. So we want to make sure they’re doing well in the classroom.
And, and we think we’ve done a pretty good job, but we do offer supports. If necessary, and the supports are there for whatever a student needs to help them.
Matt: Okay. Well, let’s [00:15:00] fast forward, uh, to, you know, a few months from now, you’re in the heart of the season, kind of walk me through what a typical week is going to look like for the players in terms of when practice and classes and meals and game cadence and all that kind of thing.
Coach: Sure. So, um, once we’re in the season, obviously preseason is a little different. We’re practicing a lot. It’s it’s heavy minutes, um, in the hot sun, doing a lot of fitness, doing a lot of things, um, but once we’re in the season, uh, we typically have two matches a week. Um, the first team is usually playing on Thursday and Saturday, um, or Tuesday, Saturday, just depending, I would say actually more often it’s Tuesday, Saturday.
Um, so that Monday, um, because we play on Tuesday, we had given them Sunday off. Uh, Monday is pretty. laid back in terms of practice. We’re going to, we’re going to meet before practice. We’re going to go over some film. Um, that’s going to take place at about three o’clock. They’re going to classes all morning.
They have their lunch. Maybe they have one more class. Some of them. Um, then. We meet, do some film, uh, talk about some things we happen to practice. Usually that film actually leads us into our practice. We, we work on a few things, no matter if our practice is light or if it’s heavy, everything is competitive.
Um, we, we, we think that’s very important that all practices are competitive. Um, even if it’s a walkthrough, uh, type of practice, we’re going to do some sort of competitive, um, activity Tuesday. We’ll, we’ll play that match. Um, if it’s home, we’ll. You know, have the kids go to [00:16:30] school. They’re going to class regardless, but they’re going to class after that.
Um, if it’s a home game, we’ll meet beforehand, uh, in the locker room. We’ll head to the field. Uh, we’ll play that match Wednesday. We will have a practice. That’ll be more high intensity for the guys who didn’t get minutes. Uh, we call it competition day. If you didn’t play a lot, prove to us why you should have, it’s going to be a very competitive environment.
Those guys who played heavy minutes, they’re going to do a regeneration session with one of the assistant coaches, you know, getting those legs back. Um, Thursday, uh, will be a hard session for everybody, uh, very competitive, working on things that we need to work on, uh, based on the previous game. Uh, and then Friday we’ll be more focused on our opponent.
We’ll do film again. Um, and we will gear that training session towards our upcoming opponent. Saturday, we’ll play that match. Um, depending on time, sometimes we have late games on Saturday, so we might get together as a group, um, just to make sure, you know, we’re all focused and we’re not doing whatever all over on Saturday.
Um, if it’s a morning game, we’ll meet before the game. Um, we’ll head to the field. Play the match Sunday. We typically give them off. Um, if you are on our second team, uh, it’s basically the same schedule except for Tuesdays and Saturdays being the games you’re probably playing Thursdays, Sundays.
Matt: Okay. Well, so with regards to that second team, you know, I guess what’s, what’s the overall roster size that you guys are typically going to have?
Uh, and does everybody train together? How does that or not? Or what, what [00:18:00] has that breakdown usually?
Coach: Yeah. So we train about 60 players. Um, our top 30 ish is considered our first team. Our bottom 30th 30 ish is considered our second team. Um, but it’s very fluid. Um, there’s a lot of movement up and down throughout the year.
Um, everyone trains together for the most part. Um, and. We’ll, we’ll grab two fields. We’ll have pretty much the same stuff going on every once in a while. We’ll, we’ll do things a little different, especially like if we have a game coming up, um, for the, the first team, they’ll go do some stuff and our second team will do a little bit more focused on what they need to work on, um, things.
But for the most part, trainings are very similar and they’re going on at the same time, um, typically that three 30 to five range, uh, time wise. Um, and like I said, it’s, it’s a very fluid roster. Um, Most of our travel teams, if we’re going on the road, it’s about 20 some, some guys get left behind the way we kind of make it out at the beginning of the season is we have our, you know, our first team starters.
And just because you start as a starter does not mean you stay there. There’s constant movement. Um, from there, we have a first team role player. Guys who come off the bench and then you have a first team roster spot, right? You’re on the roster, but you might not, you know, if it’s a way game, you might not be going right.
And then from there, it’s the same setup on the second year. You got your second team starters, your second team role players, your second team roster. So it’s kind of like a six tier system where we tell the guys, if you’re in this tier, you know, say your second team role [00:19:30] player shouldn’t be coming to the coaches right away saying, what do I got to do to start on the first team?
Your goal should be starting on that second team. You should always be trying to climb a level, right? Every week we’re reevaluating one through 60. We’re looking at where you belong on that six tier thing. Um, and where you belong on the roster. And from there determine how do I jump up? One level and from there, if I jump up one level, how do I impress enough to jump up one more level?
Um, until you get into that first team, you know, starting 11.
Matt: Well, speaking of rosters is there’s the staff side of it, right? So besides yourself, how many coaches are on the roster? What roles does everybody play and maybe what other support staff are within the athletic department that help out with the team on a regular basis?
Coach: Sure. So our head coach is David gross. Um, Younger head coach, fiery, awesome. Love working with David. I think he’s a rock star. I think he’s a rising star in this profession. Um, below him, we have, you know, coach Jono, Jono Rivera. Um, he has been with David for, I want to say this is going to be year eight. Um, together, uh, they were together at their previous school at Lyon college.
Um, another NAI school down in Arkansas. Um, actually just transitioning to D three now. Jono does a lot of the technology management. He does a lot of our stuff with our VO, our VO analytics. Um, he handles a lot of our off season stuff with the speed and agility, strength and conditioning. He’s [00:21:00] very great at all that stuff.
He handles, um, all of our regeneration sessions I was talking about earlier for guys with heavy minutes, he’s very good with human performance in the body and things like that. Um, you have me, um, I, you know, assist with the first team, just like Jono. Um, I also head coach our second team. Um, I handle a lot of our recruiting with coach David.
Um, he does primarily the internationals. I do most of the domestic, but then we do have some crossover, um, between our roles, um, we have a goalkeeper coach, AJ Thompson. Um, you know, he has another job, so, um, he is there when he can be it’s most days he’s there, um, but it’s only for, you know, his session with his goalkeepers.
Um, sometimes we do that before practice. Usually it’s during practice for the first 30, 45 minutes. Um, but he works specifically with the, you know, four or five goalkeepers on the roster, depending on how many are on that year. Um, we have Jacob Harvey. He is our graduate assistant. Um, right now, um, he’s a great graduate assistant.
If any, any coaches need a, a full time assistant in the near future, I would highly recommend Jacob Harvey. Um, he handles a lot of our film breakdown of, uh, opponents. Uh, he does a lot of scouting reports. He helps with training sessions. He assists me, um, with the second team games. He also is on the bench for the first team games.
Um, he’s a great trainer. Um, he helps training at practice. Um, we have a You know, in the past, we’ve had a couple of student assistants, uh, student assistants, more or less, just, they do a lot of the jobs that [00:22:30] aren’t exactly exciting, um, but they’re getting their feet wet in the profession, right? They’re, they’re, they’re trying to learn and, you know, they’re soaking up as much as they can.
It’s a lot of times it’s, you know, washing clothes and picking up pennies and shagging balls and stuff, but they’re around and they’re very helpful. Um, we have an athletic trainer, Jordan. Um, who’s specific to our team. Um, so he’s there to all of our events. Um, he’s, I’ve worked with quite a few athletic trainers in my life and he is by far my favorite.
He’s very personable. He’s great with the guys. Um, they know if they have something, they can go talk to him and he’s pretty, you know, honest with us with what his evaluation is and on, on different things and he’s great. And like I said, we have that academic advisor who comes and helps the team from time to time.
Um, and that’s pretty much the staff.
Matt: Okay. Well, coach have been generous with your time, really appreciate the introduction to the school and the program and on all you guys, uh, everything you have going on over there. So I’m going to just leave you with one last question, uh, for all the recruits and families of recruits that are out there listening or watching this.
If you had one piece of advice to give them as they’re going through that process, what would that be?
Coach: I’d say be open to all levels. Right. Um, there are D ones that are outstanding. There are D ones that struggle. There are D twos that are outstanding. There are D twos that struggle. There’s the same at D three Juco NAI.
There’s NAIs that’ll beat D ones. There’s D threes that’ll beat D ones. Um, you gotta find what’s most important to you. Um, is it the level of [00:24:00] competition? For instance, Grandview, we play in the heart of America conference in the NAIA. It is. Arguably the best conference in all of NAI soccer. It’s kind of like the sec for college football, you know, four of the last six national champions have come out of the heart of America and it’s three different schools.
And last year, the third place team in our conference won the national title. So if it’s the competitive environment. You know, look at their conference, look at their competition. If it’s just the level that might be the case, make sure you’re finding a school with the academics you want, make sure you’re finding one in the price range you want.
Um, you know, every school has different scholarship structures and different things they’re able to do. Um, Be very, you know, cautious of where they they’re bringing you, right? If they’re giving you a very small scholarship offer that the chances are that you’re probably not in their plans of their top 15, right?
So think through all those things. And if, if for you, it’s just, I want to play minutes, there’s schools for everybody. There is a school for everybody out there to go play. Um, but you just got to find what, what it is you want. If it’s to play at the highest level, whether you’re on the pitch or in your, on the training ground.
So be it, but if it’s to be on the field, make sure you’re realistic with where you want to go. Um, I’m not trying to limit anybody and where they, where they can go. I just want them to understand that, you know, sometimes. You know, there’s schools that, that offer kids just because they need someone to fill the back of the bench.
Right. And if, if that’s not what you want, make sure you’re honest with the coach and talking with them, because they’ll be honest too,
Matt: [00:25:30] absolutely. Well, coach really appreciate it. Thank you for the time. Wish you the best of luck in your upcoming season. And, uh, hopefully you’ll be one of those, uh, heart of America conference schools that, uh, bring home one of those national championships.
That’s the goal. I appreciate
Coach: your time.
Matt: Thank you.
