Los Angeles City College Men’s Soccer – Coach Andrew Janderson
In today’s episode, I speak with Coach Javier from the Los Angeles City College Men’s Program in California. We talk about how he uses free clinics in the area as a recruiting tool. Coach also shares about their school schedule that includes a condensed amount of games. Plus, we discuss his good staff that helps across all facets of the team. Learn more about Los Angeles City College Men’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today I am lucky enough to be joined by Coach Jer at Los Angeles Community. Is it community college or city college? City College. City College, right. Sorry, I, I’ve done so many of these. And CC is always community college, but not in your case. This is Los Angeles City College.
All right. Well, thanks for jumping on. Um, I know you guys just kind of wrapped up the regular season, right? Yes.
Coach: LA last night was actually our last. Conference game. Um, we move on to the conference tournament, which starts on Friday, the quarterfinals, and then semi-finals and, and final our next week.
Matt: Okay.
So we’re sitting here talking early November. How much of your day at this point in the season is recruiting versus managing the, the current season?
Coach: Um, a good. One, five to 30%, you know, because I start getting emails, [00:01:00] I start getting texts, I start getting calls from different players that are interested in joining us.
And so they, you know, I mean, some of them want to join, um, early in the spring. You know, some of them are still in high school. So ideally we want guys showing up, um, you know, they’re transferring or they’re coming from, from. You know, a university or anything like that coming in with us in, in February. So,
Matt: okay.
Well that, that makes sense. What, um, where is it that you like to, to get your players from? Are there tournaments that you go to or are you doing a lot of international work? What’s that look like for you guys?
Coach: I’m all over the place. Um, international is harder for us, mainly because, you know, we’re hard, we’re in the heart of Hollywood.
And so to get a player to come here, it’s probably affordable. In terms of tuition, we’re only [00:02:00] like $10,000. Uh, you know, I mean, it’s an outta state tuition, whether they’re from out of the state or out of the country. But what’s expensive is the living expenses. You know, to live in Hollywood, you’re looking at cheap, cheap rent, about maybe a thousand dollars a month.
You know, that’s if you’re just getting a room right, you know, and then not includes expenses like transportation, food, and whatnot. So that $10,000 tuition goes into maybe close to 20,000 in terms 20, 25,000 in terms of what you’re gonna spend coming to la And obviously we’re a community college in California.
We don’t offer scholarships. So that becomes tough for, for any international, uh, player unless their goal is to be in LA maybe, you mean, I think it would be an investment for them, mainly because of the quality of soccer that we have here, [00:03:00] the quality of life and, and, and just the opportunities here in Los Angeles.
Um, most of my players are from the area. Most of my players are from the community. They, they either, we know them from high school. I have assistant coaches who are at, uh, at local high schools in LA and all over the southern area. I got a coach that’s out in La Puente. I got a coach out, but in Southgate, coach in Downey.
You know what I mean? So I got coaches spread out. That helped me bring players that they see and players that they develop as well. Um, and, but the community itself is where we, we look for, you know, sometimes we’ll go check out the local leagues on Sundays and, and, and see what we can spot something.
Somebody that hasn’t played and, and wants to get a college education, so.
Matt: [00:04:00] Oh, that’s fantastic. Well, do you guys do ID camps or do you and your staff work other ID camps? Are they part of your process at all?
Coach: Yes, we do. We do. We actually host free clinics for, um, high school and adults that are interested in, in playing college.
Um, you know, we can advise them and help them out. Um, we can’t, in our setting, we can’t really charge. So because we’re hosting it, so it’s, it’s always free to, it’s a free clinic just to train as a college athlete. And, you know, we can tell, we tell a lot of them where their level stands and kind of, kind of their needs, what they have, what they might need.
Um, and we try to guide people that come to us, you know, and where we can send them in order to develop and in order for us to be able to. You know, guide ’em in this journey of playing, uh, college soccer, university soccer, and maybe even going pro.
Matt: Yeah, no, that’s [00:05:00] great. Well, whether it’s at one of these clinics or a high school game or, or anything else, kind of what makes up the hierarchy of things that you’re looking for in a player both on and off the field.
Coach: Uh, athleticism is key, you know? We, uh, the community college level in California is really, really demanding. You know, we’re coming off of playing, uh, right now we’re at 21 games we have played since August, and it’s demanding on the body. Uh, guys gotta be fit. And it is not just for the gameplay, because obviously the, the speed of the game is faster than high school, faster than club.
Um. It’s just demanding in terms of, you know, we’re training six days a week. Your body has to last, and if you come in, um. A little overweight, not, uh, not up to par in terms of conditioning, [00:06:00] because you’ve only been training twice a week, three times a week with club, or your high school doesn’t really do any of this physical, uh, conditioning, and you’re not ready, you’re not ready for it.
You know, and then you gotta play against men. You know, guys that are. 21 years old. They’re strong. They’re, you know, they’re fit, they’re, they’ve been doing weight training and, you know, they finally developed to be a college player. So it, it’s, we’re looking for a, a player that’s gonna be able to withstand all that, because that’s where a lot of players get hurt.
They get beat up and just, they look scared sometimes because, you know, you grow up playing with just your age group. It doesn’t compare when you show up and, hey, we have a, we have a 26-year-old in our team, you know, and, you know, 27-year-old and or a guy that’s 6 4, 6 3, you know, you, [00:07:00] you know, it, it’s so variable in terms of, of physicality and, and the demands that the, this game needs.
Matt: Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, it’s, you know, since you’re a two year program, you’ve gotta recruit. Twice as much as, uh, a four year program and, and roster sizes can always be, um, fluctuating. Yeah. Um, what, what, what is the roster size that you find is ideal that you’re trying to hit each year?
Coach: Right now, ideally I want 33, 3 purposes.
Okay. 33. It allows me to run practices with, with good rotations, allows me, I mean, my goal is to, to have the rotations even in the game. Just again, you know, we’re, we’re coming up. 21 games in like 10 weeks So far it, it’s, and we’ve had, we already have injuries. We [00:08:00] have guys out, we have circumstances that happen in life.
You know, uh, somebody had, with their wisdom teeth taken out and they’re offered three weeks, almost a month now, you know, stuff like that. So then the, the bigger the numbers, the better. Um, but for the most part. My number one number is, is, is 33.
Matt: Okay. Well, one of the big benefits or for a lot of players of going to junior college is then using that as a springboard to find somewhere else.
Have you guys been fairly successful at getting the guys who want to continue to play at a four year university to to help them get that chance?
Coach: Of course. I think that’s, that’s what we pride ourselves in, uh, here at LA City College is that, you know, uh, we have a good network of, of university coaches.
Um, we’ve sent out a really good high ratio of, uh, athletes out to the next level. We’re, we’re above 50% [00:09:00] guys get offers just because, you know, a lot of people know that California is, is. I wanna say the, the mecca of soccer in, in the US in terms of talent, you know, um, not only that, um, but you know, if you look at our conference, it’s one of the strongest conferences in the nation.
We usually have at least four teams that. Ranked top 20 in the nation and usually the, the, the state champion also comes from our conference. So it, it’s, there’s a lot of eyes on us. Um, and, and you know, it’s just, we’re a young program five years in, and we’ve been working on just developing players and being able to, you know, du university players.
Right now we actually have, uh, two players, uh, on the, on the coaching staffs. Of universities that they went to go play for. So, you know, now it’s, it’s, you know, I, [00:10:00] I talk to them about being almost like a, a chain where, hey, somebody picked you up, now you gotta come back and pick, bring somebody up as well, you know, and, and they will come and recruit back from us because they know our program and what we offered.
Matt: Okay. Well let’s learn a little bit more about the school. Mm-hmm. Um, I’m sure some folks maybe not familiar, but Yeah. La City College besides being in Hollywood, what are some awesome things about the school? Maybe some things we wouldn’t even know by going to the website.
Coach: Well, you know, being in Hollywood, you know, we’re, we’re very big on cinema.
Um, you know, some big names that come to, um, there’s that have been here. We’ve had a, we have, we’ve had many, um, um. What else? We have a good kinesiology program. We have a, we offer a lot of certificates. I’m actually, uh, I’m a full-time professor here. I offer, um, I [00:11:00] offer a. The school offers an intro, uh, a coaching certificate.
So if people want to follow up on coaching, whether it be soccer or any sport, you know, um, we have a coaching certificate where you take se several classes and you come out with a certificate in coaching, you know, uh, to prepare you for the coaching life. Um, we have many degrees. We’re part of the Los Angeles City College.
The Los Angeles Community College District, which is very big. It’s nine, nine schools. Um, we are the oldest community college out there. Uh, we are actually the original campus of UCLA, the original campus of Cal State la. So we, we’ve got a lot of history here in, in, in LA City College. Um, so, you know, I mean, education wise, we’re.
We rang pretty high. No, that’s fantastic.
Matt: Well, speaking of education, kind of one of the challenges for players can be [00:12:00] that transition right into a college life and balancing a sport. So what support systems do you guys have in place there to make sure kids are successful both on and off the field?
Coach: Um, one we have both online and in-person courses.
That’s one. And because I know a lot of them, uh, we have a lot of players that have to work. Um. We train in the afternoons, like around four ish, allowing players to be able to not only take classes early on or go to work. Um, you know, and, and that’s, that’s a key part, especially because a lot of our players from our community, they got us.
You start, you know, supporting and helping financially in the family, and so. I believe that, you know, it, it’s, it’s a, it’s a tough situation, tough circumstances, but when they’re able to manage it to go to work, go to school, you know, and then at, on top of that, they have [00:13:00] soccer. You know what I mean? It just, it helps them move through it all and get their, their education, uh, more effectively and more engaging.
Right. Um. We also have a tutoring center here where our athletes gotta do at least two hours a week of tutoring, um, in, in the, in the center where we send them to. Um, and besides that, you know, I mean, uh, my staff and myself, we all have college degrees. I’m actually a math professor as well at the college level.
So, you know, I’m able to help out in every aspect, whether it be even looking for classes count, we have counselors, we have counselors specifically for our athletes. You know, we get obviously priority enrollment, so we have a lot of benefits for, for our student athletes and, and you know, stuff that helps ’em out.
Matt: That’s great. Well, I know it’s you, you had that last conference game. [00:14:00] What would be a typical week? For you guys, uh, in terms of winter practices, game cadence, meals, classes, all that stuff.
Coach: So the week starts on Sundays. We train Sunday morning, 6:00 AM Um, we go, we do it early in order for them one, you know, make sure that, um.
We, we got, we get them going because we have a game on Tuesday and our games are Tuesdays and Fridays. And so we want, we want them to have at least two training sessions before the game. Um, on top of that, it’s the weekend. So we wanna avoid any, you know, laid backs. You know, it takes, it takes a minute for the body to get moving again.
Sometimes when you take a couple days off. Um, Mondays. We train again. Uh, we’re prepping for, for the game on Tuesday. Um, [00:15:00] uh, Tuesday. Either we’re traveling or we’re at home. I try to set up all home games to be only on Fridays so that we don’t take them out of class on Tuesdays. Um. But this season, obviously during conference, we have to travel on Tuesday sometimes.
So that becomes tough, especially we have early games, you gotta leave at 11:00 AM so guys gotta miss class. So, you know, we usually meet three hours before the game, uh, to do setups, uniforms, all that stuff. You know, we, uh, athletes get fed and, uh, we got ready for the game an hour prior. And then Wednesday and Thursdays we’re back to training, and then Friday’s another game.
And usually the, the, the day, uh, the day of rest is Saturday for them. I mean, we, like I said, it’s so many games in, in so little weeks. You know, it’s important that we have the numbers to be [00:16:00] able to rest players, to be able to rotate, to be able to, um, you know, have good, solid practices as well. For sure.
Matt: Let’s talk a little bit more about the team. You mentioned, uh, I mean we mentioned the size of the roster. What about the coaching side of the roster? Who else is there helping you out? What role does everybody play there?
Coach: Um, my head assistant is Coach Phillip Al. He’s a, he is, he comes, he won a national championship with Cerritos College and so he comes with a vast experience.
We both. Assistant coaches at ECLA college. He’s one of my main recruiters, uh, especially because he’s, he’s one of the coaches that win wins a lot in the la in the LA area. He wins CIFA lot, you know, I mean, that’s a high school, um, circuit. And so he’s able to recruit a lot of players. Um, he’s more of my tactical [00:17:00] expertise.
Um, uh. He usually, we talk about formations and stuff like that with him. Then my, the second in command to him is, uh, coach Andy Contreras, coach Andy played at Yi Riverside, D one. He played pro at, um. In the Nisa League. He’s also, uh, the head coach of Downey High School boys. So he’s, you know, he’s, he’s the offensive side of the, of the team and second in command to coach Felipe.
And he great recruiters. Well, usually he brings in some of the top players because he usually trains and plays with him. Um, uh, ’cause he’s still on the younger side. Um, uh, the fourth assistant I have. The third assistant is my goalkeeper coach. He’s actually my brother, Irvin Aga. He’s a head coach at Nogales High School.
Um, he, he played at Dominguez Hills. He, I coached him, [00:18:00] um, in high school and college. So, you know, he knows exactly when he’s, he was my assistant at the high school level at 1.2, so he knows really good what, what I expect from, from, from all the athletes. He also is part of the recruiting process where he brings in players from his area.
And obviously, you know, coaching the goalkeepers is his role. And then we have volunteer coaches, uh, depending on the year and, you know, I, and depending on the staff that wants to join us in, in volunteering right now we have two volunteer coaches and they’re, they’re there just to, you know, help out and anything else we need.
Matt: Okay, great. Well, what about you? Talk to us about your coaching style and the style of play you look to play there.
Coach: Uh, a little bit about me. I coached high school for, oh, 15 years or so. Um, I am a, I want to say I am a [00:19:00] hybrid of soccer because, you know. I grew, I grew up in the, in the nineties, here in Southern California.
You know what I mean? Coming from a Mexican background. Um, I love the, the technical part of the game, but you know, as I went up and I, I got experience, I was at UCLA and, uh, you know, I didn’t play for the UCLA men’s D one team, but I was in the club team. And I did train with the, with the men’s D one program, and I’ve been with, I’ve been at programs such as Cal State Northridge as a, as a coach manager.
I was at a University of Laverne, uh, hope International University and East LA college. Cerritos College and Rio Hondo College. So I’ve been all over the place where I was able to mend everything together because the physicality part of the game I is, has grown a lot. You [00:20:00] know, um, athletes are more discipline when it comes to the physical aspect there, you know what I mean?
Most of them can run a two minute mile. Uh, I mean a two, a two mile under 12 minutes. You know, back when I was in high school, that was probably unheard of, you know, or it wasn’t really common, you know, but, you know, connecting that with. The technical part, possession game. And it, it, it is just, I wanna say that’s what, what my teams are.
We, we, uh, we can go from a more direct team to be able to change and become more possession. Uh, and, but it all depends. I mean, I want to have a team that, that can change at any moment in order to, you know, give us the gains and, and that’s the way I try to coach.
Matt: Okay. Well. In terms of the spring, the, the non-traditional season, [00:21:00] what do you guys typically do during that time of year?
Coach: Um, usually they’re g the guys are gonna get a break until February after, after December gets here. Um, December is when they, you know, we kinda. Just give them a break. December and January, come February, we start bringing them together in order to do some weight training. Uh, get, get a little bit stronger, uh, work on a little bit of speed, you know.
And then come March is when our non-traditional season really kicks off. Uh, we start training as a team again. And we train two, three times a week. Um, and then we have four non-traditional season dates. So we get to play four game, four dates where we try to do at least two to three games that day in order to, you know, see the new players that joined us in February.
Uh, you know, we see whether or not we’re gonna be able to keep these [00:22:00] players, you know, based off of these dates, whether they can keep up you the level. And then obviously, you know, uh, keeping the guys on task in terms of passing their units in order for them to be eligible for the next season.
Matt: Okay.
Awesome. Well, coach, I really appreciate your time. I’m gonna leave you with one last question. If you had one piece of advice for anybody going through this process, uh, right now, what would that be?
Coach: Hey, it’s a journey. You can’t, don’t rush it. You know what I mean? I, I see a lot of players that are 17, 18 years old coming into the college level and they wanna play D one.
They wanna play already. They want to play, they wanna play. And it’s, it’s not like that anymore. You know? Stop rushing to try to play the highest level. I know that we, you know, everybody says, oh, if you’re not playing pro at, but you know. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I think if, you know, education is the number one key you want to come out of your, [00:23:00] your, your college soccer career.
Come out with your degree, even if it takes 6, 7, 8 years to obtain, but at least you, you had soccer. Um, uh, a lot of guys wanna move on forward too fast and they’re not ready. I think just look in the mirror and realize, Hey, I’m not fast enough yet. I’m not, you know, I don’t got the stamina yet. I don’t, I’m not strong enough yet.
You know, it’s a process. You can, there’s so many leagues now you can develop and still be going to school, uh, or even redshirting on teams in order to be able to, to have a. A stronger, um, opportunity because, you know, our, our opportunities are diminishing, especially now with the portal open, especially now with internationals coming into the college level, you know, and now with roster cuts and the D one levels, it’s gonna drop, it’s gonna trickle down and, and you know, [00:24:00] players have to realize that.
There’s other venues to be able to, you know, get to the highest level. You know, my, my greatest example I talk about right now is Josh Allen. Right? You know, the guy played community college in California. He didn’t have any D one offers. He sent out emails after emails, and right now one of the best players in the NFL, you know, and that’s because he believed in himself in the process.
And it didn’t matter what team he was in, he was working on himself. So for anybody coming up. That’s what you gotta realize. It’s, it’s a journey and not everybody’s gonna have the same journey. Absolutely.
Matt: Well, coach, I really appreciate the time. Wish you the best, best of luck here as you finish out the season, and hopefully you’ll be hanging a banner here real soon.
Coach: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Matt: Thank you.
