Middle Tennessee State University Women’s Soccer – Coach Aston Rhoden
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Aston from the Middle Tennessee Women’s Program. We talk about he recruits for positional and experience needs. He describes how everyone in the university at every position takes pride in what they do and pride in the university. Lastly, we discuss how his coaching style is player led, and not coach fed. Learn more about Middle Tennessee State University Women’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to discover college soccer today. I’m lucky enough to be joined by coach Aston Rhoden from middle Tennessee. Welcome coach.
Coach: Welcome. Thanks for having me, Matt.
Matt: Yeah. Thanks for being here. You, you look like maybe you’re, you’re down here closer to me in Florida than Tennessee with that background, but, uh, uh, but, but, but either way, we’re, we’re, we’re happy to have you on.
We’re somewhat close. There you go. There you go. Well, hey, you know, I appreciate you being on, we’re, we’re talking here, uh, early April. Um, it’s kind of a lot of, College showcases going on. Lot of, lot of recruiting, uh, still, still happening for you guys specifically, you know, where are you? I know 2024 has been a little bit strange with the FAFSA delays and, and people are maybe on slightly different timelines.
So where are you guys right now with your class of 24? How far are you along with 20 fives? What’s that look like for you guys?
Coach: Yeah, you know, I would want to say that we’re finished with 24. But, you know, you just never know. I mean, there’s could be a kid that decides that, you know, after the spring, they don’t want to play anymore.
They want to look at different opportunities. I mean, just with the advent of the transfer portal. It’s hard to tell when you’re actually done. Right. Um, you know, but I think for the most part, the 24 is complete. 25 is still a work in progress and 26 is just identifying kids at the moment. Um, You know, [00:01:30] until the right time that we can actually do what the allows us to do as far as contacts and communications.
Matt: Well, and and I noticed, you know, it’s just kind of scrolling through, uh, on your website. You got kind of a list of 2024 signees at this point. Looks like a. A mix of domestic and international, a mix of high school and, and transfers. So kind of when you’re approach approaching a recruiting class, kind of how, how do those, how do all those things balance out between domestic international, between high school and transfers?
And what, what’s kind of your mindset when you’re, when you’re looking at all that stuff?
Coach: As cliche as it sounds, It is about a fit for us, uh, you know, and so for the most part, we’re always going to look at what we need 1st, right? You know, positionally and and then there’s certainly an element of, um, you know, we, we have criterias that and expectations for our current players.
Those are no different for our recruits as best as we can assess of those of those kids. Uh, you know, so there are times where we may be lacking experience, not even necessarily ability, but just experience in a certain position. And, you know, that might lead to taking a look at a transfer. Right. Um, or it may be that we need, we [00:03:00] have some young players that are very talented and maybe we need.
Some young players who can actually grow, right? And they have the time to grow. So a lot of it just depends on the makeup of the roster. Uh, the, you know, the, the comings and goings of kids. I mean, we, we, we don’t have a lot of transfers and so we don’t really spend a lot of time in a transfer market. Uh, you know, but that’s, that’s changing just because kids have better opportunities to, to leave.
Matt: Well, when you’re, when you’re looking at the domestic kind of the, we’ll call it the traditional recruit, right? The high school domestic player. Um, you know, are there specific tournaments that you and your staff like to make sure you’re, you’re at each, at each year? What, what are the, kind of your favorite places?
Coach: I mean, we’ll, we’ll do what most everybody does and a little bit more, you know, so we’ll, we’ll do the, the ECNL events. We’ll do the GA events. We’ll do the. The elite 64 events, you know, we’ll do the U. S. Y. S. S. Events. A lot of it just depends on where the kids are that we’re interested where they’re going to be and in some well, in a lot of respects where we can get the most, you know, bang for a buck.
I mean, because we, we don’t have an unlimited budget. So it’s about just finding the places that we feel will have kids that fit our profile and then going there. And of course, there’s always. League games, you [00:04:30] know, and, and high school tournaments and stuff like that. So it depends on proximity as well.
We’ll determine where we go, but we’re going to, we’re going to have a presence at most of the places. That we need to have a presence at.
Matt: Well, one of the things that seems to be more important to coaches in their recruiting process are ID camps. Does that hold true with you guys? Do you have your own ID camps?
Do you or your staff work other ID camps? How important are they in your recruiting?
Coach: I would say our ID camp is important to us, um, because. We, we do ours a little bit different. You know, we, we truly target the kids that we’re interested in and the kids that are interested in us. Um, we, we try to, to minimize, I would say a lot of just cold recruiting.
Do you know, I mean, and so our ID camp is, you know, Is we restricted by numbers and just try to get the kids that we really want to compare into camp and because they’re kids that we’re really interested in, we’re a little bit selfish. We don’t invite any other college coaches to ours, right? It’s just ours.
And we rarely ever go to other camps as well. We would rather use that time frame to go watch another kid play in an elite game.
Matt: Okay. Makes sense. Well, whether it’s at a camp or at one of these events or any of those kinds of things, [00:06:00] you know, you, you talk about finding the right fit. What, what is it that kind of makes that right fit?
What are you looking for? Whether it’s an off the field attribute or on the field attributes, what is your kind of hierarchy of things you want in a player?
Coach: Well, I mean, we’ll spend time assessing pretty much five components. Um, and, you know, for us, we, we call them our, you know, our buckets. And so we’ll, we’ll look at.
A fitness bucket and and that that is, you know, as we look at the kid is that she is she fit enough to be playing the position that she is playing, you know, because, you know, at the high school level, they and the youth level, they don’t get necessarily to train every day. So, how fit a kid is actually tells you a lot about her discipline.
And her ability to take ownership of her own development in that component. So there’s a fitness component that we look at. There’s a form component, which is how well is this kid playing over a series of evaluations? Right? When we go see her in event 1, is she better in event 2? You know, we look at what we call her function and that is basically, does she understand her positional responsibilities?
You know, because that’s a big piece of it. Um, you know, then we will look at what we call her friendship and that is the chemistry that she has within our positional block, you know, because she could be the best player. But if the team doesn’t play, it’s best [00:07:30] with her. Then that’s a sign of maybe that’s just not a good fit for a team environment.
Um, you know, so we look at that and then we’ll, um, look at what we call the fortitude, which is basically mental strength. You know, I mean, how does this kid prepare for games? Because we’ll see her warm up, right? How does she manage adversities within games? And, you know, once the game is done, is she all checked out or is she still engaged with her coaches and the message they’re giving her or the team relative to improvements or the results?
So, so we spent a lot of time looking at those, uh, some of which. Obviously needs a lot more conversation with coaches and with friends and, you know, but, but those are the qualities that we evaluate our players on every single day. And so those are the qualities we evaluate our recruits on, because if they’re going to join us, we kind of want to make sure we have an idea of where they fit with all of those.
Does that make sense?
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. No, I love that. Well, let’s shift gears a little bit. Let’s talk more about the school. Um, you, you know, I think you’re one of the longest tenured, probably a division one head coaches out there these days.
Coach: So, yeah, I don’t, I don’t know, Matt, if that makes me old, I don’t know if that makes me good.
I don’t know if that makes me beautiful. I don’t know. Um, or I don’t know if it just makes me [00:09:00] co existent. I don’t know.
Matt: You know what? We’re going to, we’re going to go with all of the above coach, uh, but maybe not the old part because, uh, we wouldn’t want to say, let’s just say you’re, you’re, you’re experienced, right?
Coach: That’s, uh, it’s, it’s different. It’s different. Great word.
Matt: Well, since you are experienced, especially at middle Tennessee state, you can give us some insights. You know, what is it about the school that you like? What is it that’s kept you there so long? What are some things maybe folks wouldn’t, wouldn’t know about the school that we wouldn’t find on the website?
Coach: Well, I mean, we’re 30 minutes from NashVegas, and of course, I did say NashVegas, right? People think it’s Nashville, but once you get here, you’re like, Oh my gosh. Um, you know, so just in terms of, you know, I can’t tell you what the population of my city is here, but it’s, it’s a big enough city that there’s a lot of fulfillment you can get from just staying within the city.
You know, but, but certainly, you know, being able to bounce out to Nashville, which is a 30 minute drive. I mean, this weekend, I mean, the big thing for anybody that’s a soccer person should know that FanFest for the Premier League is in NashVegas this weekend, right? So, you know, so just having access to things like those, um, the, the, the school, NashVegas, Nashville.
I mean, absolutely fantastic place. And, and when I say that, I’m, I’m not saying that with a bias because I’ve been here. I’m saying that because that’s why I’ve stayed here. Right? Um, it’s, [00:10:30] you know, we’ve got a fantastic president. It’s extremely progressive. You know, so there’s, you know, the weird thing about this campus is you get in it and there’s always construction.
Right? And. While it’s annoying at times because you kind of have to take different routes to get to the same places when it’s done, you’re like, Oh, my gosh, this is beautiful. And, you know, we ourselves are having a massive amount of changes in athletics in terms of facilities improvement that are scheduled to open in 2025 that that just makes it such a progressive school.
You know, and then it’s location, you know, like I mentioned, you know, you talk about Nashville, but it’s just, we’re, we’re the only university in our town, but we’re not a college town, which kind of makes it really cool. And so you, you, you go places and the brand is everywhere, but you’ll go some places and it isn’t right.
Um, and so there, there’s some things cool about that. Certainly the people, you know, we’ve had a lot of people that come and go, but you still have. Yeah. You know, the stable set of individuals who help make this place, you know, a fun and a wonderful place to work, you know, and and, you know, everybody here, I think 1 of the things that is that I know for me is extremely.
Important is the fact that every single person here takes pride in what they do, you know, I mean, so [00:12:00] down to the grounds, the grounds person, they want to make sure that the pitch is in pristine condition for us based on what works for us, you know, do we want to keep it low and tight because of our speed of play or, you know, and just, just everyone taking pride and in making sure that We, as a university operate at an optimal level, you know, and a level that truly caters to our students and our student athletes, you know, so I think when you look at all of that, it just makes athletics a part of something really special.
You know, and if athletics itself can be special and you win the championships that you need to win, then it just makes the entire experience just fantastic. And I think that’s a big gosh. There’s so much. There’s so many reasons why I’ve stayed here. Um, as long as I, I have, but I think just the self, the, the, the sense of fulfillment and, and knowing that the people around you want you to be successful, you know, I think that’s a big thing for me.
Matt: Yeah, no, it sounds like it. Well, let’s rewind. Let’s go back to October. We’ll say you’re in the heart of that conference season. Do me a favor, walk me through what a typical week’s going to look like for the girls in terms of, you know, winter classes, meals, practice times, game cadence, that kind of thing.
Coach: Well, I mean, we typically. [00:13:30] We train in the mornings. Um, you know, so we’ll, we’ll get up at 7 and we’ll get training in. Uh, depending on the week, the day of the week, we’ll add a maintenance session for weights. Everything is within a 7 to 930 block. Um, then after that, you know, the girls will do what they need to do for classes.
You know, some of them will have study hall, depending on their classification. It’s honestly never about their grades here, because the team is extremely strong academically. Uh, so it’s just more about, you know, can we get some freshmen in to kind of help them with their personal adjustment? And I said, I’ll have some study hall.
Um. Dependent on the day, we’ll have what we call functional groups, you know, so it, it may be the group of strikers, midfielders, defenders, whatever that will come in, you know, for about a 35 minute technical functional session. Um, and and then that’s pretty much the end of their day, you know, on on the week where they have a match.
Obviously, game day changes a little bit. Um, you know, we will do, we’ll do video on our opponent the morning of the match. I mean, we don’t really spend a lot of time worrying about them during the course of the week. We spend time prepping for ourselves during the course of the week and just give the girls a little bit of an [00:15:00] insight on match day as to what our opponents, what are some things that are important for us on that day relative to our opponent.
Um, you know, but it’s a very standard Mondays are off typically because we play Usually Thursday, Sunday, or we may just play Sunday, or we may just play Thursday, but typically Mondays are off. We’ll train Tuesday, depending on the week. If we have to play Thursday, we’ll probably travel Wednesday, or we might train if we play at home.
Recovery day is typically Friday. Um, then we’re back in some type of work Sunday. I mean, Saturday for another match on Sunday.
Matt: Okay. Awesome. Well, let’s, let’s talk more about the soccer side of things. And this is, I guess, rewinding a little bit back to recruiting, but is there a roster size that you like to hit that you’ve kind of feel is ideally choosing
Coach: for me?
I, I like around 26. Uh, you know, the last few years we’ve been at 30, um, obviously because of, you know, the COVID, we’ll say COVID rule that allows that extra year, you know, and, and, but I think, and I think that was kind of fairly normal with just about everyone, you know, you, you start having rosters of 30, 32, um, because you have fifth years coming back type thing, you know, but I like to keep, if I can, 26, you know, You know, which would include maybe three goalkeepers at times.
[00:16:30] Um, you know, and sometimes we’ll go to 27, but at the end of the day, Matt, there’s not really, if I’m at 20, I don’t know, say 26, and there’s a player that we feel that one, we can add that is going to add some benefit to our team and make us better. We don’t just. Cap or roster and not include that player, right?
Um, but we’re not going to just be looking to build 30, 35, 40 person teams.
Matt: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Well, besides roster size of players, there’s also roster size of staff. So tell me more about your staff. How many, what roles do they play? What other maybe support staff in the athletic department help out with the team?
What’s that look like?
Coach: Yeah, I mean, I have an unbelievable gifted staff. Um, you know, and, you know, Hannah and Zach. I’ve now been with me for 2 years going on about to start 3, uh, but just philosophies are, are the same the way we manage ourselves, the way we manage our team, the way we manage our players, the relationships we try to build are all the same.
So, so it makes working. But those guys extremely easy and I honestly consider myself lucky to have them, you know, besides, you know, [00:18:00] Zach and Hannah, I mean, we, we certainly will have our athletic trainer, you know, Alison has been now with me for, oh my gosh, maybe 10, 12 seasons, you know, um, as our athletic trainer, we have a, a strength coach that, you know, now Tony that works with us.
That, you know, basically does everything for them really in terms of just their, their overall strength condition and, and everything without the ball is what he does. And we do everything with the ball, you know, we have access to, to Lindsay, who’s our sports dietitian. So she helps us with, you know, from a nutritional standpoint, um, we now work with a mental performance coach, which I think is a, a massively key component in any sport.
Um, so we’re fortunate to have that and, you know, we have obviously our own academic person that manages our team and then just in a sundry. I mean, I honestly, I, I consider every single person that touches a part of our program as a support staff. You know, so even, you know, our grounds guy, I consider him a part of our support staff, right?
Because that’s a, a crucial component in term of the way we want to play and the surfaces that we have to play on, you know, so, [00:19:30] and of course, you have, gosh, you have, like, we have our student assistants, right? Um, we don’t really call them managers because they’re not just that they do a lot of different things for us.
Um, and so those guys. Help to relieve some of the things that. We, as an immediate coach and staff, would have had to do so we can actually spend more time focusing on our players and, you know, and the tactical things that we need to get done or how we need to prepare the team.
Matt: Okay. Awesome. Well, now I got to train the guns on you though.
Uh, as the head man there, how would you describe kind of your style of coaching and the style of play you’re looking to implement there?
Coach: Well, originally I’m from Jamaica. So, you know, we kind of chill every time we can, you know, so the, the game is, is, is played more, you know, our game is more played with intelligence than it is with, you know, Physical abilities now with that, with that being said, do we consider the physical component a big piece of it?
Absolutely. And we train it every single day. Uh, you know, but for us, it’s, it’s more about a possession based type of, um. Of soccer that we play, you know, we’re, we, our philosophy here is. You know, when we’re in possession, we dominate the ball when we’re out of possession with control the game. [00:21:00] Right? Um, and so, so for us, it is about being able to
keep possession off the ball, be able to, you know, it’s. Possess to progress to penetrate the product that that’s our thing, right? You know, we keep possession the ball. We progress it up the field. We look for penetrating options and then for every single attack, we want to produce something, whether that’s a corner and assist a goal, something, but it’s just a scoring chance.
You know, and and then the opposite is true. You know, when, when we lose the ball, it is about counter pressing immediately. If we can, you know, if we can’t, we’re going to be able to channel the play, communicate effectively. And once we win it, we counter attack. Right? And so, so that’s kind of the cycles that we go through.
And there’s a transitional piece to all of this, right? In terms of how do we transition offensively? How do we transition defensively? So, we kind of build that in the way we want to play and how we want to play. And then we’re fortunate at the collegiate level to be able to decide how we want to play and then find the players that kind of fit that.
Right. Um, you know, so that’s, yeah, that’s, that’s really our style of play in terms of, and our philosophy of playing in terms of just, um, how, how I teach, [00:22:30] you know, I like kids to find their own solutions, you know, so it’s, we always, we always strive, not always, we don’t always get there, but we strive to make things player led and coach fed.
Right. And so, you know, a lot of it is, you know, we want them to lead themselves off the field, but we also want them to lead themselves on the field. So it is about the decision making and it is about recognizing certain cues that will help them make the best decision individually, which allows the team now to know that, oh, I would make that decision in that moment.
So, That’s most likely what she’s going to do, which is that means now this is what I need to do that. I’m not, I’m not even quite sure if that makes any sense to you. Um, but, but, yeah, so it is about, it’s a big piece of it is about decision making with and without the ball. And so we spend a lot of time when we, we train and creating those environments where we’re constantly asking questions, guiding questions, right?
To offer players as to, you know, how could this decision have been better? You know, or what did you see that made you make this decision? And, you know, and if we know what’s in their head, we can also help them to change that. And bring more awareness to something that was maybe a better solution in the moment.
Matt: Oh, absolutely. Love it. Coach. No, it makes a lot of [00:24:00] sense. Well, coach, you’ve been super generous with her time. Really appreciate it. I got one last question for you. Um, you know, for anybody that’s going through this college soccer recruiting process, if you could boil down one nugget, one piece of information that you would hope they would all have that, that they should all know, what do you think that should be?
Coach: That’s a good question because there’s so many and there’s not one thing. Um, I would say probably
this concept of leveling up, you know, at least I, I don’t know, I just made that term up because I couldn’t think of anything else to really wrap it around. But, but essentially the concept is, you know, you’re trying to get recruited and you’re, you’re trying to get recruited at what hopefully will be your dream school, you know, and a big piece of that is, is how you prepare.
Okay. Right. And, and that preparation has to now be at the next level, you know, because, you know, like we tell the kids all the time, whatever, whatever you did to get there, wherever there is, is not enough to keep you there. Right. And so, so basically, this idea of leveling up is. You know, maybe I would just, you know, go to practice 3 times a day.
Well, I’m now getting ready to, to go into [00:25:30] a college environment or to be seen. So now maybe I have to be more intentional with my training. Maybe it’s got to be 5 days. Maybe I didn’t care about my nutrition. Well, now I’m going to have to start leveling up on that and start fueling better. Because if I’m not fueled properly, I won’t perform properly.
If I’m don’t perform properly, I won’t be recruited by my dream school. Right. And, and so there’s this, this idea of recognizing that you have to continue to grow and you have to continue to get to the next level so that you’re preparing yourself because as college coaches, I would say all of us, I wouldn’t even say some, I would say all of us can recognize.
A player that’s a good player, but a player that’s a committed player, like a committed player to to her craft and you see it in players because they They will, you know, we, we’ve seen, we’ve gone out and we watched a kid and our team lost four nail. They just had a bad day and lit. Literally. It was a fantastic data recruiter because we saw, we saw where she would pick her team up.
Despite being down four and and not only pick them up verbally, but pick them up. Just she’s still crunching tackles and she’s, you know, and and you go, okay, these, these, this is a kid. Now that now she’s leveling up, you know, because she’s going to need to do that collegiate level. You’re going to run into a bus.
So every now and then, [00:27:00] right? And that doesn’t mean you just lay down and die. You know, you have to be able to fight. So I think just this idea of knowing that. Yeah. If you’re going to get to the next level, then you have to be leveling up to get to that level and I think that concept should hold true. If you’re in college now looking to go to pro, does that make sense?
Or even college to semi pro and semi pro to pro, you know, and even when you get to the pro level, you still have to level up because everybody there. Guess what? They’re the same level as you. Right. So, so I think maybe, maybe this concept of leveling up if there’s such a thing as the one thing, because I think there’s so many things.
I think this one may be able to resonate with most kids because I honestly think most importantly, leveling up is in every one of those kids control. Nobody else, they can, they can all do that. Right. And so I think that makes it something that’s easy to do. Well, it’s easy to say, um, but we’ll probably take some discipline and some courage, right.
Matt: Yeah, no, I think it’s great advice. Well, coach really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time. Wish you the best of luck, uh, in wrapping up your spring. And hopefully, uh, you guys can, can challenge for that conference title in the fall.
Coach: Absolutely. That’s our plan. And who knows, man, maybe discover college soccer.
[00:28:30] com. That’s a big part of it. Right? No. So maybe this,
Matt: this’ll get you the, those couple of players that are, they’re just the missing pieces, right? That’s the plan. You
Coach: never know. You never know. But listen, I appreciate the time to take the time to chat with me and giving me this platform. Um, you know, and hopefully it has helped some people along the way.
Absolutely.
Matt: Thanks coach. Take care. Coach: Thanks. Yeah.
